9 month checkup

Yesterday, Brody turned 9 months old and had his 9 month check up. His stats are:

Height - 29 inches (75%)

Head - 18 2/8th inches (90%)

Weight - are you ready for this? 25.2 lbs, which means that for the first time ever he is actually on the weight chart. He is in the 96% for his weight, but hey....he is on the weight chart!!!! Christmas came early.

So, his head measurement had me a little worried. At his 6 month appointment, his head was measuring in the 75-80th percentile and this time, he initally measured at the 95th percentile. She said that because their was such a jump, she would see what it measured at his year checkup and then if it continued to increase, she would schedule a CT scan. I asked her what they were looking for and she said that some times the ventricles in the brain can get blocked and it makes the membranes swell, therefore enlarging the head (or something like it.....once she started talking about his brain, I got completely freaked out). I asked her what the treatment for that was and she said surgery. Once she said that, I said "Can you bring the nurse back in and have her re-measure again? I want to make sure we have the right measurement." The nurse, who Brody has had many times before and I absolutely love, appeased me and re-measured his head. The second time, she measured it a tad bit smaller, which brought it down to the 90%. My doctor said not to be too worried about it and we would see what happens at the next appointment. When you say brain, surgery and Brody in the same sentence, my Mommy alarm goes off! I immediately got flustered, but hopefully, it is nothing. To me, his head does not look abnormally large...it actually looks in proportion to the rest of his body. So I guess we will see what happens over the next couple months.

He ended up getting 2 shots yesterday and he was a little fussy yesterday, but that could have easily been a combination of the shots and the fact that his morning nap was cut short because his appointment was at 11:00. Today, he seemed okay, but seemed a little tired and not his usual self. I hope he is not getting sick....he has yet to get sick and I know it is bound to happen at some point. Last week, our weather was pretty screwy, jumping from the 70s to the 40s. That kind of change in weather can screw anyone up.

Today, Missy came into town so we can celebrate Christmas with her this weekend because she is going to her in-laws for Christmas this year. Tab and Kevin came down too. Tab is starting to get a little bump....it is so cute!! It is crazy to think that next year, we will be both be mothers. We always talked about having babies close together. They should be about a year and a few months apart. Pretty exciting! :)

So, here are some cute pictures that I took this week. Brody is on the move....all the time. Crawling, standing, pulling himself up. He actually stood on his own this week for about 5 seconds. I know that pretty soon he will start taking some steps and there will be no stopping him then!

Not sure if I will post again before the holiday so I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!! :)

I love this picture! Brody sure loves his Daddy! :)

It's been a long time....

It has been a long time since I last posted. Where does the time go?

This past weekend, I went up to Tab's so we could finish our Christmas shopping. Whew! What a day. I got up there around 11:00 and we went non-stop until about 8:00 that night. But, the good news is we are all done! :) I spent an obscene amount of money at the Toys R Us for Ethan and Brody and just need to get some stocking stuffers for them this week. Not too bad. I had finished my niece and nephew's presents last week so atleast I didn't have to shop for them. We are going to be celebrating Christmas with Missy this weekend because she is heading to her in-laws for Christmas. Since Christy isn't coming (boo Christy!), it will just be my parents, Ted, Brody and I. We will get Ethan Christmas afternoon but it sure would be nice to have him Christmas morning so we could spend it all together as a family! I told Ted that I don't plan to wrap Brody's presents....we would just put the toys together and let him play with them in the morning. I think my parents are going to spend the night Christmas eve since we normally spend it over their house. It will be nice to wake up at our house Christmas morning for a change.

I still can't believe it is Christmas already. It was 72 degrees today!! Such a nice day. And, I can't believe that Brody will be 9 months on Friday. He has his 9 month checkup on Friday too. Ted is going with us, which will be the first time that he actually meets Brody's pediatrician. He wasn't there when she came to talk to me in the hospital and for most of his appointments, he has been out of town. It will be nice for Daddy to know Brody's doctor. He is definitely on the move. He has started to take steps, of course not on his own, but he is always on the go. He is an extremely fast crawler and is standing up all the time. We have all figured he will be walking by the end of the year by himself. I can't believe my baby is walking!! It is completely amazing to see how much he has changed in just 9 short months.

I am so excited for Tab, who is about 4 months pregnant now, that she can experience all of this starting next year. She goes to the doctor this weekend and will hopefully schedule her next appointment to find out what she is having. When we were shopping this weekend, we were trying to find some clothes for her 2 nieces. The girl clothes they have are so stinking cute! She thinks she is having a girl, but I am not so sure! It would be nice for us to have a little girl in our family, but either way, it will be so exciting to meet this little Grubbs! :)

I meant to post some pictures, but I haven't downloaded them from the camera yet and the camera is in my diaper bag, which happens to be at my parent's house....so no pictures today. Sorry! :) I will try to remember to take the camera home tomorrow so I can post some.

I hope everyone has a good week and if you have more Christmas shopping, good luck! :)

Jail Bird

So, I posted before about how we got my parents a play yard for their house since Brody is now on the move. He is on the go all the time and since he liked it so much at my parents house, I decided to pull ours out and set it up in the middle of the living room. It is such a blessing at this point because he has just enough room to move around like he wants to do ALL the time and he is still contained so I don't have to worry about him getting into anything. He LOVES it in there. He has started to pull up and take steps around the edge of it and I even caught him standing up on his little play table, getting a better look at the TV. He is so cute in there. Here are a couple pictures I took of him playing in it.

Here is the picture of my little daredevil, standing on his little musical table, trying to get a better glimpse of the TV.

This morning, I caught him just laying there watching TV. He loves watching TV...but like I said before, I don't feel so bad because the station he watches is somewhat educational. Each show teaches kids a particular lesson and they tell you the lessons before the show starts. Of course, alot is for children pre-school age, but he is never too young to start learning!

Brody the Stand Man

So, this was the picture I saw when I came around the corner last night into his room, after I made his bottle.....

And a few more.....

He is constantly pulling up on everything! Now, instead of feeding him his bottle and having him fall asleep in my arms, as I put him in the crib, he instantly rolls over, gets on his knees and looks at me as I leave the room after feeding him. Ted said he did that last night too. It is pretty funny. I can't believe he is already old enough to be standing in his crib. I know that I am going to be saying I can't believe his old enough to do this and that over the next couple of years, even decades, but it is true! Just looking at some older pictures of him really shows how much he has changed in just 8 short months!

Today, he decided to go on bottle strike. My dad said he only took half and ounce this morning at breakfast and didn't take hardly anything at lunch. We figured his teeth were bothering him since his two top front teeth are coming in, but he had no problems taking the bottle tonight. I guess he just didn't want the bottle today. Of course, I am constantly offering him the sippy cup, but he would much rather chew on the handles than actually take a drink. He still has a couple months more of the bottle, so it should be interesting.

I hope everyone is having a good week so far! :)

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! :)