32 months and 15 weeks

Time is flying as usual as Briana turned 15 weeks old this week and Brody will be 32 months old tomorrow! We have been busy around our house getting ready for the holidays and I am happy to say about 70% of our Christmas shopping is done (and wrapped :). I like to get it done early but now with two kids we have had to do things gradually this year so over the past two months I have managed to get a good chunk of it done, a little at a time. I normally have my Christmas tree up by now too but with an infant this year it hasn't happened yet. We hope to get it done this weekend, along with our outside decorations.

Briana is doing new things everyday, but I have to say my favorite things are watching her smile and hearing her coo. She will smile with her pacifier or bottle in her mouth and it just melts your heart. She is so happy for a lot of the day which is so wonderful. In the mornings she is always all smiles and so happy to see us. Everything is finding it's way to her mouth these days so I am not sure if teething is on the horizon or if she just likes to put thing in her mouth. I have started giving her rattles and teething toys to play with and she will grasp them but hasn't quite figured out they will go to her mouth. She likes to watch her brother dance and last night when she was watching him she was cracking up, so cute!! We had a very difficult time with her eating when she had the bronchial virus but within the last week she has really taken off and is now up to 6 ounces. The only time she is fussy is at night and it is usually because she is hungry or tired. She likes to be home and were it is quiet. I am a little nervous for Thanksgiving next week as it will throw her completely off her normal routine which may make her fussy but we will just hope for the best!

Brody continues to amaze us everyday. I have been observing him in his individual play lately and we really do have one amazing kid! I try to sneak around the corner so he doesn't know that I have left the room and that I am watching him. This week I observed him pointing to his alphabet chart, naming each letter, the sound it makes, and an object that goes with that letter (not bad for two and a half!) I have been talking with some of my Mommy friends, even some who are or were teachers, and they cannot believe Brody's recognition skills at this young age. And thinking back, he has been able to recognize almost all his letters since he turned two. He is forming a variety of sentences and even though some people may not understand what he is trying to say we are definitely figuring out what he calls certain things. Today I was getting him dressed and when I took his sweatshirt out of the closet he said "Man, that's cute!" I thought that was so funny! And I know that I say that about certain things so just goes to show how much he really does pick up. He repeats things we say all the time, it's funny to hear it in his little voice. We have moves some of his outdoor toys (bike, car, etc) into the basement for the winter so he can ride them on the tile when it is too cold to go outside which he is really loving at the moment. He is very into playing pretend with food and I enjoy playing with him and letting him "feed" me. He will say "Mmmm, that's good." He will call each food by it's name and say "Mmmm, grapes" or "Mmmmm, apples." It is so fun (and funny) to pretend with him!

This weekend we were lucky enough to have my good friend Michelle take some family photos of us in our holiday outfits. She has not had much practice taking pictures of people so she had asked me if we would be willing to have some pictures done and I said of course! She showed me a few so far and she did a really great job! I decided I would have her do our Christmas pictures instead of going to JCPenny's as we usually do because Brody is at the age where he will absolutely not cooperate for pictures. I know it is just the age but I am hoping that by his birthday he will be a little better but we will see. I have come to realize that sometimes the candid ones are the best and that is definitely what Michelle captured! I am so happy she did them for us!

I am including some Halloween pictures in this post because I forgot I switched memory cards and had some on the old card. Here are a few sneak peeks at our holiday pictures too, more to come when I get the CD!