Update: The owner of Jumpin Jax contacted me after I posted this post and asked if they could put Brody’s video on their web site! You can see it by going to http://www.jumpinjaxbouncearena.com and clicking on ‘Our House.’

He LOVES his new drum set, huh?

Brody had a wonderful Christmas and we come to the realization that this little guy has a ridiculous amount of toys. Planning to head to Meijer to pick up more toy storage bins to hold the new stuff either this afternoon or tomorrow.

We celebrated the Archambeau Family Christmas a couple weeks ago, and the Freeman Family Christmas on Christmas Eve. We spent Christmas Eve Night with Grandma Huth, Aunt Leslie and Cousin Kyle then Christmas Day with Grandpa and Grandma Ness, Uncle Matt, Aunt Missey and Uncle Josh. Brody loved every moment of it!

Brody did however get a 12-hour flu bug Christmas night, so starting at about 1:30 until about 5:00 a.m., Brody and I headed to the bathroom about every 5-10 minutes. He was a trooper, so tired and pale and all he wanted to do was hug his mommy not the toilet. This was my first time having to deal with ‘real’ puke and I got about the same on me than what got into the toilet, so there were many trips to the laundry room and many changes of pajamas, sheets, etc. He ended up falling asleep at 5:00 a.m. and woke up at about 9:00 a.m. downing a sippy cup of water and asking for more. I knew I should have let the water settle a bit before giving him more, but he was so thirsty I gave in and filled his sippy cup again. Five minutes later, he puked water up all over me and the bathroom floor. About a drop made it to the toilet. Definitely a mom-learning lesson for me and next time will be more prepared for moments like these.

After that, he was perfect. Not too hungry so had him have toast, apple sauce and clear fluids that day. Brody and I did however have to miss the big Ness Family Christmas Party. Definitely didn’t want to pass this bug around. Now, Brody is back to normal enjoying all his new toys from Santa, Mommy and Daddy, Grandma Huth, Grandma and Grandpa Ness, Grandpa and Grammy Huth,  Aunt Leslie & Uncle Pat, Aunt Missey and Uncle Josh, Uncle Matt, Great Aunt Debbie and more. (Thanks everyone!).

Brody has two Christmas photo albums this year, one from the Freeman Family Christmas and one from his Holiday Party at daycare. You can check them both out here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/huthandr/Christmas_2009#
http://picasaweb.google.com/huthandr/Christmas_09#

Another Brody First that happened this month….Brody got his first haircut.

We pretty much waited until we couldn’t anymore. His hair was getting so curly and crazy, so after we got his Christmas photos taken, I scheduled an appointment at Steven L. Marvin to get it cut. He did so good. It was only Brody and I so I took his booster chair with me so he could sit in that while I take photos. He was such a good boy. He loved holding the brushes and the ladies getting their hair cut next to him were astounded how good he was doing. His hair stylist was Jessica, and she was awesome. I am pretty sure Brody had a crush on her at the end of it. .

You can see more pictures of his first hair cut here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/huthandr/1stHaircut#

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (or other) and wishing you and yours a Happy New Year!!!!

What are your plans this Wednesday, August 26 at 7:00 p.m.?

How fun would it be to pack up your little one(s) and join us to see Playhouse Disney’s Johnny & the Sprites – FOR FREE!!

We were graciously given these tickets to Disney’s learning-focused show from two of the show’s sponsors, the Michigan Education Savings Program (MESP) and the Michigan Education Trust (MET). VIP parking passes too! What more could you ask for?

Side note: As you may know, I am a big supporter to these 529 programs. I graduated from Michigan State University using the Michigan Education Trust (MET) that my parents paid for when I was young and couldn’t have asked for a better experience. It is our goal to start saving early using one of these programs for Brody.

Here are the details:
Playhouse Disney’s Johnny & the Sprites
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Meadow Brook Music Festival
Rochester Hills, MI

About the show:
Johnny & the Sprites as seen on Playhouse Disney and the Disney Channel welcomes everyone into a beautiful, enchanted world of whimsy where Johnny and his friends, the Sprites: Ginger, Basil, Lily, and Root, sing, have fun and learn valuable life lessons about getting along together, solving problems and respecting the world around them.

If you would like to join in the festivities, just let me know by leaving a comment below or via email at andreaandtim@gmail.com. Since our tickets are limited (10), it will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

In your response just state how many tickets you need for you and your family. If selected, I will follow up with you shortly after on where you can pick up the tickets to the show!! We hope to see you!

Thank you, Brody, for making us better people and showing us a whole new meaning to the word ‘LOVE.’ We are honored to be your parents. We love you baby boy!

I will definitely post more later about this BIG milestone (I of course have something up my sleeve)…but for now we are heading up to Mackinac Island today for the rest of the week on the boat. Hopefully our birthday boy will enjoy his first trip to the island….mommy is already excited about morning stroller walks, bike rides, watching Brody pet the horses and another long beautiful weekend on the boat.

Photos from his photo shoot and birthday party are up in the photo gallery.

Thanks for letting us share.

We are vacationing on the boat from July 1 – July 12 in beautiful Traverse Bay. We do get internet at the marina, but the sun and water are just too pretty for me to be in the cabin on this computer. I will post more once we return, but feel free to check out our pictures in the photos gallery. I posted a few from our first couple of days and will post more soon.

Happy 4th of July to everyone! Brody absolutely loves the boat and the water!

Ever since they released the UltraHD model I have been drooling over it and knew it would be perfect and even easier for me to share Brody-man’s videos with you.

So just took it out of the box, and now getting it all charged up but thought I would share a short clip we took when we turned it on for the first time. As you can see from the pic above, it plugs right into your computer. I will be able to edit them like I did before (didn’t for this small clip) and now I just press the ’share online’ button. Voila, it is posted to YouTube.com in minutes! Love it!!!

We also bought the hdmi hookup, so it also plugs into our 50″ Samsung plasma flat screen. Brody is now super-sized!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

As you all know, it has been a LONG time since my last post. I have been extremely busy at my work and the home weekend schedule is plastered with events that I hardly find time to breathe these days.

So I would like to first apologize to all of you for not keeping you updated in Brody-land, and a second big apology to my amazing daycare provider, Jessica, for my frequent ‘after 5:30 p.m. pickups’ that I notice myself doing a lot lately.

As for Brody, he turned 10-months-old and just an amazing little man. And yes, he is definitely a red-head….or so I have been told ‘a Ginger.’ Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine myself with a red-headed child. I am still getting use to it, but am starting to love that he is unique this way….and guess what is coming next?

Curls! I don’t know for sure, but his hair is growing longer and longer each day, and I swear there are a couple curling up. I am not the only one that noticed. Tim, Brody and I were hanging out in our front yard one weekend while I was watering the flowers, and a family rode by on bikes and the mother said, ‘adorable baby GIRL!’  WHAT?!

Tim and I turned our heads…..looked at Brody up and down. He was wearing a crew shirt and jean overalls. Total boy clothes. Tim said, ‘He’s a boy.’ She politely apologized and said, ‘I didn’t know with those beautiful curls.’ Oh my. I am going to have to wrap my head around all this later.

Not only was he called a girl, but earlier that day Tim, Brody and I went on the Parade of Homes tour. The Parade of Homes is an amazing event where a ton of ’show’ models of homes are open to the public to view. We spent the day that Saturday driving around Okemos, East Lansing, Dewitt, Grand Ledge, etc looking at these beautiful homes to get ideas and look at the different builders in the area. Well, at one of the last homes we visited we started talking with this cute older couple. The lady went on and on about how cute Brody was. Then the gentleman says, “He is definitely a meat and potatoes boy, now isn’t he?” (Side note: Brody is still only 30% in weight, but I think it is the chubby cheeks that are deceiving

So in short, in one day my precious boy was called a “chubby girl.” . Too funny.

Cool things about our little man:

• He is a speed demon crawler. If he knows you are trying to get him, he laughs like crazy and books it to the other side of the room.
• His two bottom teeth are almost fully in. Teeth really make a baby look older.
• He stands up on everything and walks from one side of the room to the other, as long as he has a hand on a wall, couch, etc. Only a matter of time, until he balances all on his own.
• He loves food!!! Real food, not just the pureed stuff. He grabs the pieces of food with his thumb and finger and alternates hands. But beware of giving him a pile of cut up food. He will try to stuff it all in his mouth at one time. Still working on that one.
• He is tall! Last time at the doctor, he was 95% in height, while only 30% in weight and head.
• Bubbly personality. He smiles ALL THE TIME and isn’t shy at all. He is hardly ever sad, and just an all around happy little dude. We feel very fortunate on this one.  

Our recent adventures:

photo courtesy of Dave Oberlin (amazing photographer, and friend

Memorial Day Weekend – We spent a long weekend up in Grand Haven on our boat. This was Brody’s second time on the boat (the first time was when he was one-month old up in Traverse City). Brody was fabulous! He slept like a baby at nights and found many fun things to do during the days. He was especially excited that he got to play with a lot of other babies. Our friends Dave and Angie came with us on their boat with their son Boden. Our friends Mark and Suzy came by the marina with their girl Bailey. We also got to see baby Lauren O’Brien for the first time. She is the baby to our friend Mike and his fiance Tara. Boy how things change in just a couple years.

Brody loved being at the marina, the mornings we walked down the pier with the stroller and through downtown. On Memorial Day, Brody got to see his first parade. Plenty of things to keep him occupied, especially the bands, the boy scouts, and the fire engine.

One crazy episode we encountered is with our black lab Hunter this weekend. While trying to jump from the boat onto the dock, he slipped and only his top half made it. He landed pretty hard on his belly and I did what I could to move his bottom half back onto the dock so he didn’t fall in the water. He didn’t act like he hurt himself, just looked a little scared. I continued to take him to the dog walk area to let him go to the bathroom. Everything seemed fine, until he started urinating PURE BLOOD, then started puking! I freaked out. Tim went out fishing that morning with some buddies on the fire department and with bad service, didn’t answer his phone. I was literally stuck at the marina, by myself, on a boat, with a baby, and a bloody dog. Our truck was at the boat launch hooked to our trailer. And remember, it was Memorial Day weekend…on a Sunday….in Grand Haven. Not the place for emergency care for animals. I was seriously at the point to call every cab service in town and say….by the way do you have a car seat and allow dogs?

I will speed through this. I realized Angie was on her boat, but Dave had the truck at Mike’s over at Spring Lake. He too wasn’t answering his phone. We called Mike’s neighbor Bill who ran down to Mike’s to get Dave to come back with his truck. He came. I called my coworker, Amy, who got me a number to a local vet. They were closed but directed me to a Emergency Vet Clinic in Grand Rapids. They were open. I loaded up Dave’s truck with myself, Brody, blanket and bloody Hunter. Just then, Tim came back and jumped in. We drove to our truck and then off to Grand Rapids. They did a physical and an ultrasound to see if it was internal bleeding. Luckily, he just bruised his bladder and broke a blood vessel. After 24 hours of bleeding, some pain meds, and a heavy dose of pets, love and treats…he is as good as new.

Chili Cook Off – This past Friday, we took Brody to the Board of Water and Light Chili Cook Off. It is a big event downtown Lansing that brings in thousands of people and plenty of Chili from many different restaurants, businesses and organizations. We went down to support the Lansing Fire Department and their award-winning chili and salsa. We didn’t stay for all the awards, but they did take home 1st place that evening for best salsa. They had the engine from Tim’s station down there with the ladder up to throw free stuff to the chili-eaters. When they throw stuff they put on the fire sirens…..AND BRODY FREAKED. Sirens are something that this boy is going to have to get use to down the road . Crossing fingers.

Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays

These past couple months brought baby birthdays galore. Boden turned one in May. Unfortunately Brody caught a nasty bug right smack dab in the middle of the ’swine’ flu scare. He was coughing up a storm, had two ear infections and had a fever. With that, we had to skip Boden’s ‘moose a. moose’ birthday party. Once Brody got better, we went over to visit the big boy for an after celebration. Another one of Brody’s friends, Cameron turned one a couple weeks ago. And this past weekend we spent Saturday at Morgan’s 1st birthday party at Mark and Nicole’s new house in Farmington Hills. Love it! They have the perfect back yard for children and such a wonderful neighborhood.

Next up

We have back to back events going on each weekend in June, so no more boating until July (well besides Tim fishing right now in Grand Haven). The rest of the summer brings weekend trips on the boat, a birthday party for Brody, a couple weeks on the boat for the Cherry Festival in Traverse City, two weddings (& Tim with two bachelor parties , more weekends on the boat, then about 10 days in North Carolina. Whew! Brody better like boating, eh?

Thanks for listening, hope everyone is doing well. More photos are available in the photo gallery.

The whole family (Hunter too) headed over to the new property where Tim has been planting trees like crazy all week. Just incase you haven’t heard, we bought about 3 acres of land in Dimondale, MI a few months ago so we can build a home on it in a couple years. Even though our property is surrounded by beautiful woods and a wildlife habitat, the land we bought was pretty bare with only a few apple trees and some other small trees.

Lucky for us, we were given a lot of beautiful trees by Tim’s uncle Todd (sugar maples, silver maples, crimson maples, crab apples and flowering pears) and pines from our friends Dave and Angie. Tim’s uncle owns Goose Creek Tree farm in Lyons, MI and he also let us use his HUGE tree truck to transplant them on our property.

Besides all the big trees. We also planted about 150 seedlings around the parameter of the property. So once these grow, our property will be surrounded by beautiful pines. I don’t want to take any credit here, when I say “we planted” I mean Tim. I was there in support, and brought lunch and took pictures but that was about it . He has spent countless hours out there and the rest of the family is extemely grateful for all his hard work. Especially when we call this property, our home. But anyway, you wouldn’t want to see me try to operate that big tree machine, I have trouble operating my own ‘Mom-UV’ let alone a monster like that.

After tree planting, and after Tim drove our boat home from out of storage (YES!), we grilled kabobs out on the deck and realized how different it is at our new property in compared to the house we currently live in. Within an hour of being at the new property we had a ton of neighbors just come and visit us just to stop by to say hello. Well, and to admire the big tree truck. We never get that where we are now. It is just a friendly place out in the country. I can’t wait!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

More photos from Saturday are posted in our photo gallery.

 

Brody is 8-months-old now and he is growing like a weed! He has perfected crawling and does so a mile-a-minute. He is also a champ at standing up on everything. It won’t be long until this guy is walking all on his own. Scary to think that it is just around the corner.

This just in: Brody’s first tooth is coming in!

Finally! I don’t know the average age for this, but it seems that all the other tikes got their first tooth around seven months or so. Brody has been drooling for months, but in just the past couple of days, white is shining through his gums. Bring on the bibs and tylenol!

I know I mentioned this before, but just incase I didn’t….I love Brody’s daycare! Jessica Karr and her staff recently took a dental hygiene class and are now incorporating teeth brushing into their lunch hour routine. I can’t wait until Brody gets to participate with the other kids doing this. Now with Brody getting a tooth, it is only a matter of time until he gets to partake in the brushing festivities .

The Easter Excuse!

One thing I love about the holidays is that it gives me an excuse to go get more photos done of Brody. The week after his eight-month birthday we went back to our favorite photo place, Portrait Innovations. Brody again did very well with getting his picture taken and I was delighted that he wasn’t one of those kicking and screaming kids that were right before us . Here are some of the poses we selected:

His complete photo shoot is available in the photo gallery.

All things sucky. All things snuggly. And all things electronic. 

Brody is reaching an age right now where he prefers things over others. It is very interesting to watch and amazing to see that he is becoming a little grown up. Of everything in the house, his three favorite things are: 
pacifiers, blankets and electronics.  

Pacifiers goes without saying, we have a ton all over the house but we have noticed that he prefers only one brand over the others, the Gerber nuk. There would be two different ones in his crib, and he has the other brand in his mouth but as soon as he sees his nuk paci, he immediately switches them out. I am pretty sure it has to do with the shape of them, they are wider and go to the roof of his mouth. But it is very funny to see.

Another thing that I mentioned before are Brody and blankets. It is a ritual that for him to nap, he loves having a pacifier in his mouth and a cuddly blanket surrounding him. 

Last week we recieved a modern zoo baby blanket from babybedding.com (Carousel Designs) as a gift. It is the cutest pattern and Brody can’t keep looking at all the zoo animals! On the flip side is a soft, cuddly fabric that he keeps rubbing up to his face. Very cute to watch and jealous that this doesn’t come in a mommy size. It is much larger (34″ by 43″) than a lot of his baby blankets we bought for him at Target and Babies R’ Us. It also is extremely well-made and I know will hold up through many years of baby handling . We will be bringing this zoo blanket on the boat with us a lot this summer. It is very lightweight so good for the seasons and will be perfect for playtime and nap time!  I will definitely look to Carousel Designs again for any other baby bedding needs we have and ideas for decorating, they have beautiful stuff. If you are a soon-to-be mommy and thinking about nursery themes, go play on their custom crib bedding site and mix and match to your delight. It’s fun!

Is it because he is a boy or what? But Brody no matter what toy he is playing with or how colorful it is as soon as he sees a remote control or cord, he drops everything and quickly crawls to the electronics. You know how much money we could have saved if we knew this was going to happen . He also loves our tuner for our TV and it is a daily routine to stop him multiple times from pressing all the buttons. A couple people mentioned that Fisher Price has a toy remote control, so will definitley look into getting something like this. If you know of any, let me know.

His all time favorite: All things FOOD

Let’s not forget about food. Ever since he was born, Brody has been addicted to his bottles and all things food! For a couple months now, we have been feeding him solid foods and he absolutely loves it. We have been making homemade baby food and it is great to see how much Brody likes eating all the different foods out there. Currently Brody has consumed (in no particular order): rice, oatmeal, barley, apples, sweet peas, green beans, prunes (yuck), sweet potatoes, butternut squash, zucchini, pears, peaches and banana. I will be making more this weekend, maybe something extra special for Easter .

Well I will end this post here. Congrats to the MSU basketball team on a GREAT season and from our family to yours, Happy Easter (& Passover too)!

More photos are available in the photo gallery, feel free to check out both his 7-month and 8-month albums. Both are updated.