Go Faster!!

I just love this picture. It is one of my favorites!

Brigham is 9 months old! I can't believe it. He has grown so much in the last 9 months. It is amazing how fast babies grow! He went from sleeping 20+ hours a day to playing, crawling, laughing, clapping, and eating real food! He can even feed himself. What a difference 9 months can make!

Here are his stats:

Height: 28.5 inches (50-75th percentile)

Weight: 20lbs 2oz (50th percentile)

Head circumference: 46cm (75th percentile)

He gets 3 bottles a day at 7ozs each. He also get 3 servings of fruits, vegetables, or yogurt a day. Sometimes he is interested in snacking and if he is, he gets some of what we are eating, graham crackers, puffs, or Cheerios. He doesn't like frozen yogurt but loves protein shakes. We are thinking that maybe we will never introduce him to real milkshakes and just keep him drinking protein shakes. I think these are his favorite thing ever, at least at the moment.

He has the low crawl down pat. He gets all around the house so quickly now. We love watching him go after the things that he wants. He also pulls himself up if he is holding onto someone hands. He hasn't figured out that he can use other things to pull himself up.

He takes 2 naps a day and their length varies. Usually somewhere between 1-3 hours. The morning nap (around 9) lasts till 11 or so and the afternoon nap (between 2 and 3) lasts until 5 or 6 most days. He is a happy baby and no matter what time of day it is, won't go to sleep if we are out and about. He wants to see what is going on all around him.

Pictures from our day with Clarisa.

This is Brigham's new skill. He has figured out how to go from lying down to sitting up. He still isn't pulling himself up but I can't imagine that it will be too much longer until he is standing in his crib when we go into his room.

Brigham just wasn't getting the whole walker thing. He was moving (mostly backwards) but not intentionally. One day, it finally dawned on me that I should take the toys that I had attached off because he was just playing with those. As soon as I took them off, he was using his walker to get around. Now he enjoys his walker and usually "drives" it while holding on to the "windshield." I absolutely love it!

Today I went to check on our garden (I have been extremely busy this week and haven't really given it a thought) and this is what I found. A tomato plant taller than our house and probably 50 tomatoes that need to turn red, a squash plant that is 18 inches shorter than our tomato plant, and our cucumbers and green beans all tangled together. What a mess! Oh well, we will just have to search a little harder for our veggie treasures.

This is Carolina Bonnie Lynn Tracy. She was born June 16th at 1:34 pm. She weighed 8lbs 1oz and was 19 inches long. We were so excited to finally meet her! I was able to go in the room when she was about 15 minutes old and when I saw Scarlett I cried. I was overcome with emotion. It caught me off guard because I didn't even cry for my own baby! She is a sweet girl and I am so excited to plan and execute 2 baby showers the week of July 5th. I also can't wait to get to know Carolina.

There are little baby birds in this birdhouse. We have had this birdhouse for 3 years and never managed to get it hung in a tree because we have pine trees and all the branches are really high and we were unsure about attaching the birdhouse straight to the tree trunk so we just never got around to getting it hung.. It has just been moved around our patio, serving no purpose at all. A couple months ago, Mark stacked some cinder blocks we had along the side of our house and set the birdhouse on top to get it out of the way. Shortly after that, we noticed our birdhouse had a tenant. We couldn't believe it and felt bad that this little house wasn't up in a tree in the shade but it was too late for that. Soon there were some eggs in this little house and now there are 3 little baby birds. This is the best picture I could get without getting too close. The gray that you can see is the baby birds. They are brand new and are often just sitting there with their mouths open. It is just too sweet.

What a cutie! This is what he does now when we lay him down for a nap. He immediately reaches for his bumper pad and pulls it down. We sure do love him!

This is from our night at the Knight's game. It was Brigham's first baseball game. We were there until 10 or so and he was great! I was surprised since he is normally in bed between 8 and 8:30. There were fireworks after the game and they kept his attention for about 2 minutes. We enjoyed our night out with Nate, Scarlett, Daniel, Katelyn, and Ricardo. One picture I wish I would have gotten was when Brigg's was being held by the older couple behind us. They asked to hold him after he spent about 5 minutes trying to crawl over me to get to them. It was pretty stinkin cute. It was also the only time the whole night that he sat still.

This is Mark's new look. He has dubbed the 2nd Friday of each month "stache Friday." Hopefully we won't have another stache Friday but I'm pretty sure we will. He rather enjoyed himself. Some people did a double take when we were out. Daniel, Katelyn, and I definitely got some laughs out of our night out.

Today was Brigham's 2nd trip to Carowinds. The first trip was in October when we got our season passes for this year. He was barely a month old then. Today was his first trip to a pool and he liked it. He wasn't a huge fan of the life jacket he had to wear in the pool because it kept making him float on his back. We enjoyed our time at the pool and can't wait for daddy to come next time!!

Now, the worst part of the trip was that when I opened my trunk when I got to Carowinds, there was no stroller in the trunk. There were several times before we left to go that I had the thought to check to make sure the stroller was in the car. Each time I thought, there is no way it isn't in there. Unfortunately I didn't check for the stroller so I had to carry Brigham to the back of Carowinds because that is where the water park is. Talk about a workout. Carrying a squirmy 20 pound kid, a 10 pound diaper bag (I don't know the actual weight but it was heavy), and a giant beach towel is hard work. I will always double check for the stroller for here on out. As soon as I saw that it wasn't in the car, I remembered that I took it out earlier this week so we could walk to the park.

I guess this is what Briggs would like without hair.

Briggs couldn't get enough of this book today. I remember checking this book out of the school library several times in first grade.

This is Sammy. She was one of my students this last semester. At first she drove me crazy because she was a clingy little girl. One day she showed me her "special necklace." It said "In Memory of My Mom." Later that day I asked Mrs. Smith about it and she told me that Sammy's mom died the day before Thanksgiving. I couldn't get enough of little Sammy after that. I wish I could know her forever. She is an only child and her mom had brain cancer since Sammy was 2 years old. This is a picture I took of Sammy at the 4th grade party day when I went back to visit my kids. It has made me miss them all over again.

This is a picture of Josh and Gillen. These were a couple of my favorite boys. I also absolutely loved Owen also but I couldn't get a picture of him. These 3 boys were always so sweet and would get mad at the other kids for not getting quiet for me at the beginning of class. I am going to miss them. They will be little heartbreakers one day. Especially Owen. He is a flirt and all the girls wanted his attention.

Here is Briggs after his dinner. He was dying for a milkshake mustache so his dad gave him one, just as he does almost everyday. Brigham thinks his mustache makes him look more intimidating.

Clarisa spent the day with us. She was trained well last summer by Arden and she was able to help getting Brigham in and out of the car and it was nice having an extra set of hands since Mark wasn't around. I didn't get a picture of Clarisa though. I don't have any of her and Briggs together so I will have to try to remember to get one next time.

This is what Clarisa brought with her when she came over today. It was her swing when she was a baby and it has been on her swing set for the last 11 years or so! Ha ha besides some dirt and being faded, it is still in great shape and now Briggs has a swing all his own! I have been searching for one of these for weeks. I hope Mark is able to get it hung tomorrow. I really am so excited to have this swing!

On another note, Briggs is getting really good at low crawling. He keeps his belly on the ground and crawls using his forearms and legs. It is pretty cute and he is starting to realize that he can crawl to get something he wants. Life is about to get more interesting at the Rufty house. Just last week I found him chewing on a week old t-bone that we had given our dogs. I was sure that he would get e-coli or something off it since it was from a steak and it was a week old but he was just fine. Guess it is time to get some outlet covers and put the cleaners on high shelves.

This was my first musical and it was fabulous! I have been wanting to see WICKED for 3 or 4 years but never wanted to pay the money for it. I so wish I would have sucked it up and gone sooner! These tickets were a graduation gift and I am so glad that I was able to share the experience with my wonderful husband who also thoroughly enjoyed the show. It really makes you look at the The Wizard of Oz movie completely differently. I hope to go to more musicals in the future and I wouldn't mid seeing WICKED again either, it is that good. Mark wants to see The Lion King the next time it comes to Charlotte so that will be something I definitely keep in mind. I am also so grateful that Lynn and Albert babysit for us every Saturday night for us so that we can have date night. We are so lucky to have them and although we are happy to have nieces and nephews moving here from Idaho and also for Scarlett and Nate's little bambino to come by the end of the month, I don't look forward to sharing Lynn and Albert :)

We stop to swing everyday on our daily walk :)

Our visit to see Pappy (aka my dad) and Gabby (aka my grandmother) wore the little man out.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

June 1st marked 3 years of marriage for us. I would have completely forgotten about it being our anniversary if Mark hadn't reminded me the week before. Mark forgot about it being our anniversary the day of. Ha Ha. In his defense, he remembered in the morning and did tell me happy anniversary but then he left for the day and apparently never thought of it again. He was studying all day at school with his lame computer geek friends for a super important test the following day. It was fine with me that he forgot. I would have let the day come and go if it hadn't been for his reminder the week before. I guess our anniversary isn't that big of a deal to me. But that can't be correct because I make a big deal out of every holiday or celebration day or whatever you call anniversaries, birthdays, father's day, ect. In celebration of the last 3 years, I got his 3 years worth of magazine subscriptions (2 years for Popular Mechanics, 1 year for Consumer Reports) and I made him a delicious dinner that consisted of Chicken Costoletta, mashed potatoes, and green beans. For dessert we had chocolate peanut butter cookies.

Between dinner and dessert Mark got a text message from Scarlett. She was at Wicked and had locked Nate out of their condo. Mark picked up Nate and we gave him some chicken and mashed potatoes and then we all had dessert together. Ha ha. It was an anniversary none of us will ever forget.

I am so grateful for Mark and the last 3 years. Last week he said that he must really love me because we have been together for 4 years and he doesn't want to kill me yet. How romantic.

The boy loves his daddy's protein shakes.