Visiting Grandparents

We drove up to Long Island this weekend for Avery and Olivia Dubin's first birthday party. The party was on Sunday, so we were able to spend some quality time with our own families on Saturday. We stayed at the Pecorino's house and spent Saturday morning with them, and had a nice BBQ for lunch. Aunt Kerry and Uncle Philip came to see Brennan that morning, too. That night, Brian and I got to spend some extra time with them, after putting Brennan to bed. Kerry and Phil have a fire pit, so we burned a log to keep warm and just enjoyed catching up.

We spent the afternoon and had dinner at my parents house. My mom's side of the family all came out to see us, which was very nice. The weather was beautiful, so we all enjoyed being outside. Brennan stole the "baby" role away from my youngest cousin Sophie, who is 4 years old. But, she took it in stride and became quite the little helper.

More to come on this weekend's events, but for now, I need to get to bed!

Pulling Up

Brian had been in California all week and returned on Friday night. I headed out to Topeka, Kansas on Saturday morning to go to my "big brother" Paul's graduation from law school. When I returned on Sunday afternoon, Brennan had learned a new trick - pulling up. Prior to this, I had seen many attempts at him pulling up, but he never quite made it to standing. Now that he hit this milestone, it seems like every time I turn around, he is standing up. It's like the flip of a switch, one day he couldn't do it and then all of sudden he's doing it all the time. It's amazing to see how children develop. In the video below, he actually lets go of the couch and stands on his own for a few seconds, before falling down.

Scooting Around

I've been trying to get some video of Brennan scooting to share on the blog and finally on Sunday, I got a few good ones to share. I wanted you to see how fast he is. No wonder why he doesn't bother crawling, he found a great alternative method for getting around!

In the clip below, I was trying to catch him pulling up. However, I unintentionally distracted him by turning music on. I thought it was so cute how the music caught his attention.

Testing a Walking Toy

Brennan is a little cautious when it comes to new things. He loves to walk when he is holding someone's hands, but hasn't started cruising on the furniture yet. He knows he can get around by scooting, so he often just plops onto his butt and scoots to where he wants to go. We have a few walking toys, but he has never tried taking a step on his own when standing up with one, that is, until today. Here is a very short video of his first steps with the walker on this own. He couldn't decide if he wanted to walk or just sit down and play with the toy. Shortly after the video, he just plopped down and played.

The Cage

Brennan does a lot of scooting around now, and has gotten quite fast. He seems to keep making his way over to the fireplace, so we figured it was time to bring the superyard gate out. I also had to put covers over all of the outlets, since he's take an interest in the outlet and loves to scoot over to them.

Mother's Day

Brian had to go to California for work on Mother's Day, so we celebrated on Saturday. Brian made waffles, eggs and bacon for breakfast. Brennan enjoyed the waffles, but had more fun playing with the waffle maker box. After breakfast, I went for a pedicure, then we went shoe shopping for Brennan and got lunch.

Later in the day, we headed to Algonkian Park to find a swing set. After spending nearly 20 minutes driving around the park, we found the playground area. It's actually a very big playground with a good amount of shade and seating. We gave the swing a try and Brennan loved it! I wanted to face Brennan away from the sun, but realized I had him in the swing the wrong way.

So, I repositioned him and tried to get him to wear his sunglasses, but that only lasted a few minutes. He really fights us on wearing sunglasses, but we keep trying. Overall, my first Mother's Day was great. I really enjoyed it and loved spending a carefree day with my two favorite guys.

10 Months Old

It's hard to believe the little man is 10 months old now. I've been trying to be more disciplined this week by getting Brennan's food and bottles prepared for daycare the night before, instead of waiting until the morning. It's been giving me a little more time to play with Brennan in the morning. I thought you might enjoy this video clip from today.

Our Little Carnivore

After the Chick-Fil-A success, we headed to the Amphora Diner on Saturday night for dinner and decided to order a meal off of the kid's menu for Brennan. We knew it would be way too much food for him (and honestly, once it came out, I was surprised to see that it would be too much food for me... no wonder why we have a childhood obesity problem in America!), but we wanted to give it a shot, since neither of us was ordering something that would be good to share with him. So, Brennan got the kids Meat Loaf meal. At first, he was eating the small pieces that I cut up for him, but after he got through most of those, he reached onto the plate and grabbed a whole piece of meat loaf and went to town. He ate a really good portion of that meat loaf. I was glad that he also ate some of the broccoli and seemed to really enjoy the cauliflower. What a big boy!



It was so much fun to see him in action with that food. Brian and I were laughing and smiling and Brennan seemed so proud of himself. I think he was excited to have a big boy plate all of his own!

Chillin' With My Buddy

We went to the Storytime at the library with my friend Joanie and her son, Evan. Afterwards, we headed to the Dulles Town Center for some Chick-Fil-A. I saw that they had a kids meal that was just 1 chicken strip, so I decided to get it for Brennan. I broke it into shredded pieces and he ate it like a champ. We first met Joanie and Evan at the Mom Group, when the babies were just over a month old (they are about 2 weeks apart in age.) It's so fun to see the boys getting older. Evan is crawling now and he was showing Brennan how that works during storytime :)

Later in the afternoon, the sun wasn't exactly out, but it wasn't raining either, so I pulled a fleece blanket onto the grass so Brennan could get some fresh air. I'm glad I did because today is a total wash-out. He kept putting his teething biscuit in the grass and then picking it back up. We also did a little "walking" in the grass with bare feet, although I didn't get any pictures of that. He wasn't sure at first, but then seemed to like the new texture on his toes.