Happy Bday Little Fella!

So yes, we did get Bryson's birthday celebration in, before we started into Thanksgiving festivities ...

Bryson Arno is One!

So, no party yet, but here's a blog to commemorate the milestone! Our little guy is finally mobile - about 2 weeks ago he went from slightly mobile to finally "crawling" for real and now he's up the stairs every chance he gets, all over the house, standing, sitting, furniture walking, and having a ball. I must say the cuteness factor goes up enormously when they hit this stage - I love to just sit and watch and giggle! He's probably still around 28# - we go for our check up next week - and he's wearing 18-24 mos. clothes. His first word was "up" (prompted by the elevator at our condo building in Florida in October) but now he also says Dada. Mama, Bye-bye, and sometimes All done. To say he loves music is really a bit of an understatement. He showed promise early on of being a good sleeper, but so far that hasn't really panned out. Here are a few pics of him over the past few weeks ... maybe I'll include Florida here or maybe another blog or maybe I'll just skip it ... hard to keep up! I do have my Shutterfly account up to date for those who follow it - if you'd like the address let me know.

Video to tickle your funny bone

So this video completely cracked me up!  The things an almost-4 year old will think of. Melisa, the candy comment came from our brief stop-over on Halloween eve. No solid explanation for the prego segment!Another post soon since little man turns 1 in 2 days!  Hopefully he's recovered by then - he has croup/goop/yuck and he generously shared it with me.  Bah humbug on winter sickies!  I'm off to rest while 2 kiddos are napping...

10 months plus a few days

Events in reverse order:  Bryson turns 10 mos, long weekend in CA, Husky game vs E Wa

 Notice a theme?  Chew, chew, chew!

 At Fairyland in Oakland- Miss Tiggywinkle, one of our favorite B Potter books.

 Barneys on College Ave with Aunt Mary- mmm!

 Is anyone watching?

 Stop thief!

 Toriana's game highlight - we 3 descended a thousand stairs to see Harry (then ascended said stairs again... I'm outta shape that's for certain!)

Toriana's first french braids!
More text later if time!  Happy fall...

Videos of some sweet munchkins ...

And here's a funny little one from the park last week with T and her friends:

Nine months - wow, I'm blogging on time?!

Happy 9 month birthday, Bryson Arno!  Today I figured out why he's so "slight".  The packaging on our Baby Mum Mums says "Rice rusks have been fed to babies in the Orient for centuries.  Now available in North America."  Yep, we've been letting him snack on those, so now we know. Ha - it'll be interesting to see what Dr. Bratt says next week when we go for our official visit, but unofficially my arm and back say this is one heavy dude.  He's "this close" to crawling, but not quite there yet.  And he loves to sit an explore things - he spent 20 minutes examining a Fisher Price airplane today (one that captured his sister's attention for maybe 20 seconds at this age!).  He enjoys people-watching and is usually willing to dole out a few grins.  5 teeth and more apparently on the way, given the large quantities of drool and tendency to chew on anything that fits in his hand/mouth.  Here he is, the day after his 9 mo. birthday, looking dashing in his stickered onesie:  (Amy B, these have been so fun that when babysteals.com put the 13-24 series online today, I couldn't resist...!)

3 "AND A HALF!"

This one's for you, Janelle!  =)  Thanks for B's cute book!

So yesterday, Nana said to Toriana "I heard you went to the zoo with another little girl your age."

T's response: "No Nana.  She was THREE.  I'm THREE AND A HALF now."

7, 8 oh dear, let's post before 9 ... months!

Yep, life is moving along at a speedy clip and quiet moments for reflection and blog posting seem to be few and far between.  Bryson checked in at 8 months last Friday ... 25# with 3 teeth and a 4th one about to burst through.  Toriana turned 3.5 the same day ... 35# and bursting with personality.  It's fun to see them starting to play together a little bit (I know you told me, Tawn, that this would start happening around 8 months - it seemed so far off, but alas, here we are already!)  Toriana is really proud that she's been allowed to feed Bryson from a spoon a few times - she hasn't gagged him, although it's a wonder since she doesn't quite understand the art of keeping the spoon towards the front of his mouth!  Bryson's enjoying a bit of solid food if the rest of the family is eating, but he's still a poster child for breast fed babies not being undernourished.

A quick run down of our "summer" (in quotes since it's a calendar-dictated summer, not a weather-dictated one) ... Mem Day weekend in PDX with Scott, Kristin, Jakob and puppy Hana ... Chelan for convention but home on Sat. b/c Toriana was super sick starting in the night Friday.  Gina B - I mean W - visited for a few wonderful days and then we headed to Oroville for a week.  Had a great time with Gma, Gpa, Great Gpa, and also KS visitors Rob, Ruth, Megan and Macy ... but didn't find any warm sun as we'd hoped.  Came home and welcomed my cousin Sally from FL - her first visit to the NW and she loved our cool overcast weather compared to the extreme heat of Pensacola - and the sun shone enough for her to see Mt Rainier at least.  She left on Mon. night and my parents arrived on Tuesday and stayed for 9 days ... We were a family of 4 for a little over a week and then Trev headed off to San Fran for a conference.  Single momhood of 2 is for the birds and I certainly look forward to his return tomorrow!

And so, there is a nice little record for me to reflect upon at some future time when I am trying to recall just when and what and who and how!  Meanwhile, what you've all been waiting for...  pictures!  I especially love the one where Lydia was holding Bryson at her insistent request ... a lap full and more!

 Ok, apparently the video isn't working so I'll try a separate post - don't want to risk losing this one!  Send a note if for some reason you desire to see more pics as this is just a sampling of the last 3 months and it's hard to pick which ones to post!  Happy July/August!