Meemaw = Me (My) Ma (Mom)

Even though it was a short visit (arriving Saturday afternoon and leaving Monday morning), we all had a great time with Meemaw. Now that I am a mom, I understand and appreciate my own mom that much more. I understand just how much she loves me, my sister, and my brother.

It was wonderful having her here to visit with, but she was also extremely helpful in allowing us to get things done! She watched Brady while we waited for the landscape architect in the nursery and while we tried to sop up the water in the basement. She also took pictures of Brady's first cereal meal while Daddy took video. When Brady was asleep on Sunday night, all three of us worked to try and contain the damage downstairs. Thanks for all your help Mom! I know it wasn't necessary how you thought you'd be spending your Mother's Day (at 2AM!), but we sure do appreciate you!!!

"It's Always Something!"

And in this case the something is a "sump thing." Our sump pump quit Sunday night...timing couldn't have been worse seeing as we are having torrential downpours and the rain has not stopped in hours! We were getting ready for bed after getting home from a great dinner and having a great day. I felt it was cold for Brady and turned the heat on upstairs (that's how cold it is...in almost mid May!). It continually felt like cold air blowing so I asked Brett to investigate by looking at the a/c unit. About 10 minutes later, he calmly comes upstairs and asks me to go down to the basement with him. OMG! The place is FLOODED! And I mean flooded...at least 2 inches of water in the tiled bar area and the carpet is squishing and making footprints as you walk. Brett figures out that the problem is a broken sump pump and is doing everything he can on the outside and near the pump to stop the flood. I'm mopping the tile floor and my mom is using the steam cleaner to suck up as much water from the carpet as possible. Well, despite laboring for 2.5 hours until 2AM, the water just kept coming back. The only thing we can do is go to bed until Home Depot opens @ 6AM when Brett can go get a new sump pump.

Here's some shots of the basement in the morning (after working all night to sop up water):

Brett had to take the day off work and installed the new sump pump this morning. It's working overtime and seems to be continually pumping out water. He also rented a commercial steam cleaner and commercial carpet fans and has been attempting to mop up the flood all day long. I'm so thankful that Brett is handy and hard-working! However after pulling the carpet back and feeling the soaked-through padding, he decided we had to call our insurance company. The claim is in and now it's a waiting game until someone comes out to assess the damage. Apparently we are pretty far down a long list of unfortunate basement owners with similar issues.

So this year Brett got a water heater for his birthday and I got a sump pump for Mother's Day. Fun stuff. :p

A very Happy 1st Mother's Day!

It's my first Mother's Day and what a truly special day! My mom is here for the weekend and we get to celebrate together. The day began with Brett making us breakfast- yumm! Then Brady had his special breakfast...his very first meal other than milk!

Next on Brady's behalf, Brett gave me my Mother's Day present. He knows how I don't love surprises (yes, I'm a control freak) and wanted to be sure I liked his idea. Well I LOVED it! He took us to a nursery and showed me a starlight dogwood tree he had picked out. It flowers in May/springtime and Brett's plan is to take an annual picture of Brady, the tree, and me. That way we could note how Brady and the tree are growing each year. Yay Daddy! So thoughtful!!! We spent about an hour in the nursery and met with a landscape architect who is going to give us some ideas for our small yard. It was a really good thing Meemaw was here because Brady was asleep the entire time...so she stayed in the dry car (it's cold and rainy today) with him and let him snooze. We don't have a picture of the tree yet because right now it's sitting near the house in the rain.

We met the Verebs out for dinner @ Sweetwater Tavern. As always, it was wonderful to see them all! Almost 2.5 year old Eli slept through most of the meal, but woke up at the end for a short visit with us. I think the funniest thing I heard all night was when we were talking about little kids picking their noses (such fun dinner conversation, lol!). Anyway, Brett says, "Brady won't do that...he won't be able to. He has Tiff's button nose and my big hands and fingers. There's no way he's going to be able to jam those things up that tiny nose." LOL! Oh, and speaking of dinner, Brett also picked up a "Let's Dish" dinner for us to enjoy another night without me having to cook. Way to go Daddy! You thought of everything!

What a great day! Thanks Brady and Daddy! Happy Mother's Day Mom and me! I love you all!

Got Milk?

Yes he does, and milk is all he's gotten for the past 4.5 months. That changed today as Brady had his first "solid" food...rice cereal. He did really well! As expected, he only had a few bites, but he accepted the spoon pretty quickly and didn't spit too much of the cereal out. This was also his first time sitting in his high chair. Bon Appetit!

Mommy's Little Monster is ready for his meal

"Table for one please"

Appetizer: high chair tray

Open wide

I'm not sure I like it.

I can do it by myself...

Well, maybe I need a little more practice.

"Property of Mom"

In honor of Mother's Day weekend (and because it is so cold out today!), Brady is wearing his "Property of Mom" fleece footies. Thank you Auntie Mo and Uncle Pradeep for an outfit that Mommy loves! :)

Baby Bunny

Really! I mean, that's what I call Brady sometimes too, but this really is a baby bunny. Brett stepped out of his car today when he got home from work and I heard him say, "Oh dude...where's your Mommy?" The tiny little guy was just sitting by our lamppost all by himself.

Sweet boy

*Big Brown Eyes*

Despite the fact that it is 7:00PM (about the apex of the bewitching evening time), Brady is awake and in a good mood as we wait for Daddy to get home. He just finished eating so he's being sweet lying around, blowing bubbles, making little boy noises.

LOL

Brady cracks himself (and me) up! We were playing this morning and he just starts laughing by himself. I finally get the camera and he keeps going. Although I did help him along by doing Brett's "Bing! Bong!" noises at him. Here he is LOL:

Roll with it

Brady rolled repetitively and with what seemed like intention today! The first time he actually rolled completely over was on April 2. At that point, he'd been teetering from back to side and side to back for a few weeks, but we figured it was mostly gravity doing the work. On that day I put him down on his back on his playmat and left him for about a minute to start dinner. I stopped hearing his "talking" and came in to take a look and he was on his tummy looking a little bewildered. Of course, when I pulled out the camera and tried to encourage more rolling, he just stared at me.

Today was different though. He was rolling around on his blanket. It took me a few minutes to find the camera, but even by the time I got back he was still rolling so I did manage to take some video.

Here's more video that I caught at the end of his rolling session. It is a sort of snapshot of Brady right now @ 4.5 months. He babbles a lot (just like Mommy!), razzes a lot, drools a lot, grabs for everything he sees and puts it in his mouth. You'll see him attempting to figure out what the camera is by putting it in his mouth- So Funny!

Movies with Mon

Brady and I went to the movies today with Auntie Monica and saw "Made of Honor." This is the second chick flick Brady's been to. This time around Brady was older and able to truly appreciate the "huge tv." For the first half hour or so he sat in awe staring at the big screen. Then he got a little chatty. I think this is cute, but we wanted to be courteous to the three other patrons that were there. So I took him over to the side and rocked him with his paci. After the movies we had smoothies and strolled around for a bit. I asked someone to take our picture, but duh! I had the camera set on video. whoops! I took a screen shot of the video and now we sort of have a picture, but it's a little grainy.

Daddy and Me

Little dude

Meepaw bought Brady this sweatshirt when he was here for Christmas. It's a chilly spring morning so I put it on him. It made me smile because again he looks like a little dude and it made me think fondly of my dad. Miss you and Love you Meepaw!

Meeting Aunt Tristine

Yippee! Brady finally got to meet his Aunt Tristine (this is what we called our good friend Kristine when she was living with us. At that time she was Romey and Sandy's aunt...now that we've got another (non-furry) child we've just kept it). I'm not sure who was more excited to see her- us or Romey. He squealed with delight at seeing his long lost roomie. Brady, like all kids, took to Aunt Tristine very well. She bought him this super fun ball machine toy and helped put it together for him too!

On the left is a picture of Brady hanging out (literally) with Daddy. This is the way Daddy keeps Brady quiet. Brady loves it! On the right is a picture of Brady opening his present. This was his first experience with wrapping paper at this more curious and interactive (read: grabby) age. Previous experiences have been with gift bags and/or on Christmas...when he was only 5 days old. He needed a little help from Daddy. Romey supervised.

This is how Brady examined his new toy. Despite the fact that it plays fun music to listen to and has all kinds of colors and movement to see...Brady uses his sense of taste to check it out.

We went to lunch and Kristine took some family pictures for us because we realized that there aren't many pictures of all three of us together. Hmm, gotta work on our timer shots!

Handsome little man:

Snap, Crackle, Pop!

Recently we've been discussing starting Brady on solids, rice cereal in particular. Tonight Brett says to me, "So, are we going to start rice cereal tonight?" I have not even bought the rice cereal or done any serious reading or anything. I say, "Well no...I didn't buy any rice cereal." Brett says, "Yeah, we have some in the pantry." At this point, I'm pretty sure I know where this is going, but I must indulge myself and further pursue my line of questioning. "Really?" I say, "Brett, what do you think rice cereal is?" "Don't we have two boxes of Rice Krispies?" My big smile has now busted in to laughter. "Seriously?!?" I say, "Don't you know that baby rice cereal is more like very fine Farina creamed wheat stuff?" I'm thinking surely Brett sees the hilarity in this conversation at this point. Nope. He's still looking at me with a very straight serious face and says, "No really- I don't understand why we can't just give him Rice Krispies?"
*sigh* Out of the mouths of babes new dads.

THIS is why Mommy is in charge, People! I rest my case.

Mirror Mirror on the floor...

We thought he just loved looking at his reflection...and he does seem mildly entertained by it. But what he really gets a kick out of is seeing someone else in the mirror with him. Seeing my reflection alongside his makes him smile and laugh. (of course, these days seeing my reflection in the mirror sometimes makes me laugh too- lol! eesh!) I think he's trying to reconcile...hmm, mommy behind me and mommy in front of me: funny! Here he is just chillin' on his blanket looking at himself:

And later that day hanging out in his swing...which we have moved in to the upright sitting position now that he can handle it.

Friday Night

It's been a long week and the weather is awesome today! So we met up with friends @ Clyde's for happy hour and then the steakhouse for dinner. Brady's cute overalls and matching hat are a gift from Auntie Hema and Uncle Mehul (Thank you!). Brady visited with his aunties and uncles, had his late dinner, and went to sleep in his car seat stroller. He was awakened around 10 by an animated "Mehul-like" Daddy who was just a little too loud too close to the sleeping baby and startled him. However, it gave Brady a chance to change in to his pj's and visit a little with Uncle Satish before going back to sleep.

Brett took a few paparazzi shots:

After waking up when we transferred him from his car seat to his crib and crying for a bit, Brady slept through until 5:30! (I, of course, was up in a panic twice before then.) :p

"Eat my shorts!"

Despite the fact that he has all kinds of fun toys, I look over at Brady today and he is surrounded by his "fun toys" and is happily occupied eating his shorts that I didn't put back on him after a diaper change.

The Look of Adoration

Grandma labeled one of the many looks Brady has as "the look of adoration." I love this look and tried to capture it (with the self timer on the camera) today as Brady and I had a conversation on the couch. We didn't capture the true look of adoration, but still got some fun picts! Go figure...Brady looked right at the camera during the self timer. ha ha! So many times we are making funny faces and funny noises trying to get him to look at us while we photograph him and here he just looks straight at the camera sitting all by itself.

Bathtime

I just don't take enough pictures at bath time. I love seeing Brady's little baby rolls and feeling his super soft baby skin. Little nugget!