Our First Family Christmas!

Random snap shots from Christmas in Maryland!

Brody and Grandfather JohnBrody knows exactly what to do with the present...put it in his mouth!

Seriously, is this present for me!?

He's tired of smiling for the camera at this point!!

Brody was LOVING Rosie...he was climbing all over her and she just laid there. Is there going to be a golden in our future?!?!

Bennett Ward girls with their fun headbands from Santa!

Brody's first stocking!

Not the best picture of the family but it is our "first Christmas" so it was a must to post!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went to the Bennett-Ward (we sis in laws like to hyphenate!!) household. Dee cooked up quite the meal for the family and we all sat around and visited while the kids played! Wonderful time!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but the Bennett-Ward girls are unbelievably talented, not only are they book smart, they excel in music as well as in arts/crafts. So this year both Mya and Dalai decided to make something special for Brody. Mya made Brody a stocking ornament, she knows how to sew...and Dalai made him a "my first ornament" out of clay. Just talented girls and wonderfully sweet too!

Mya and her stocking Dalai's clay ornament including a pacifier and rattleThe BW family also gave Brody his first set of finger paints! Brody "playing" the piano with DaddyAlia and I Brody and Nana

Brody's First Trip To Maryland

Fun snap shots for Brody's first Christmas week!

Snuggles with Auntie JesseBrody's idea of decorating the treeBrody and NanaWe tried to get a cute picture in a santa hat, not gonna happen! This was the best one!The stockings were hung by the chimney with care! Brody with Gma Judy's dog, Rudy

Merry Christmas

We had the pleasure of spending Brody's first Christmas in Maryland with the Ward clan. My mom and Wayne also joined in on the festivities as well. We had quite the flight getting there, on Tuesday door to door we spent 12 hours due to several long flight delays...on the return (Saturday) it took us 9, again flight delays all due to the bad snow storm! Anyway, it was a spectacular event! I'm going to break out the trip as I have so many pictures that I wanted to post! So here we go:

These photos were from our dinner party at Dr Mike (Jason's college roommate) and Sara's house. We had a wonderful mean prepared by Sara and this was the start of a complete and total pig fest by yours truly...(anyway that's beside the point)! Jason's brother Jack and family also joined in on the fun. Brody got all sorts of attention from the adults and the kids alike! Mike and Sara have 3 boys of their own, so Sara is well versed on boy behavior!

Happy Brody!Brody with Auntie DeeAaron, Ethan, Brody, Sara, Jordan and Rosie.Doc Mike, Jason, Jack and Brody

Say Cheese!

This picture makes me chuckle...Brody has all sorts of new facial expressions and I was able to capture this one at the airport in Milwaukee as we waited...and waited...and waited for our flight to Maryland! You can see his little toooffers!!!

Chooo, Choooo!

Grandpa Ed and Grandma Ellen wanted to get Brody a gift this Christmas that he could use for many years to come so they got him the Imaginarium Train Set (per Shannon's recommendation as her boys favorite toy). Once he gets bigger he's going to just love it, Jason has the daunting task of putting it together...100's of little pieces...but I'm certain it will be a challenge he will enjoy (or at least that's what i'm telling him!!) Will miss spending our first Christmas in Nebraska but we'll be there in spirit!

Dinner with the Osendorf's

We always love to see our dear friends...now that Brody and Landon are getting bigger it's fun to see them interact. JRo and I always laugh and tell them they will be forced to be best buds if we have anything to do with it! We also love having Logan over, he's the best mannered kid and is a lot of fun, best part is he's good at entertaining the boys so we adults and chat! Brody is a lucky little boy as the Os fam brought him a race track with a bunch of cars and a fun puzzle that makes animal sounds! Great to see them as always!

The Boys, Logan, Brody and LandonGiddy Up! Logan was loving the hobby horse.Brody opening gifts with the help of Landon.

Special Delivery

Last week Brody received a very special gift in the mail from his Aunt Amy, Uncle Jeremy and cousins, Kaede and Darcy. Brody hasn't been able to meet the California Ward's yet but we are hopeful to make a trip to San Diego in late spring/early summer. He "taste tested each gift" and all were approved! THANK YOU A TON GUYS, WE REALLY APPRECIATED THE FUN GIFTS!

Night light (perhaps he could learn to use this in the middle of the night to find his own binky rather than crying for help...ummm just a thought!!)See Robin the back ground there, I tried getting one of him on it but you see how successful that was!Froggie Bubble Blower...as if we needed another reason to stay in the tub longer! So much fun!Shaper Shorter. What he likes most about these (aside from putting them in his mouth) is dumping the bucket and refilling

10 1/2 Months

Have I mentioned lately how much fun we are having with Brody. He's the apple of our eye and we are so thankful to have him. He makes us laugh all the time with his silly personality and the funny things he does. We are amazed by his continued growth and development and it's really fun to see him interact with toys and how he learns cause and effect. He's also eating a ton of table food, in fact the other day JRo recommended I try cereal bars with him...she said they were a little messy but I didn't think much of it until he had it in hand...Oh My Gosh...messy was right but he LOVED it! He's at the age where he puts everything in his mouth...the other day he was an arms reach away from an early breakfast of cat food as i was loading the car for work and school. Could you imagine!!! He still enjoys cuddles when he's tired and last weekend i was able to capture a picture of Brody and Daddy napping on the couch...priceless! We've put up the gates in the house as he's into everything and often times it pulls up on the gates as if he's a prisoner in his own home!

Crawling!

Clearly if there is something that Brody wants he gets up on all four's to get it otherwise he finds the army crawl to be just fine to get around. More and more he's been crawling on all fours but not consistently...while we were back in Nebraska Grandma Ellen bought Brody a moving ball popper that said it "encouraged crawling"...when we opened the ball popper in NE and every time we'd turn it on he'd cry, now granted he wasn't feeling well when we were home for Thanksgiving but I was surprised by his response to the fun toy. Well, since we've been home, we turn on the ball popper and its one of the only things that gets Brody up on all 4's and actually crawling, no tears or fears. It's pretty funny...the only time he can catch the little popper is if it gets stuck against the wall and then he's thrilled he caught up with it!

HO! HO! HO!

10 Months Old...Sooo BIG!

Well Mr Brody is getting big, very adventurous and quiet fearless at times! As you can see from the pictures below his favorite thing to do right now is stand up and once he's feeling comfortable with that he'll try climbing onto any surface. The two pictures below are from daycare in which he had climbed onto the cylinder mat and then wanted to get onto the exersaucer! He's also learned how to wave, in fact sometimes you even get the two handed wave if he's really excited to see you! He also knows how to clap and likes to move to music. He now has 4 teeth, top and bottom front teeth. He's been eating a lot of what we eat these days and is less interested in baby food, which means we have to be good about meal planning and eating since we have a little mouth to feed!

Each day gets more and more fun. His personality is really coming through and he's a happy little guy...I'm always excited to get home from work to see him...and Jason too!

Clearly he doesn't need any help, he's got it under control!

A ride down the hall at daycare with lots of waves to friends!

Standing up always makes his super happy, he doesn't enjoy sitting much these days!