We have a "Puller Upper"

So, Brody has officially pulled up on furniture and now it seems that is all he wants to do. He has been crawling like crazy, and is actually a pretty fast little bugger! This morning, after his morning nap (or lack of a morning nap) we went in there to find him standing in his crib. This afternoon, same thing. The only problem is that once he pulls himself up, I am not sure he knows how to get down! Hopefully, this doesn't start becoming an issue.

He is also cutting his top right front tooth. I heard that these are the most painful, which probably explains why he has been somewhat fussy the last couple of days. Today, we went and got our pictures taken and he was actually really good. Without a good morning nap, I was worried about he he would be and our appointment was right during his lunchtime feeding, but he did awesome! He was extremely cooperative and smiled at the camera. There was a guy at the photo place that couldn't get enough of him. He kept coming by just to get him to smile. Brody was actually sticking his arms out at one point to go with him. He definitely does not have stranger issues. He seems to want to go to anyone! I guess that is a good thing. The pictures turned out great and we bought so many! :) I just have to find a place to put them around the house.

Tonight, after we got home from dinner at my parents, Ted, Ethan, Brody and I were all playing in the living room. It was so nice to have all of us together in one room, playing together. Even Chloe was there too! I wish we could have taken her with us to get our pictures done, but that would have been too much! Maybe one day we will be able to do that.

Other than that, not much else is going on. I am such a reality junky that I bought Tori Spelling's book this weekend and I can't put it down. It is pretty sad, but what can I say?

Hope everyone has a good week!!

Ethan Got his First Deer

Ethan killed his first deer yesterday. Ted and Ethan went up to Ted's hunt club on the Eastern Shore yesterday and he texted me last night and told me that Ethan killed a deer! Ted said it was a doe and since it got dark, they were going to have to look for it today! He said Ethan was so excited but when I talked to him, he was a little upset and I asked him if it was because they couldn't find it and he said yes. I am so happy that he finally got the chance to kill one. I know Ted was proud.

Hopefully, they will be able to find it today. They are going to hunt again today and then head home tonight. Then Ted leaves on Wednesday to go back to Illinois for what he calls a "long weekend!" I prefer to call it a short week! He will be back on Monday. Then, he should be home for a little while, except for his little trips up to his hunt club in Charlottesville. Not a big deal, though!

Update: As I am typing this, Ted just texted me and sent me this picture. I know some of you may not want to see this, but they found Ethan's deer this morning. Here is he posing like a real hunter. He looks so cute!!! I am so happy they were able to find the deer this morning!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We were supposed to go up to Missy's house, which is about 2 hours away, for dinner today but my brother-in-law and my nephew got sick so we decided not to go. Brody has yet to get sick and I definitely don't want him to start now! It was unfortunate because I know that Missy went through a lot to make the day special and unfortunately we weren't there to spend it with her. So, we decided to just got to my parent's house today since they had all the fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner, as they were planning to make a turkey tomorrow for some sandwiches. Dinner was great. I always feel so sick after eating on Thanksgiving because there is so much food. I didn't really have a lot, but still felt like I ate an entire turkey. Thanks Mom and Dad for the food and the company! We enjoyed it.

Ted picked up Ethan tonight and they are planning to go hunting tomorrow and Saturday at Ted's club on the Eastern Shore. Ted had to buy him all new hunting clothes this year since the boy is growing like a weed. I can't believe how fast he is growing up and he looks even more grown up since he got glasses. To me, he looks more like his dad everyday. But, Ethan said he didn't since he didn't have black hair. I wanted to say, "neither does your father. He has more gray than black!" but figured that might be inappropriate. I always like giving Ted a hard time about his hair! :) Anyway, I think the weather is going to be pretty nice so hopefully they will have a good time.

I can't wait for the Brody's top teeth to come in. He is pretty tolerant of it, but there are definitely times that they really seem to bother him. He also took two short naps today so that may have contributed to his fussiness tonight. But, they funny thing about him is that he could be crying one minute, and then once you engage him, he starts smiling and laughing. He has definitely become more clingy, that is for sure. He would be happy if I carried him with me all day long. (Sometimes, I wish I could!) But, he has now mastered crawling, pretty much skipping the whole army crawl, and is also sitting up on his own all the time. Ted and I talked this morning about getting him some foam pads and a corral for my parent's house. That way, he can play on the floor, crawl around and watch TV, which he absolutely loves. He is infatuated with this show called Yo Gabba Gabba! It comes on Noggin and I have to say the show is pretty weird, but he loves it! He just sits there mesmerized by the TV sometime. Atleast the shows on this channel are pretty educational so I don't feel too bad letting him watch it.

This morning, I took the video below of Brody giggling up a storm at Ted. Ted was coming around the side of the bed saying "I'm going to get you!" Brody was looking for him and you can see how excited he was getting. This video makes me laugh out loud everytime I see it. If you are in a bad mood, just watch this. There is something about a baby's laughter that can brighten any day!

Anyway, I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving! If you are going to risk going out with the crowd tomorrow for some shopping, God bless you and good luck! It is going to be crazy! :)

The Culprit for Mr. Fussypants.....

So.....the culprit was the lack of a morning nap and teething...I think. Today, Brody was much better, my Dad said. He was better tonight too....not as fussy. But, he is teething like crazy. His opposite top tooth (the one on the other side of the two front teeth) is just about to break the skin and it looks like the two front teeth are well on their way. I can see some white up there. So, I am pretty sure the teething is bringing out Mr. Fussypants. But...like I said, he was much more like himself today. Ted came home tonight and it was so cute to see Brody when he walked in. His whole face lit up. You can tell he loves his Daddy!! I love to see Brody's reaction with him....and Ted's reaction to Brody. Priceless!

Anyway, I couldn't post the pictures today at work so here are some from this past weekend. We are going to be heading up to my sister's house for Thanksgiving so not sure I will post before then. If I don't, hope everyone has a Happy Turkey Day! :)

Mr. Fussypants

This weekend, Brody was out of sorts. On Saturday, I went and had lunch with my friend Mary and he was really good all day. After lunch, we went to the new Carters store that is in Virginia Beach, which I am so thankful for because I love their clothes. I got Brody some new PJs and will go back for more! :) Anyway, he didn't really get a good afternoon nap, but wasn't too bad on Saturday. Well, yesterday was a completely different story. I had to pick up Ethan yesterday morning and he took a brief cat nap in the car on the way back. I tried to lay him down when we got home, but he wasn't having that. We played for a little bit and then I took him over my parents house, fed him and he just sat there with me for about 30 minutes, watching my parents hang curtains and the TV. We then put him down for an afternoon nap. He slept for a while and would have probably slept longer if I would have let him. Once we got home, he was Mr. fussypants. I was on the floor playing with him and all he wanted to do was come to me and have me hold him. I think he is teething because it looks like the top front teeth are close. He right down last night (a little early too) and seemed to be in a pretty good mood this morning. We will see how today goes for my Dad.

Ted is on his way home. He left last night and drove for a couple hours just to shave off that time from his travels today. Hopefully, he will be home by the time I get home today. I thought he was done traveling after this trip, but I was wrong. He is supposed to go back to Illinois the weekend of December 5th for a long weekend. I will be so glad when hunting season is over (sorry babe!) Yesterday wore me out and I know it is because Brody is not normally like that. He tuckered me out.

I was going to post some pictures I took of him in between the fussiness yesterday, but for some reason, I can't download them here at work (they have really started cracking down on our computer access lately.) I will try and post them later.

My poor baby has some really chapped cheeks. Ever since it got cold here, his cheeks have been irritated. I have been putting stuff on it constantly, but it doesn't seem to be getting better. I think it gets worse too from where is drooling all over himself and when he is sleeping and lays in it. Any suggestions would be great appreciated!

New this week!

This week, Brody has broke another tooth. The next tooth to come in......his tooth on the other side of his two top front teeth. Very strange, but once this comes in, he will have the two top fangs and the two bottom middle teeth. Not sure when the two top front teeth will come in, but I am sure it will be soon!

Also, this week was the first time that he actually got into a sitting position by himself. He has been crawling more....mostly scooting his knees forward, but crawling none the less. But, he has been trying to go from the hands and knees position to the sitting position and actually accomplished it once. He has no problem getting his butt on the ground, but he has a problem bringing his arm up off the floor. Now that he has done that, there is no stopping him. He is all over the place.

I know I haven't posted in a week, but just wanted to provide that brief update. I have to go wash the bottles now that he is asleep and watch 90210. I love that show! I am such a teeny bopper! :)

Hope everyone has a good week!

Week is almost over

Today is Wednesday which means the week is almost over. I went back to work today after being off for the last week. Of course my "vacation" started off a little rough with taking Chloe to the vet, but she seems to be much better now. I have started her back on her regular food and all seems good. I was planning on cleaning the house while I was off but didn't really get to it until yesterday. I took Brody to my parents house so I could just get the cleaning done and really only did the upstairs (except of course for Ted's hunting room....I wasn't about to touch that room!) I cleaned Ethan's room, cleaned out Brody's drawers and packed up his clothes and cleaned our bedroom and all the bathrooms. I only have the kitchen and the downstairs to clean now. It is pretty straight but does need a good dusting and vacuuming. Hopefully, I will be able to do a little at a time. But....I love a clean house. You could eat off our shower floor....it is so nice! :) I also cleaned out my closet and drawers and ended up donating about 7 bags of clothes! It was a nice feeling to unload all of that. I did find some jewels, but for the most part, there were clothes I found that I didn't even remember I had. I figured if I didn't miss them, they could go. Plus, I am a bit smaller now than I was before I got pregnant with Brody (and still aiming to lose more) so some clothes didn't fit. That was a great feeling to get rid of those!

Ted is in Ohio now and he unfortunately hasn't killed a deer yet. I know he is pretty bummed but hopefully, for his sake, he will kill one by the end of the week. It seems like every time Ted is out of town, something happens. First it was Chloe last week. Then last night, when I went to go pick up Brody from my parents house, I ate dinner with them and was getting ready to leave when I realized I locked the keys in the truck! In addition, I locked the house keys and my cell phone in the truck. I called Ted and of course, he had the other set of keys with him in Ohio so that didn't help! After attempting to call a bunch of locksmiths (no one was answering), I called the policy non-emergency line hoping they could help. The woman said that if no one was locked in the car or the car wasn't running, unfortunately they couldn't help me. My across the street neighbor is a cop and I called my next door neighbor to see if he was home. (I have their number in my phone, but of course, it was locked in the truck). She said he was working and called him on his cell. He was in the neighborhood and graciously came over to help. He had a slim jim with him, but that didn't work, so he called a few other cop friends of his to see if they had a kit with them. This kit has a little blow up thing that you stick on the door so you can then use a long rod to try and unlock it from the inside. So, two other cops were in the area and came over and helped. I am sure my parents neighbors were looking outside wondering what was going on! They were able to get it unlocked and I was so grateful! I told my neighbor I owe him big since he saved me about $100. It is nice to have great friends like that. He has gotten me out of some other jams when Ted has been gone so I am eternally grateful for him! Needless to say, I gave my parents our valet key. I still can't believe I did that! Oh well! I will be sure never to do that again!

Other than that, not much else is going on. I have posted a few pictures of Brody from this weekend! Chloe actually let him get near her and play with her. Typically, when he gets near her, she gets up and walks away. I think she remembers what is was like when my niece and nephew were little. She was so "abused" by them....always pulling on her ears and yanking her tail. She has also been a good sport with kids so I don't have any worries with her but she has kind of become grumpy in her old age!!!


Below is a video that I took of Brody crawling. That day, he was all about "da-da!"

It's Official.....We have a Crawler!

Yesterday, we had Brody on the floor and we were playing with him. He is constantly on his hands and knees but for the most part, just rocks back and forth. He does throw himself forward sometimes, but he moved his hands and knees and crawled forward, with his belly off the floor, a few times! Ted and I were both excited. Ted was excited that he actually saw it before he left for his hunting trip this morning! We were talking about how funny it is that we can't wait to see him crawl, and once he starts that, we are going to wish that he would just stay still! He also drank out of the sippy cup for the first time yesterday all by himself! We went to dinner last night with my parents and I offered him the sippy cup. He grabbed hot handles and put it up to his mouth and drank from it! I can't believe how fast he is growing!

I tried to get the crawling on video, but of course, it didn't happen. I am going to try and get in on video soon!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I will try and post some pictures later!

Chloe Update

So, I took Chloe to the vet today. Last night was horrible. She started throwing up and didn't stop for about 3 hours. I let her outside, she would drink some water and then immediately throw up. Then, she would do it again. Finally, when I thought she was done, I brought her upstairs in our room and she just continued to throw up and at one point, was just dry heaving. Then she started throwing up blood. I completely freaked out. After that, she ended up falling asleep so I figured she was done. When she got up this morning, she went outside and I saw what might have caused her problem. This is probably TMI but she pooped out this long thing. I ended up taking it to the vet with me because I wasn't about to examine it and figure out what it was. Well.....it was a rope! Somehow she ate a piece of rope, which was about 1.5 feet long!!! Can you believe it? I couldn't! She must have gotten it from something outside because we don't have rope just laying around our house!

Her vet said that she was extremely dehydrated so they injected her with some fluid. They also gave me some prescription food to give her for the next couple of days. She said she should start to feel better in a couple of days. Thank goodness it wasn't anything more serious! I still can't believe she ate a piece of rope and it caused all those problems! But, atleast it is out. I guess at 9 1/2 years old, she still hasn't grown up!

Well...just wanted to provide a Chloe update. I will try and blog more later!

Blog Slacker

I am such a blog slacker! I haven't really had much time to blog in the last couple of weeks and hate that. I used to try and blog atleast every other day, but lately, I have been lucky to blog once a week. My big project at work is going out the door tomorrow and I am off starting on Wednesday for a week. I am really excited! I was planning on doing a major cleaning of the house while I was off, but I am not sure how much I am actually going to get done. Ted gets home Wednesday night and I was planning on cleaning during the day, but I had to schedule Chloe a vet appointment.

She has been having some issues that started last week and I am not sure what is causing it. She got sick Friday night and last Wednesday, she got me up in the middle of the night twice to go out to the bathroom. She NEVER does that! Also, yesterday, while Tab and I were shopping, she got out of the gate and pooped in the house twice. She NEVER EVER does that! I can tell something is really going on with her. It has me really worried because she has the lumps on her body that I took her to the vet for a couple of years ago and they seem to have gotten bigger since then. I had decided that I didn't want to take her to the vet for them again because I didn't want to find out the worse case scenario as long as she was eating, drinking, playing and going to the bathroom like normal. Well....since she has this issue, I am officially concerned. Hopefully, it is just a bug, but we should find out something on Wednesday. My poor baby. She is going to be 10 next year and I will be devastated if this is something more than just your run of the mill virus! Here she is giving my momma some lovin'.....

On another note, we didn't have as many trick or treaters this year as we did last year. I bough a good amount of candy and started giving away huge handfuls just to get rid of the candy. Of course, I saved the bag of starburst I had and didn't pass that out! :) I put Brody in his costume and took him to my neighbor's house for a little bit. He was only in it for about 30 minutes, but didn't seem to mind. The costume is definitely going to get retired as we were struggling to put him in it, but it still worked. If it had been another month, I am not sure he would have fit into it.

The black thing he has is turkey call. If you shake it, it makes the sound of a turkey gobbling. All he wanted to do was stick it in his mouth, of course!

He has started talking more and more. Everytime we are in the car, it sounds like he is having a conversation in the back seat, just talking away to himself. It is really cute. He also does it when he is in the crib either before or after he wakes up. I tried to get it on video, but he must have known because he stopped making noise as soon as I turned the camera on. I will catch him doing it one day. He also started to do the army crawl. He has pretty much relied on rolling to get where he wants to go, but my Dad said that he crawled today to reach his pacifier. He has been rocking alot, back and forth, on all fours, so I knew this day would come.

I was worried about how daylight savings time was going to affect him and the answer is......none! Sunday morning he woke up around 6:30 am and he struggled with his morning nap, but other than that, he is pretty much back on his regular schedule. I put him down a little earlier than normal last night since he was getting tired, but tonight it was back to his normal bed time of 8:00 pm.

Well, this is a pish posh of thoughts I have going on here, but once I started typing, I just kept going. Today is Christy's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS! :) I hope it was a good one. (I ended up getting not just one stamp from Mom and Dad, but 4 so I put your card in the mail today! You should get it either tomorrow or Wednesday! Sorry it wasn't there today!)

Anyway, I am off to watch some Dancing with the Stars before I go to bed. I am going to try and get up early and vote before work. I absolutely have to vote this year because this will be the first year that Ted and I don't cancel each other out. No, we are not voting for the same person.....that will never happen in our lifetime! He just can't vote! He registered for his absentee ballot since he isn't here but it never came! Oh well! Better luck next election! :)

Have a good night and a great week! :)