Happy Halloween!

A one-eyed, two horned (or maybe those are ears?),

flying purple people eater!

Since I loved it and it was appropriate for the weather (not too hot and not too cold), I had him wear his costume all day- as he played and as we ran errands. We were stopped by so many people. A few times Brady even did his "raa!" for them. :)

Monster @ play:

We went to visit Brady's friends at daycare this afternoon and they all had painted faces thanks to talented Ms. Adela. She asked if it was okay to do Brady's, and that is how he became the kitty cat monster. :)

Brady with his very responsible babysitter, Meghan.
haha! She's punked out for Halloween- really! :)

Rebekah, Joshua, Meghan, Brady, and Bailey

A few more of our festive little pumpkin

The Monster Mash

The countdown to Halloween is on and Brady's been gearing up all week:

Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:

Oh Maya Goodness

We met sweet Maya and checked in on new parents Mo and Pradeep this afternoon. Maya is so precious! It was so great to see them all and completely wild to think Brady was once that small. Brady and Buddy seemed to enjoy each other too. Buddy was excited to see a pint-sized person who moved and Brady was excited to see a nice doggie who played and barked.

Who says little boy clothes aren't adorable? Love this!

Casual Friday

Old Navy makes the Funniest onesies! Love it!

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Turn Around

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Touch the Ground

I've been singing that song to Brady today because I put this adorable snowsuit thing on him this morning. It's a 9 month size outfit, so I had to jam him in there, but it was so darn cute I couldn't resist! Animal ears on kids are just too fun! (He's still trying to process those top teeth...hence all the recent pictures of him with his tongue out.)

10 months old

Happy Birthday Brady! These photos are getting more difficult to take. This time Brady realized that he can make the rocker move. Very exciting for him, very nerve-wracking for me. :) Brady continues to be on track developmentally. He stands independently for a few seconds. He really does seem to be on the verge of walking and has taken a few unassisted steps. But he's not quite a walker just yet. He gets around just fine though crawling, cruising furniture, or holding our hands.

He continues to babble CVCV sounds like mama, dada, nana, baba but does not seem to attach meaning to them yet. He's a pretty vocal kid and seems to enjoy hearing his own shouts. Such a little boy! I've already begun using the "Let's use an inside voice." track with him.

He is now eating pretty much what we are eating. Just this past week, I stopped sending pureed baby food vegetables to daycare for lunch and decided he could eat whatever the kids were eating. They've been supplementing the baby food I send with the kids' lunch anyway. Miss Omayma spoils him! The kid eats better lunches than I do! On Wednesday, I asked Omayma what they had for lunch and she said, "baked tilapia with tomatoes and rice." Oh. I had mac and cheese. LOL! I still have to mash things or cut them up pretty small in order for him to get them down and his little body to process them. He now has 6 front teeth (four upper, two lower) but no molars to really grind the food. He does bite and "chew" Cheerios with his front teeth though. It's kind of funny to watch- he looks very proud of himself using his new body parts. :) He still Loves Cheerios. Cheese and yogurt come in a close second.

He doesn't seem to have a favorite toy. As Brady was happily (read: quietly) eating his Cheerios the other night, Brett said, "I wish we could find the toy equivalent to Cheerios. Something he loves that makes him super happy and quiet." haha! If I had to assign a few of his toys "Cheerio status," I'd give it to balls and plastic objects he can bang together.

There is not a 10 month wellness check, so we don't have official stats. However, in the Cancun airport, Brett put Brady on the luggage scale. haha! Yes, it was funny. Brett plunks him down there and Deanna gives us an odd look and says, "Uh, are you checking him this time?" I said, "No, we were just making sure he was under the 50 lb. weight limit. If he was over, we'd have to pay extra." :p The scale registered 21.4 lbs.

Weight: 21 lbs. 6 oz.

Getting back on track

I was warned that once you have kids you no longer go on "vacation." You only take trips. :) After packing and preparing for this trip for nearly three weeks, I can only pray that our readjustment back home does not take that long. Brady is off-schedule and that is to be expected. He's having a really hard time getting to sleep, both at night and for naps. He cannot calm down unless I am holding him. We tried to get Brett to put him to bed, but he just screamed his head off until I took him. He'll be what I think is sound asleep in my arms after nursing but as soon as I lower him in to the crib, he wakes up screaming. Screaming. Seriously. Finally we decided to allow him to cry it out. It took about 20 heart wrenching minutes. When I went back in to his room to check on him, this is what I found:

The poor kid had been standing at the side of the crib screaming. (I saw him on the monitor.) Then he must have gotten so tired he literally slumped over and fell asleep. It made us feel like terrible parents. We stretched him back out in to a more comfortable sleeping position and he did not wake up. He must really be exhausted. When he woke this morning and I heard him "talk," I realized he lost his little voice. I guess from screaming so much. It makes me so sad to hear the little frog in his throat and know why it's there. :( For a few brief moments, I have been wondering if "trips" are worth it. But then I look back at the photos, and decide that yes, it's worth it.

Hola Amigos!

For the past week we've been on vacation in Riviera Maya, Mexico. This was our first family vacation and included Brady's first flight. We were joined by Grandma & Grandpa and the Rocks- Aunt DeeDee, Uncle Ken, Connor and Connor's friend, Conner (that makes it easy to remember, huh?). :)

I'm going to summarize our week long trip in one huge post. Actually word-wise this would be pretty simple. Typically on vacation this group reverts to an infant schedule anyway. So really I could sum up the entire week's agenda with just a few words- eat. drink. sleep. change. snack. nap...Repeat.

We left on Saturday morning. As he is under 2 years old, Brady was a lap passenger. He had a paper ticket and we paid $12 in taxes for him. At almost 10 months old, he's already got his first stamp in his passport. He also had his first ride on the people mover @ Dulles. He looks like a big independent boy, doesn't he? (Brett held him once we actually started moving.)

Brady did pretty well on his inaugural flight. He nursed during take-off and slept for about an hour after that. Would have been awesome if it had been like a 90 minute flight. But it was almost 3 hours. So he played with some of the toys we brought him, he looked through the Skymall magazine, and was entertained in our seat for a while. When he did get fussy and melted down a bit, Deanna came to the rescue and walked the aisle with him and amused him with a Bandaid on her nose. :)

We arrived in Mexico and discovered that "el nino" was the golden ticket. While we were waiting in the crazy long customs line, an immigration officer spotted our stroller and motioned for us to follow him. We all (Luhrings and Rocks) followed him to capitalize on this "una familia con nino" cut-the-line pass. Sweet! The time we saved in the customs line was made up waiting for our transportation to the resort. Brady hung out in the Bjorn and had a jar of stage 3 baby food chicken and stars. He was being a patient little boy. Then we boarded the van for what we didn't realize would be a 2 hour transport to the resort. Despite a 45 minute nap after nursing, an uninhibited Brady vocalized all of our frustration. I was nauseous from not eating in such a while. We were all tired and Brady's wails did not seem to do anything to get us there any faster. Brett did find amusement in the many "Retorno" (u-turn) signs we passed. We knew it would become the word of the week. We used it most inappropriately. For example, "Stop being such a retorno!" I mean really, "Stop being such a u-turn?" It makes no sense...which only made it funnier to us!

I tried my best to keep Brady on his schedule. I kept my watch and the noise machine/clock I brought set to Eastern time. He got up pretty consistently- usually around 7:30 (6:30 central) and had his morning milk. Then I'd dress us for the day and we'd take off for our morning stroll and oatmeal breakfast at the buffet. He charmed all the hostesses and waitresses. They were always happy to see him. "Hola bebe!" "Buenos dias Brady!" and my personal favorite, "Hola gordito!" (which roughly translates to "Hi Little Fatty" hahahaha!) Love it! After breakfast, we'd walk back to the room, he'd nurse again, then take his morning nap. When he woke, we'd finally join the rest of the crew and begin the day together. We played and visited a bit, then we'd all have lunch. Then Brady and I would go back to the room for his afternoon nap. There were a few days where he strayed from this schedule and actually napped by the pool. (See picts below.) After the nap, we'd all hang out a bit more. Then Brady would have dinner and a bath. We took him out to dinner with us (despite it being way past his 7:30 bedtime) and tried to get him to sleep in his stroller while we dined. That worked on most nights. Towards the end of the week, he was a little less tolerant (also his top FOUR teeth were coming in so he was a bit uncomfortable) and I wound up cutting the night short and going back to the room with him so he could sleep comfortably.

At the salt water pool that the ocean fills up

Sleeping soundly on his tummy in the stroller while Daddy feasts himself in to a Mexicoma (see right) @ the Bamboo restaurant- Daddy's favorite place to eat

Brady's thoughts on the ghetto portable crib the hotel provided us.
He wound up sleeping in bed with me for the week.
Ken assumes the vacation position.
He's fallen...and he can't get up!The three generations of Luhrings asleep by the pool.
Brady's learning from the best.
Ken's comment: "Aren't family traditions great?" :)We've taken a picture of our all-inclusive bracelets
ever year we've been on these trips.
This marks #7 for us and #16 for the Rocks and Senior Luhrings.

As always, it was a vacation full of laughs for us all...including Brady. Several times he broke in to his hysterical laugh or giggle. One night it was because I was jumping on the bed around him. He likes that at home too. I know, I know it's a bad habit to teach. But he sure does have fun and I Love his laugh!

A couple nights later, I was telling Brett a story about a little boy I saw in the post office named Brett and his mom kept having to yell at him, "Brett!" When I got to that part of the story and yelled Brett's name, Brady busted out laughing. So I kept doing it and yelling other's names and he found it most amusing. I know this one's going to backfire on me when I'm scolding him one day "Brady!" and he busts out laughing and makes me laugh!