Half a Year

Yep, Brady has hit his 6 month mark (which unfortunately brought with it another round of shots). He did really well at the doctor and cried only for a minute with the shots. Extreme fussiness to follow, but it's part of life. Here are his stats:

Height: 28 in (91%)
Weight: 19 lb, 1 oz (80%)
Head: 44 cm (78%)

So Dr. Wheeler said he is actually not super big for his height, but I think the rolls on his legs and arms beg to differ. (As seen below if you can get past looking at the world's cutest, cheesiest grin)

We are also treating Brady for asthma now. He has a chronic cough and often wakes up coughing at night. He always has, and I realized right away as I was describing it to the doctor that it was probably asthma. Anyway, there is no way to test it other than to treat it as asthma and see if it gets better, so that's what we'll do. Other than that, everything looks great and we are lucky to have such a happy, healthy baby! He has started eating real foods now (well, the pureed version anyway) and it's fun to see his reaction when he tries something new. So far we have tried avacados, green beans, and carrots. We are still not sure about his feelings towards green beans, but he still opens his mouth for more with anything we give him, so he must like it some.

Favorites: Still Butters, songs, "Baby Signing Time," tickling, silly noises, sitting up, carrots, pulling hair, bath time, babbling

Dislikes: Loud noises (vacuum, baby food blender), getting hands and face wiped after eating, people not paying attention to him, and that's pretty much all

And here he is trying out his johnny jump-up. He hasn't quite mastered it yet, but he sure does enjoy it.

3 Year Anniversary

I am proud to say Quentin and I have been married for 3 years! (Ok, due to a little delay, 3 years and 8 days). For our anniversary, Grandma was kind enough to take Brady off our hands so we could enjoy a baby-free dinner together at Murry's, a favorite local restaurant. We have grown a lot in the past three years, and in some ways it has flown by. But it's also sometimes hard to believe that it's only been three years because it feels like we have always been together and it's hard to imagine a life without Quentin. He is such a loving, caring, hard-working husband and I'm lucky to have him. It has been especially fun to watch him take on the role of dad the past 6 months (and he plays the role well I might add) and I look forward to seeing what's in store for us in the years to come.

Three Day Weekend

After working 7 days straight, I was rewarded with a three day weekend! And we celebrated by going to visit Cassandra, Kyle and Alexa at the lake. We tried to plan our trip to coincide with Brady's morning nap and it worked perfectly. He was asleep before we left the driveway and woke up as we pulled into Cassie's. And Alexa greeted him by putting all kinds of bows in his hair :) We spent most of the day Friday at the outlets, but we didn't find as much as usual. We definitely didn't leave empty handed though! Saturday we went swimming and it was Brady's first experience in an outdoor pool. It was also his first experience in a little floatie thing, and he seemed to really like that. He just kicked back and relaxed! Kyle was nice and volunteered to take the kiddos back to the house for naps so the rest of us could stay and get some sun. Minutes later, the sun disappeared and it rained. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. And my skin almost got some color. Here's a picture of the cousins after naptime. They sure did love each other!We stopped by Miner Mike's for a bit after naps, but it was a little much for Brady so we headed home. After taking a 2 1/2 hour nap, I thought it would be a long ride home, but Brady slept the whole way again, which made for another rough night, but what can ya do? It was so nice to get away for a while and we were glad to spend time with Cassandra's cute little family. Thanks so much LaBrues! Here's Brady sporting some of his new clothes from our shopping trip (the shoes are new too. So cute...while they stayed on his feet that is).

Around the House

Brady was not thrilled that on my day off work last week I decided to put laundry away instead of giving him my undivided attention. But when I got the camera out, things changed... Brady loves when Aliisa comes to see us...well mainly just to see him.

"Cheese!"

This is the reaction I got when I got out the camera. Instant smiles! Maybe it was a coincidence, but I think this boy may already know what to do for the camera. And he does it so well :) Also check out his cute overalls.

5 Months

Yep, our little Brady is already 5 months old! He has mastered rolling over...errr...from his back to his belly, but seems to have forgotten he knows how to roll back the other way too. He has also started scooting a little bit sometimes. It looks like our next big accomplishment will be sitting up (not spitting up, as he has already mastered that). He is getting better and better at sitting without toppling over. Favorites:
Butters, first and foremost. Butters is like our secret weapon to keeping Brady happy
Milk, of course
Being outside
Baby Signing Time (A DVD to teach baby sign language)
Anything that crinkles, particularly his baby wipes package
Splashing in the bath
"Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam"
Being Tickled
Daddy hanging him upside down
He also started to roll over in his swaddle, so we are working on weaning him off the swaddle. It's going better than I thought it would, but still a work in progress. Mostly, he rolls over and loses his pacifier and gets mad. I used to roll him back to his back, but then the second I would walk away, he would just roll back to his stomach again. He eventually falls asleep this way, but I still haven't figured out if he LIKES to sleep on his stomach, or just finally gives up and falls asleep. He still wakes up once a night to eat (between 4 and 5) and then goes back to sleep for a couple hours. I was planning to break him of his night feeding, but one sleep battle at a time is enough, so once we master the "unswaddled sleeping" we might tackle that. Here's a picture I caught of him asleep on his stomach.We have introduced oatmeal cereal now, and he seems to do ok with that too. It's looking like we are going to have a pretty good eater, but I guess we'll see in about a month when we start to introduce other foods. He is still on breast milk, which means that I am still tied to my pump for a decent portion of my day. I don't love it, but formula is so expensive. My goal is to keep pumping for at least another month, and by that time we should have about a month's worth of milk in the freezer.
I swear he gets cuter every time I see him. It's still hard to leave him for work every day, and all I think about is coming home to his cute, chubby smile.

Little Swimmer

We decided it was time to take Brady for his first swim! The rec center has family night every Friday, so we took advantage of that (and get our money's worth since you pay the rec center fee whether you use it or not). He was so cute in his little swim trunks and he just seemed mesmerized by the whole thing. Here are the pictures (I'll spare you the ones showing off my pale, flabby body). He kicked his legs some, but seemed to just hold his arms as straight as possible. It was fun to do something different for once, and we will definitely have to do it again sometime.