December 2006

The Ghost of Christmas Future:
Ryan and Logan pummeling each other on Christmas night. They, like most 3 and 5-year-olds, have sharing issues. I laughed because I can just see Brady and Logan in a couple years, or Brady and his future brother or sister rolling around our floor!

Brady had a cold at the beginning of December. He didn't feel too good - stuffy nose, watery eyes, the whole deal. He did open up good one day though after enjoying some fruit and oatmeal so I could get a good shot of his two teeth. There they are. Still no top ones yet.

It's giggle time!

Yum! Bows are delicious!

PRESENTS!!!!!!!!! Brady officially started crawling the day after we put up the tree. He was inspired by the shiny paper and pretty bows on the presents. There's no stopping him now...he's on the move!

Opening presents is just too much work! Brady took a break after dinner to enjoy a quick nap with Grandma.

Brady can feed himself now! Hooray. He's been doing it for a while now, but I thought this picture was funny. He just lounges on his boppy and enjoys his bottles. He still can't feed himself his food yet. I accidently left him with a spoon after he finished eating one day last week and he tried to eat the spoon. Not a good idea.

This was our attempt at a picture with all of us and our zoo. We didn't have anyone to take the picture otherwise it would have probably worked out ok. Holly's laying on the floor on the left and you can barely see her...Mufasa is on J's lap, Jake is being yanked on by Brady and pretty much all you can see of Amber is her eyes...spooky. I think I look quite nice, however!!! Ha ha ha.

Hittin the bottle. Jeremiah and I were getting ready to go Christmas shopping one night and we put Brady int he living room to finish his bottle before we left. When we came to check on him he was passed out with the bottle still in his mouth! This is when he still had his cold and he was exhausted. It was really funny.

"Are you really Santa?"
Our neighbor Gerald dressed up like Santa and came over for a visit. Brady had fun pulling on his beard (which is real by the way) and his hat.

Logan helped Stacey open her Christmas presents.

Brady boy looking cute as always.

Grandma Robin made a blanket for Brady for Christmas. The sea otter fabric came from Alaska. Robin got it when we all vacationed there in 2004...before Jeremiah and I were even married. She says she just knew she'd have grandchildren someday!!!

Brady got a train for Christmas. It has a giraffe, an elephant and a monkey that ride in it. It sings and makes animal noises and even drives across the living room. Brady likes to crawl after it!

Brady got a sled from his friends Laurie and Samantha back in New Jersey! It's really cool. Now all we need is some snow. It's been in the 50's and 60's all week. You'd think we live in Floriday, not Kansas!!

These are cookies I made for our work Christmas party. They are just Nutter Butter cookies dipped in white chocolate on both ends, one end then dipped in red sprinkles with a red hot for a nose and two mini chocolate chips for eyes! Cute!

Oh my, what a cute boy!

Look how big he looks! This was at the airport waiting for Grandma Robin and Grandpa Rustin to arrive.

Santa and his little helper!!!

Brady's first Christmas!

Brady let me open the boxes as long as I gave him a little piece of paper to play with!

Bathtime.

Brady gets to take baths in the big tub now. He splashed too much in the sink and soaked the whole kitchen. Now he gets to sit in his little tub inside the big one!! He can splash all he wants.

Watch out for that tree!

Inspired by a burning desire to eat the only present we have under the tree, Brady has begun to crawl! Suddenly, Wednesday night he looked over at the red and green Santa Claus wrapping paper and took off towards it. That night and the following morning he would pretty much do the army crawl...move one hand, one knee, plop on his belly and scoot <>. This morning he was pretty much all hands and knees. Of course he likes to go after the things he can't have - the Christmas tree, the TV trays, the phone, and the remote control. Good grief. He's going to make me start to have a tidy house. I need a maid.

He's also started babbling a lot more the past couple days, making "ba" sounds and today the "ma-ma-ma" sounds. I don't think he relates mama to me, but at least he can say it. I like to think he knows it's me. This morning when I went to get him out of his crib he was saying mama mama. Ok, so he was looking the other direction and probably didn't even know I had walked in, but I still like it.

We were going to get our Christmas cards out this week, but our picture opportunity fell through so it's probably going to be next week. If you get them after Christmas, sorry, but they'll be worth the wait!!!

In other news Brady has learned to get himself from his belly to a sitting postion. It's cute. He started that on Monday. A lot of the time he gets 3/4 of the way there and just leans on one arm, but he can push himself all the way up if he wants to.

Other than that we think he's getting ready to get one of his top teeth. I thought I felt one this morning when he got up, but after his bottle I couldn't feel it anymore. He's been a little fussy the past two days and trying to put the chomp on anything he can get his mouth around so it would make sense if he did get one in sometime in the next few days. That's what happened when the bottom ones came in. Our little boy is growing up so fast. He'll be 7 months old on Monday. Can you believe that??? I can't.

Well, I have to pay some bills. Oh boy. Then I have to go pick Brady up from the babysitters. I took him over there today since I had to do some Christmas shopping and the repair guys were coming to look at the washer, dryer and fridge (annual tune-ups). I was going to take Brady with me shopping, but I keep having visions of purse snatchers grabbing my purse while I'm trying to get Brady loaded/unloaded from the car. We got new car seats that stay in the car so it takes a little longer to get him in and out. Maybe I was having a psychic moment now that I think about it because Jeremiah got a call from work this afternoon and he has to go in early because they had two carjackings this morning in Merriam. I'd rather take Brady to go play with his buddies than risk one of us getting hurt or robbed!

I'll put more updates on here before Christmas probably, but Merry Christmas anyway!

cute cousin

Stacey and Jeff had a 3-D sonogram on Wednesday.
I think the baby looks like Lacey, Jeff's older daughter.

Jeremiah and I debated whether we wanted to have a 3-D or not, but opted not in the end. I think we will on the next one. It's really cool how you can see everything. I can't believe the difference between the regular and the 3-D!

Stacey and Jeff haven't released a name for baby Hittle yet...hopefully they pick by March!!!

brrrrrrrr...

Baby it's cold outside!

TEETH!!!

This one's a little blurry, but still cute!

There you can see one pretty good in the middle.

Aww. He's such a cutie.

It's hard to get a good picture of his teeth since they're so small.

Precious.

It's been a while...

Sorry I haven't gotten a lot of new pictures on here lately. It's been kind of hectic around here the past few weeks. Jeremiah and I are both working like crazy people and it's only going to get worse before it gets better unfortunately. Jeremiah's getting a rookie tonight. He gets to train the new guy for the rest of the year so he's pretty excited about that. The rookie gets to drive Jeremiah around and do all the work so that's pretty fun. I'm getting ready to enter the most crazy couple of weeks of the year at my work. It starts this Saturday when we are open until midnight. Why? I don't know. I really can't see people sitting at home at 11:30 p.m. and saying, "Oh, honey, what do you think...want to go to Sears and buy a new fridge?" We won't have any customers past 9 p.m. So I'll be spending the night at mom and dad's with Brady-boy. He'll get to hang out there with them all afternoon. He'll have fun. He likes it there. Grandma feeds him in the sink sometimes! (I have pictures to prove it which I will try to get on here as soon as this site starts working for pictures again.)
Brady's still not crawling, forward anyway. I think he will be by Christmas. He's getting so big. He's quite hefty. If all he wanted for Christmas were his two front teeth, it appears Santa has made a stop in Kansas a little early this year. He has two teeth now, both on the bottom. I think it might be a while before he gets any on the top. Who knows. The ones he has are sharp though. I put my finger in there to feel around on the top the other day and he chomped me! It hurt. I didn't bleed though so it was ok.
There's no news on the job front. It's kind of a busy time of year though for trying to find new work. I'll resume efforts after the first of the year. I think Old Navy would be fun and a nice change, but really it's still retail so I'm going to hold out for non-retail. I never did hear from Garmin so I guess that's off the list. I've got my eye on a couple other businesses around town. If they have any openings I'll put in for them. Maybe Santa will bring me some tuition money so I can get my MBA. I won't hold my breath on that one.
Well, I need to make Jeremiah's lunch and get myself ready for bed. Check in soon...I'll try to get updates on here more often. And more pictures too!!!

Good times and good friends...

Brady loves feeling around in his mouth and grabbing his teeth.

He also thinks it's funny when Daddy tickles him!
Hee hee hee. Too bad there's no audio on here, Brady has the funniest giggle!

Brady's buddy Alexanderia was born on Nov. 9. She was due on Thanksgiving, but came a couple weeks early!


When I went to pick Alex up I braced myself like I usually do to pick up Brady and just about flung her across the room. She weighed a little over 7 pounds so it was quite a bit less than our Brady boy who's now weighing in somewhere in the upper teens. The funny thing is I can't even picture Brady that small anymore. I know he was when he was born, and even though it was just six months ago I can't even believe it.

Time for a burp. I remember those hospital feedings. It seemed like Brady would finish eating, burp, fall asleep for a few minutes and then be ready to chow again.

Happy anniversary to us...

Well, lots of things happened this past week. Friday, as Jeremiah says, "Brady finally cut one..." yep, Brady got his first tooth!!! It's one of the bottom ones in the middle. It's kind of hard to see, but it's really sharp so you can definately feel it. I think there's a few more teeth not far behind. His gums are still pretty puffy looking on the top. So that was Friday. Saturday was Brady's six month birthday already. Can you believe it? Wow. Six months. It's amazing what can happen in six months. Brady basically went from an eating, sleeping and pooping little bundle to a little guy with a happy and playful personality all of his own. He giggles a lot now. And he loves to play. He can sit by himself without falling over - 98% of the time anyway. Sometimes when he reaches for something far away he'll still plop over onto his side. He can crawl backwards like a champ and rock really fast on his hands and knees. He's super funny and nearly always smiley. He's not really particular about what he eats as long as he's eating something! Sunday he spent the day playing with his cousins Ryan and Logan while I worked and Jeremiah slept after he got home from work. Today is our anniversary. We spent the morning being bums and I even took a nap. Whoa. That hasn't happened in a LONG time. Brady took a really good 2 hour nap this morning so I got in a good one too. I expected him to wake up after only about 45 minutes or so, but lucky for me he decided to give mommy an anniversary present. Since Jeremiah and I have been working like a bunch of nuts we haven't had time to get each other anything so we decided to pool our gift money and just get something nice for both of us to share. Besides, a second anniversary gift is supposed to be cotton. Cotton? What's that about? I told him I'd get him some nice socks. We opted for one of those undercabinet cd/radio thingies instead. We put it in the kitchen. It's pretty nice. You can get channels 2-13 from the TV tuned in for audio only, there's a CD player, a regular AM/FM radio and a weather radio too. My favorite thing is the light on the bottom. It's really bright so at night it helps light up the countertops. We did a good job bargain hunting.
Tomorrow it's back to work for both of us. I'm off Thanksgiving day, but I have to work 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. I have to work sometime on Sunday but I just don't know what hours yet. Good grief. Have I mentioned I need a new job lately? I know, you're sick of hearing about it. Something will turn up eventually.
Oh, tonight we went out to dinner for our anniversary. We went to the Cheesecake Factory. That's a dangerous place. A person could eat way too much in there. It was really, really yummy. Jeremiah's such a nerd. I asked if he was going to get his cheesecake to eat there or take home because our meals were really big and he was like, eat here. So I said, well, what if we get one for here and one to take home. I meant one to share there and one to take home to share. He thought I meant we would each get one there and one to take home. At $6.50 per slice I wasn't up for that. So we split a carmel apple strudle cheesecake piece there and brought home a heath bar crunch one.
That's it for now I guess. My left eye is all red again like a few weeks ago. I don't know what the deal is with it. It's burning and itching and looks horrible. If it doesn't clear up by Wednesday or so I guess I'll have to go to the doctor.
Well, Jake's trying to climb into his food container so I better go pull him out of there. I'll try to get some updates and some new pictures on here as soon as I can.

I hate interviews...

Well I had an interview today with the district manager for Old Navy. At first I thought it was going really well, but then in the end I don't know. I hate interviews. They're so dumb. There really is no possible way to learn enough about a person through talking about mundane junk and this situation and that. We'll see if it goes anywhere. On one hand I would like to get the job there because it would be better than what I've got now with Sears. I'd have every other weekend off and only be working about 40-42 hours per week as opposed to 45-50 now with relatively no weekends off (by now I mean in general throughout the year with Sears...NOW being the holiday season means 55-70 hours...and by the way I don't get paid overtime which would probably help ease the annoyance a little bit at least). The downside is it's still retail which I really want to get away from eventually. It's too crazy to have me and Jeremiah both having psycho schedules. Plus it makes it virtually impossible to have any kind of normal schedule for Brady, let alone any kind of steady day care arrangements. We're lucky now that we have such a great person to watch him, but if I get relocated somewhere else it might mean having to find someone new which we are totally not wanting to do. We'll see I guess. I never did hear anything from Garmin. My sister, Jenn, is going to talk to some people she knows who work for Yellow Transportation (no, I'm not looking to be a trucker) and Hallmark. Hallmark would be awesome. Their headquarters are here in Kansas City and it's supposed to be a great place to work. Jenn's mother-in-law worked there until she retired. I have no idea what she did, but I know she really enjoyed it. Plus, she got us into the "Double D" discount store once which was fun. It's like some secret clearance place for associates and family/friends I guess. It was a long time ago when I was still in college that I went there.
In a perfect world - one in which I actually played the lottery - I would win the big jackpot, move to the country on a big piece of land with cows, someone to pick up after the cows, lots of dogs and cats (rest in peace Kramer - Jenn's cat died this week) and more babies! Jeremiah could hunt and fish all day and rebuild Supras and other cars and I could play with the kids and pets and scrapbook and do crafty things and take naps and go to culinary school and write books. We could build a little compound with a bunch of guest houses so all of our friends and family members could come and stay as long as they like whenever they wanted. I think I'd go back to school and get degrees in anything and everything since I like to learn new things and would be a much better student now than I was when I actually was a student since I am older and much more wiser and also less interested in frat parties and staying out late and more interested in actually learning something.
However, since we don't play the lottery it is highly unlikely that we will win the lottery thereby making all of the above irrelavent. I'll have to settle for my stupid job for which I should be grateful to have while I endlessly search for a better one with a more normal schedule. The only good thing about working this chaotic mess of a schedule now is that Brady is too young to remember any of it and hopefully by the time he is old enough to start remembering memories I will have a normal job and be able to be in the memories for being around with him and not always at work. Upon dropping Brady off at Jenn's house one Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago on my way to work my little nephew Logan said, "Headdder, why do you work so much?..." to which I replied: "I have a mean boss."
I better get to bed now. Today was my last day off until Thanksgiving. I worked six days in a row before today, I have 8 in a row starting tomorrow and probably at least 10 or 11 in a row after Thanksgiving. Yipee. I'm sooooooo excited. (Insert your own sarcastic tone here.) I've got some new funny pics of Brady - as usual - so next time I get a break - January possibly !!! - I'll get them on here. He's getting so big and so funny I just can't believe it. He'll be six months old Saturday. Happy half-birthday to him!
Oh - one more thing: Brady's babbling is getting longer and funnier by the day and he's now saying "da-da-da-da-da" all day and night. Mom says if babies say da-da first it means you'll have a boy the next time around. I'm ok with that. Boys are fun. Girls are nice too. I'm not picky. As long as he or she is healthy I'll go with the flow. Plus, if in a few years we do have another boy we're set with all the blue stuff we have now we won't have to buy a thing!!!

So far, so good...

I got a call this morning from a recruiter for Old Navy. We talked for about an hour and it seems like things went really well. She's going to have the district manager call me to arrange a face to face interview sometime in the next week or so. That's good news. I told Jeremiah after the interview that yesterday I bought a new pair of jeans at Old Navy and today I got an interview. I asked if I could go buy a sweater and maybe I might get a job. He thought my logic was fuzzy. I was surprised he didn't tell me to bring home a GPS for his boat so that Garmin might call!

Well, other than that not a lot has happened today. Work work work.

Oh, what do you think about the new layout? I love it!

Question:

WHERE'S THE BEEF????
Brady had his 6 month check-up today and his 6 month shots. We went to the new doctor, Dr. Monzon who saw him in the hospital when he was born. He said that Brady is growing really well and is ready for more food - "He needs meat," he said. He still needs to be drinking milk, but he won't get enough iron from milk alone. Basically he is going to be eating three meals and drinking five bottles a day. Whoa. That's lots of food.
We love Dr. Monzon. He was really nice and really helpful telling us things that we need to know rather than throwing a handout at us and saying see you later. Brady got half a flu shot today. I guess in babies they give them half a dose one month and the other half the next. So we have to go back Dec. 12 for the other one.
Brady's been babbling up a storm today. It's the first day he's really been making long strands of babble with consonants and vowels. He's found ways to mimic what we are doing too. If we blow raspberries, he does. If we stick out our tongues, he does. He's starting to try to curl his tongue. I think he'll be able to do it soon.
UPDATE: He is now 17 pounds 7 ounces and 26 & 3/4 inches long. His head is getting bigger too - it's 17 inches around.
All is well. He's still spitting up a bunch so he has some baby zantac he has to take three times a day to help keep his esophogus healthy.
Well, the weather here is nice. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 80 degrees. Can you believe it? It's November! Oh well. At least it's one less day we have to run the heat in the house!
I can't think of anything else for now. I've got to get Brady in the tub and get Jeremiah up for work. He's got to work tonight and then has training in the morning. I asked today why they don't have training in the middle of the night during his shift sometime and make all the other people come to work during their sleeping times. He agreed that would be nice, but it's not going to happen.
Oh - one more thing. The job front: no news. Nothing from Garmin. Nothing from Old Navy. I'm feeling like giving up on the job search. It seems like a joke and I'm feeling doomed to a life of chaotic nonsense stuck in retail. I hope I'm wrong.

Cutest boy on earth

We got pictures of Brady done today at Sears. Grandma Joyce and Poppy Don watched Brady today and then brought him up to meet me at work at the end of my shift. The pictures turned out AWESOME! He's such a ham. I think he should be the next Gerber baby or soemthing. Maybe a poster kid for Pampers. I have a few more to put on here once I flip them vertical in photoshop on the other computer, but check these fun ones out:

Cute pics of Brady-boy

He's so cute. I just can't get over it.

Brady's dressing warmer these days. It's cold outside so he has to bundle up!!!

Giggling is his favorite thing to do now.

A new view

Brady can stand next to his train table by himself now...with Mommy or Daddy not too far away of course! Last week Brady stood for 10 minutes or so just playing with his pacifier and his toys on top of his table.

Unsupported sitting!

Brady is doing really good at sitting by himself now. Of course we try to keep the boppy close by since the transition from sitting to lying down isn't yet a smooth one.

What a happy kid. We're so spoiled by Brady. He still only cries for two reasons: he's hungry or he's tired. Most of the time he's like this - cheery and full of smiles.