Dobbs Bar for Clubfoot

We recently got Finley a new brace for his clubfoot that he sleeps in--he had busted his old one from being so wiggly in his crib.  He was out of his brace for about a month before we finally got the new one, so he wasn't too thrilled to wear them again.

However, he was SO excited when we got them--he immediately dubbed them his "wiggly shoes."  These are a little more comfortable because the shoes pivot on the bar--so he can move around a little easier when he sleeps.

The left one is still curved the wrong direction to help his foot be straight.  Every time we see the doctor they say he's making great progress.  I think ideally they want them to wear the brace until they are SIX, we'll see how long we make it...

And here's a little clip of him moving around in them.  I just realized the gibberish he's babbling is from a book about gorillas... he really likes that book.

Crazy Haired Grouch

We're staying at the Four Seasons in Georgetown this weekend (she said like it's a totally normal thing that happens all the time) and posting has been light this week... so I thought I'd end your Friday on a happy note.

These pictures don't really have an accompanying story--one day Braden woke up with crazy hair and a tude.

He made disgruntled faces at me.

And I just kept snapping.



Goober.

Happy weekend!

Best Buds

Braden and Finley are getting to the point where they can do more and more things together--and it's so fun to watch!  We moved them into a room together this weekend--and it's going pretty well so far.  I'll be blogging about that in a few days when we are a little more out of the woods.  But one of the cutest things they do together--bath time!





Seriously, they are a hoot together.  Other cute moments from bath time... squeaky clean Braden cuddling with his dad. (Finley was making us all wear medals from marathons, hence Sol's awesome outfit.)

Braden kind of likes to stick his face in the water--until his face is actually in the water.  He's a bit dazed from the dip.

Too cute.

BOYS

After Finley's bath (and unfortunately before we sneaked his pajamas on his skinny body) he grabbed my tripod and was playing with it.  I was holding Braden and only half paying attention to him when I realized he was yelling at me, "MAMA!  FALL DOWN!"

I asked him why I needed to fall down and his answer made me laugh--and then a little sad.  "I make you red, mama.  You fall down."  And I realized he was SHOOTING ME.  With my tripod.

He proceeded to lug the tripod around and shoot Sol and "make him red" and demand that he fall down too.  Sol and I can not figure out where he possibly could have seen people being shot, bleeding and falling down.  It makes me a little sad that he's been exposed to this scary stuff without me knowing it (likely in our own house!) but happy that he doesn't seem to have any understanding of what is happening.

Look at that form!  Sol thinks he looks like the little Indian shooting the bow and arrow on the Tootsie Pop wrapper.  Unfortunately, I think there's a lot more play shooting in my future... I think that's what happens when you have boys.  Oh dear.

Brady from the Block

It's been not the funnest (I know that's not a word) time around here... we're battling our first stomach bug.  So far Finley is the only victim, but I'm guessing the rest of us may follow.  Yikes.  Sidenote:  if your child keeps throwing up, don't feed him avocado.  And when he makes pukey noises and then wants you to hold him--you should probably point him towards a trash can.  Lesson learned.

Last week was a happier week--it was warm enough to go to the park!  Finley thinks the park is the best--I have a hard time taking him running because he always thinks we are going to the park.

Braden was less thrilled about the park.  But he was a trooper.

Braden was mostly excited that he was dressed in his cool kid outfit.  So excited that he made some sweet faces for me when we got back.

I can't help myself--when Braden wears this outfit I sing "Jenny from the Block." I just can't stop.  And unfortunately Finley really liked it.  So I had to teach him the chorus.

Whoops.  (He's kind of quiet, so you have to listen closely.)

Marathons and a Snowman

Well, I haven't been updating on the marathon training--not because I haven't been training, but because the marathon part is, sadly, not going to work out.  It turns out there's a decent chance Sol is going to be extensively travelling February through April, which would make it near impossible to train.  And the charity I was running for raised their amount to $5000.  I wasn't comfortable committing myself to raising $5000 for a race that I may not be able train for, or even attend--so I sadly decided not to go for it this year.

Sad face.

I'm still running as much as I can and if turns out Sol is in town, I'll pick something else to run in the spring.

So there's that.

And here are some pictures of Finley with his snowman.  It's been pretty warm and I'm not sure we'll get much more snow (knock on word) so Sol and Finley took advantage of the inch of accumulation to build this little guy.

This brought about many questions from Finley, "Where did the snow go? Is it snowing?  Is it snowing now?  It's snowing, mama?"  We're still figuring out snow.

9 Months

You know the phrase, "smile glued to his face?"  Sometimes I really feel like Braden has a smile glued to his face.  I'll look at him and he'll be grinning at me and then I'll eat some chips and look back--and he's still grinning at me.  Goofy boy.

Well Braden's best new trick is scooting a bit.  Finally right?  He's only three and a half months behind Finley... just kidding.  I'm a little nervous about our days now that the area Braden can reach is slowly expanding.  Finley often says, "No Braden! You might hurt yourself! That's not for you, Braden!" as he takes Braden's toys.  Apparently everything might hurt Braden.

Braden has his two top and two bottom teeth and likes to sharpen them while he's nursing... we're working on that.  He still nurses about 5 times a day and is about 50-50 on sleeping through the night.  Between new teeth and the holidays his schedule took a beating.  He goes to bed around 7:30 and normally sleeps until 8:30--although he's been known to doze past 10!  We're down to two naps, about an hour in the morning and two hours in the afternoon.  He's a great eater--he loves blueberries and yogurt but will try anything we put in front of him.  We're loving the freedom that comes with baby led weaning!

Nine Month Stats:
Height: 29.5 in (85%)
Weight: 18 lbs 4 oz (15%)
Head: 18 in (60%)

Much like his big bro, his weight gain has plateaued. (At this age, Finley was an inch shorter and gained 10 ounces more!) He's gained about a half a pound in the past 6 months.  He eats well and after comparing his growth to Finley's, the doctor wasn't concerned.  It makes me feel MUCH better about Finley--I felt so bad about him not eating when I was working and it looks like I just have boys who stop gaining weight around 5 months.

Aside from clapping his hands and saying da-da on command, he also has a trick we like to call "crazy head" that I'm trying to get a video of because it is fun-ny.  He's also whistled four times.  Accidentally, but still.  That's four more times than I've whistled.

(This is Braden's "Brady from the block" outfit that he is borrowing from Edmund.  Work it B!)

Finley continues to be a hoot.  He's just hilarious to have a conversation with and remembers so much.  I'm gearing up for planning some birthday parties... I can't believe I'm only three months from having a one and three year old.  This is crazy stuff.

Lil Clapper

Ugh.  I think they grow up even faster the second time around.  I mean, isn't Braden still a little bitty baby? I'm fairly sure he is.

I didn't realize we were to the stage where Braden could follow simple directions--but sure enough, he loves to clap his hands when you tell him too.  It's so funny.  He works so hard and is just so pleased with himself.

A round of applause for Braden!

AND...  two exciting pieces of news today! One, we have a guest post up on I Can Teach My Child about party planning.  And, if you head over to Heartsy (it's like Groupon for Etsy) you can get a great deal on our shop!  We're so excited to be featured and be able to offer this great deal to... well, to the world.  Head over now!

Tired Braden

This is the thing.



Braden really doesn't have a very good poker face.  When he's tired, he just lays his little curly head down on the floor. And sometimes he's a little sad.  It goes one of two ways.  He other gets super sweet and cuddly--or he gets super mad and back archy.



Braden sucks his thumb a lot, when he's tired, when he's happy and whenever he feels like it.  But you know he's really tired when the thumb sucking is accompanied by grabbing his other arm.  He really likes to have both arms by his face when he's tired or nursing.  It's so cute.



I just can't get over how much of his own little person he's becoming.  We adore him.

DIY Felt Advent Calendar

Well, I make 22 out of 25 of the ornaments for the Advent Calendar.  I'm actually extremely proud of that.

Do you see the Polar Express?  That was a Christmas favorite around here.  And do you like the star that looks like a starfish?  Oh well.

Pin It

So I need to make 3 more in the next 340 days... or so.  I think I can manage that.  Finley should understand more about Christmas, so I can replace some of these with ones from the Jesse Tree so we can focus on that story.  My original goal was to make nativity themed ones and steer away from commercial Christmas stuff... but I just really wasn't creative enough.

This may have been my least favorite part.  I did NOT like making all these numbers.  Except that I made them while I watched New Girl, so they make visions of Zooey Deschanel dance through my head.

You can see my favorite ornament from this angle--Joseph and his rad beard!  Awesome, right?

And here is the tree, naked, with just it's little buttons.  Waiting for next year when we get to celebrate Jesus all over again.  Don't worry, I'll remind you about this next November so you can get started early making yours.  It's totally worth it.  You know, if you don't mind your hands being cramped up for weeks.  

Christmas 2011

We were super lucky this year--for Christmas we didn't have to travel anywhere!  Sol's family came to us.  And even better, some friends in town let half of the crew crash at their house so we would have plenty of space.  

I didn't take any pictures of Finley and Braden opening presents, which I'm pretty sure is breaking the cardinal rule of the holidays.  Yikes.  Our families were very good abiding by our "don't buy our kids lots of huge toys" rule.  They got a modest amount of small awesome goodies.  We were really excited with the non-overwhelming amount of gifts for them. Thanks family!  We got Finley a backpack and camera--and boy does he love packing that bag and taking pictures of everything.

To help Finley remember everyone's names, I made sure to take a picture of him with all the family members that I am going to print and put in a book for him.  This is Aunt Lili and Mr. James--or Aunt Coconut and Jellybean, as Finley calls them.  Don't ask.

Here's the little guy with Aunt Maya, or Aunt Marshmallow.  It's really cute to listen to him try to say Marshmallow.  That's a lot of consonants.

And both boys with Grandma and Grandpa.  They don't have fancy names, sorry guys.  I love this picture!

We had a great Christmas--even though it was unseasonably warm and we were missing Aunt Summer.  I got to run lots, the boys and Copper got more attention than they could ever imagine and we ate lots of delicious (dairy-egg-corn-soy-gluten-free) food.  And I ate a million cookies.  We're so lucky to have family that loves us and that we love.

2011 in One Picture

I'm trying to be a cool kid like all the other bloggers and write a 2011 wrap up--and I'm really struggling.  because I realized I never wrote about Braden's birth.  There's a whole bunch of pictures from the beach that never got posted.  I really need to make my Blurb book.  I just got Lightroom and don't really understand how to use it or where my Mac has hidden my photos.  I've been meaning to print pictures from MPix for months.  How do you wrap up a year when there are so many other things to wrap up?  I'm really not sure, but I do know that I want to sing "Seasons of Love" from Rent right about now.

I think there is one picture, and one picture only, that sums up 2011.



BAM! We'll always remember 2011 as the year that Copper got a ridiculous hair cut.

Poor doggy.  Copper's hair all grown back--in fact he has strangely long toe hairs these days. This picture is one of my favorites--in spite of the fact that I think it's actually a terrible picture. (It's a little blurry and the white balance is beyond repair.) I love it because of all the people who commented, emailed, and mentioned it to me in person that they thought the picture was hilarious.  It is hilarious.  Nine times out of ten when we see someone that we haven't seen in awhile, this is what they mention.  And unfortunately, the same thing happens to Victoria.  People love this picture.

It makes me grateful that people give me a few minutes of their day to stop in and see what we are up to.  Although sometimes blogging seems like a chore, looking back at the end of the year I'm so grateful that I took a few minutes (or sometimes hours) out of my day to record what has happened with us.  I love that I have little memories stored up from the past that I would otherwise forget.  And I love that it's a quick way for our friends and family to check in on us.

What I like a little less is that I have all these friends and family reading about our lives, and I sometimes don't know that they are checking in or what is happening with them.  If you care enough to read about us, I probably care enough to read about you!  I love hearing feedback about what I write here, whether it's in person, on Facebook, through email or as a blog comment.  It's just good to know who is out there.  And based on the feedback from the Great Copper Shaving, there are quite a few people reading.

To kick off 2012, I have two blogging resolutions.  One for me, and one for you.

For me: Keep blogging and make my stinking Blurb book, even though it takes like a zillion hours.

And for you:  Let's make this two sided.  YOU need to start a blog.  I promise, you will NEVER be sad that you took the time to write down your memories.  I only wish I had started blogging sooner.  I promise to read your blog faithfully.  Even if it's about something that you think is totally boring, I won't think it's boring.  I think everything is exciting.  You really should blog.

2011 has been a good year.  It brought us Braden and a hairless dog.  We really couldn't ask for more.  And as for 2012, we're ready.  I'm looking forward to just being a little bit better.  A better mama, a better wife.  A better follower of Christ and a better me.  No huge sweeping resolutions, just a little bit better.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our very photogenic family.