3 months

I vividly remember when Brody turned 3 months and I told myself "Ok, I think I can do this mom thing." It seemed like he was settling into a good routine and I was getting better at knowing Brody. And now that Colt is 3 months I feel like I can say "I can handle two kids." Colt seems to be settled into his new life and Brody is now used to him being around. It's not to say that we aren't busy, because our days just seem to fly by and I still have tons on my to do list. But I'm learning to enjoy these moments with the boys. They are already going by way too fast for me.

Colt is such a sweet little boy. He is smiling at us, cooing and loves to watch Brody. It will be fun to watch him as he continues to grow.

Yesterday, we met his cousin Gunner for the first time. Gunner is exactly one month older than Colt. He looks and acts so much older. Gunner is already rolling over and holding his head up really well. It's interesting to see the difference but I know it won't be too long before they are chasing each other around.

A Productive Day

We had one of those very rare days where we had absolutely nothing planned. No one was coming over and we had no where to go. It was very nice. It was especially nice because I had an extra hand to help with the boys for the entire day. So, what did we do on this day. It started with a morning of raking leaves. Brad was determined to get a start on this project since it was an unusually sunny and dry day in Seattle. Fortunately he had his little helper.

Brody loved helping his daddy and loved exploring every section of our yard. It's so fun watching him get dirty and climb up the hills. He is such a boy!

After the morning of raking leaves the boys had lunch and then Brody was ready for his nap. While the boys were napping Brad worked on some other random house projects. I would like to say I was productive but really was far from getting anything significant done. When the boys woke up from their nap Brody joined Brad in the garage while I took care of Colt. When I went to check in on them they were about to go on a Jeep ride. This was specifically requested by Brody. He was very upset when it was over.

Our next task was to cut Brody's hair. So we took out our buzzer and gave Brody his buzz cut.

We finished off our day by spending time just playing with our boys. Colt is a little harder to "play" with but we had fun with Brody. Brad put him on his back and ran around the house for quite a while. Brody LOVED this and was about to throw a tantrum when it was all over. I stepped in and said "Brody, can YOU carry your friends on YOUR back." His face lit up and he ran into the other room and started to carry his teddy bear and Mickey Mouse on his back. Thank goodness for distraction techniques. It was a somewhat productive, relaxing and fun day for our family. We are hoping to find more days like this.

Stuffed Animals

I have tried my best to get pictures of the boys every single month. It helps that we have a picture frame where we need to put pictures in. So far I have been pretty good about it, usually missing by only a few days. I have also started taking pictures of the boys on the same blue chair. Someone recently told me about taking a picture next to a favorite stuffed animal, so I have started to do that as well. We are using sock monkey with the boys (although Colt's first "animal" picture was with a different monkey). Anyways, the other day I was taking Brody's 19 month picture and gave him the sock monkey so he could sit next to it. Of course, Brody would not let sock monkey just sit there he had to hug it and swing it around. I managed to get a few pictures. Later in the day I wanted to retake pictures of Brody by himself, but Brody insisted on having his monkey with him. Not only did he insist on his monkey being with him but he wanted all of his animal friends with him. Now we have a cute picture of all of Brody's animal friends. :)

Elmo & Tigger

Grammy did some shopping and bought the cutest little costumes for our boys. Brody was Elmo and Colt was Tigger. We were able to wear the costumes for more than one day when we had a play date and when we were trying them on. And then of course we went trick-or-treating in our costumes. We were thankful it wasn't raining (even though it was raining pretty hard earlier in the day). It also wasn't very cold, so we set out to go trick or treating well before it started to get dark. We had never done this before and I wasn't sure how long it would take for Brody to make it to the 4 houses in our cul-de-sac. It was Brody as Elmo, Colt as Tigger, Mommy as Snow White, and daddy was the Tigger tamer carrying him in the Baby Bjorn. After our first 2 houses we realized we still had a lot of daylight left so we went for a little walk down the street and checked out 2 houses that had some fun Halloween decorations. We decided to send Brody trick-or-treating there. When we made it back to our cul-de-sac we saw that other kids had started to emerge from their house so we went back to hand out candy. Unfortunately, our neighborhood, though very family friendly, does not get very many trick-or-treaters....so now we have way too much candy left over.

Cousin Abi's Influence

Brody has a great time playing with Abi. It is especially fun when we go over to Abi's house because she has so many new and different toys. Brody also loves his Aunt Angie and Uncle Brian. He can't stop talking about them. Now part of having an older cousin who is a girl is being subjected to some of the "girl" stuff Abi has and at this point playing with these things. Today when we are at Abi's house Brody found Abi's tutu and put it on. I don't protest these things although Daddy would. I just think it's so darn cute. So I let Brody put the tutu on and he did not want to take it off. Instead he danced in it, twirled in it, and ran all around the house wearing it. Maybe some day these pictures will be used against them somehow...but for now I think they are so darn cute.

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we took a family outing to the Fall City Farms' pumpkin patch. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day (usually a rare thing in Seattle this time of year, but this year we have had 3 beautiful weekends). It was busy, as was expected, so we had the great idea of going over to the part of the farm where no one was so that we could find our perfect pumpkin. Colt was in the Bjorn and Brody was walking with daddy. Once we found a cart we were set to go and ventured down to "our secret pumpkin patch." After walking down there and looking around for about 10 minutes we realized why this place was so secret, or why no one was here.....there were no "perfect" pumpkins....or really there were no good pumpkins. They were all either green or had holes in them. So we decided to head back to the main section. As we were walking back Brody became very distracted by the sandbox with all the tractors, so this put a little delay in our searching. We finally made it down to the pumpkin patch and realized it was already 12:30, which meant Colt would be eating or should be eating and Brody was close to his nap time. We decided we would have to forgo the pumpkin searching ourselves and just pick a pumpking from the preselected pumpkins. We found one we liked and went to pay for our $13.00 pumpkin... I didn't know they could be so expensive.

We learned a few lessons from our pumpkin patch outing.
1) Go in the middle of the week, when it's not as crowded.
2) Be prepared for lunch or at least have a snack.
3) Only go to the section where others are looking.

Having fun without Mommy

Today Brody joined his cousin, Abi and our friend Gunnar Tegman for a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. Colt had his 2 month checkup (more on that later) so we had to stay behind. I am pretty comfortable leaving Brody with just about anyone. It's not that I don't love my boy I just know he is pretty easy going and isn't hard to take care of. However, today I was a little sad that I wasn't going to be with him when he went to the pumpkin patch. I knew he was in good hands and was going to have a super fun time but I wanted to be with him to experience this again. I also came to the realization that now with 2 boys in our lives there are going to be moments and things that I miss out on in their lives. It's one of the hard things about being a mom, knowing that you won't be able to go with them to their senior prom. :) Brody did bring his pumpkin home and every time he picks it up he says "pumpkin patch." We are hoping to go to the pumpkin patch as a family this weekend.