Happy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving feast: Hotdogs, soda and apple pie on the beach.

I tried to get Lynette to do a bikini photo shoot, but this is all I got.

This face plant was on purpose... guess she wanted to see what sand tastes like.

Life is good.

Halloween...just in time for Thanksgiving

So I am more than a little slow on this post, but I had to go in chronological order and I was really behind.
For Halloween we got all dressed up and headed over to the church for a Trunk or Treat. Vanessa was so excited she feel asleep in the car and so did Benson :) We actually couldn't wake her up, which has happened maybe twice in her whole life. Jon tried standing her up and she still stayed asleep!


Benson was a black widow.

And Vanessa was Belle

My Two Cuties

These were taken October 28. We spend a lot of time on our bed, ironically. Vanessa usually naps on our bed because it is the one room in the house that is only for sleeping. Her room is also the office and quite used during nap time (such as for blogging, or Jon studying). And after a nap, of course we spend some time on the bed waking up. We also do baths in our bathroom (for some random reason the plug in the other bathroom doesn't work), so after a bath, they both end up on the bed getting diapered. I pulled out the camera this day because the lighting was so perfect. Vanessa was in a super funny mood and kept trying to put my glasses on both herself and Benson. I think the poor kid got poked in the eye. But he is such a trooper with her. I think he's going to have to put up with a lot.

Benson

Vanessa at the pumpkin patch

We have a million more to go through, but here are a few. She is in a camera hate stage. She doesn't like to look at us when we are even holding the camera. We've tried everything, noises, random objects to look at, treats, she's not buying it. But she is really good at the GQ look :) Jon thinks she looks a lot like me in the second picture.

So Behind....

Here are a few pics taken of Benson October 22 and 23. I can't believe this was a month ago. He's already so much chubbier. We'll catch up one of these days. This was about the time he started smiling for real. Maybe a week or two earlier. But this is the first smile we caught on the camera. He smiles and coos like crazy now. We sure do love the little guy.

Thanks for reminding me why I don't want to live in a big city and why I love the church

The day started out great. I took the kids to the park and even went for a run afterwards. I met some new ladies from the Fort Lauderdale ward, who were all very nice. I went to put Benson in his car seat when I realized I had no window. That's right, some jerk bashed in my window and stole my purse.
Now you may remember in April 2009 I had my purse stolen from my shopping cart. I will acknowledge on that account that I was slightly careless. I left my purse like a sitting duck and that is just too tempting for some folk.
This time however, I had learned my lesson. There are signs all over the park, Lock your Car! Don't leave valuables in your car! My feeling was that if I take my purse with me, I might leave it somewhere while chasing down Vanessa or some other unforeseen event so it's safer left in the car. Obviously, we must hide it in the car though. So hide it I did. I hid it very well actually, underneath the seat with Benson's car seat. I checked and you couldn't even see it was there. Well, apparently hiding things isn't good if there are people watching you get out of your car! I guess this is the latest trend. They watch for women to leave, where they put (hide) things, what they leave behind or take with them. And then they strike! Those dirty rotten scoundrels.
Of course my phone battery would die while at the park too. Luckily some of my new friends were leaving at the same time as me and they lent me their phones. One lady even happened to have an infant car seat since Benson's was full of shattered glass. One of them stayed with me until Jon was able to come and let Vanessa watch Tarzan with her son, a very messy and dirty Vanessa no less.
We called the police of course. They came and took prints but we all know that will amount to nothing.
In the end, what did the darn crook end up with? My Utah driver's license with my old address (I'm kind of glad I didn't change it now), my credit cards which are all canceled now, $22 in cash, a $50 gift card to Besty Buy, $30 gift card to JcPenney, some mace (maybe he can use it on himself!), probably a binky and a toy or two.
And what does it end up costing us? A whole lot of hassle, time to get my new drivers license and however much that will cost, canceling all our cards and getting new ones, new insurance cards, and a new window (the insurance will cover it after our $1000 deductible, it better not even come close!)
I really do like Florida but it's days like these that I'm glad it isn't permanent. I'll be happy somewhere in the country, population 5000.

It's That Time of Year

We are in South Florida until December 17. Then we'll be heading to Utah until January 2. Let us know if you want family pictures done. You can check out our website:
jayellephotography.webs.com

We decided to take on the zoo using the charriot a.k.a. "the batmobile." Vanessa didn't last very long inside, but Benson slept through it all.


Vanessa wasn't too sure about the crazy long black tongue coming out of these giraffes.


This is Vanessa running onto the splash pad at the zoo

This is Vanessa running off the splash pad at the zoo

Beach Days

Benson's first trip to the beach happened October 1. The wind seemed to bug him a little but I think he'll love it as much as we do.


This was obviously not the same beach day, but a cute picture. I decided it was worth posting.

Miami Zoo

We went to the zoo clear back on the 19th. It was a lot of fun. We took a gazillion pictures but I haven't gone through any yet so this is all we have for now.

well child or sick child?

We scheduled well child checks last week. But, my kids are not well today so it turned into a sick visit. On the plus side, I didn't have to pull out the shot records and have that awful debate about which shots to do this time. Ugh. Also on the plus side, both kids are healthy-ish. As in lungs, throat and ears all look good.
I like our pediatrician. He is kind of hard to follow, so I have to really pay attention, but he is really conservative with medicine so I feel pretty good about his recommendations. Benson is still colicky in the evening so he gave me a list of like 8 different foods to avoid. Some of them were new to me and some were already on the no no list, so hopefully things improve.
So any guesses how big Benson is? He is 7 weeks as of yesterday. He was 6lbs. 15oz. at birth and 6lbs. 9oz when we brought him home from the hospital. Today, he weighed in at a whopping 10lbs. 9oz. You go boy!
And Vanessa has gained a decent amount of weight too. She is 20lbs. 9oz. (exactly ten pounds more than Benson, I thought that was interesting).

Night Night

The ONLY way we can get Vanessa to bed lately is to watch a movie. Lately, she is kind of particular about the movie though. This is how it usually goes...
Me: "Nemo or George?"
Vanessa: "George"
Me: "George or Nemo?"
Vanessa: "Nemo"
So I just push play on which ever one is already in the player. And inevitably, she'll want the other one.

Nursery

So remember how I mentioned Vanessa starts nursery in three weeks? Well last Sunday she decided she was ready. She was walking down the hall, and I was meandering after her. She followed a little girl into the nursery room. Before I was even there, she had sat herself down and started doing puzzles. I went to get her, explaining to her that she wasn't old enough yet. The nursery leader told me I could leave her if I wanted, that she seemed to be doing just fine. So I did. I told her bye-bye and waved. She looked at me for a second and then was right back to her puzzle. Jon and I looked at each other, and then I said "well should we go to class? Together?" Weird. I do have to say, I enjoyed it immensely. And Vanessa did great. The only problem they had was she kept climbing on everything, little monkey.

Life in the Fast Lane

WARNING: RANDOM

First, I just have to speak my two bits about Florida drivers. Everyone in Utah complains about Utah drivers; but having now driven for almost six months amongst the Floridians, I am sure they are worse. FAR worse. I never felt the urge to curse and flip people off like I do almost daily (haven't yet, but I make no promises). People refuse to use a blinker, refuse to acknowledge a blinker even. They can not turn into their correct lanes. Change lanes in the intersection. Block traffic constantly because they are most definitely THE most important person on the road and their needs are much more pressing. Tailing, speeding, driving really slow, cutting you off, and generally just not knowing the rules of the road.
Whew, just had to get that off my chest.

Life in the Brady home is well, great, exhausting, happy, crazy, messy, stressful, and grateful. We are defintely very luck to have two healthy, beautiful little kiddos. But let's be honest, it's a tough adjustment, or at least has been for me. Women kept telling me while I was pregnant that I would just love having them so close together. Course everyone here also finished saying how great it was that I got a boy and a girl, one of each, as if we're done having kids. Who wouldn't be right? I think while I was pregnant and actually believed all these people that I actually mentioned to Jon that we should have all our kids close that I could just be over and done with being pregnant. Ha ha ha! These women obviously had older children close in age. None of them had an infant and a baby at the moment. They were getting more than four hours of sleep a night, could clean the house and have it stay clean, done washing crayon off the walls, done chasing a strong willed one year old out of the street while carrying the crying one month old. They were happily enjoying their free time while the two kids play together in the back yard, if they're lucky enough to have one. I am sure I will love having them so close together one day too, but let's be honest, I'm not LOVING it right now. I do however, love my kids and love that I have both of them. I wouldn't even trade one of them for a full night's sleep.

So on to the happier notes. Benson is six and a half weeks. Whoa! How did that happen? It feels like just yesterday and a million years ago that we brought him home from the hospital. There is so much that I love about newborns. I love how they curl up into little balls and will sleep on your chest, and they fit there too! I love how they can't control their arms and think you're the one pulling their binky out. I love onesies. I love the way they smell. I love pretending their gas smiles are adoring smiles and love it even more when they really are.

We are still figuring out everything Benson likes and does not like. It seems to change to keep us on our toes. Tonight for instance, he likes his binky and the swing. This could change, but we'll take advantage of what works. I don't think he likes it when I eat dairy. But just to test this theory I had some pizza tonight and yes, it was good. Was it worth it though? I'll let you know if I'm up all night with a gassy baby or stressed all day with a neglected one year old. Benson is very patient with Vanessa teasing him and occassionally sitting on him. He is not so patient when he's hungry, I think he gets that one from his daddy, and most likely every other man in the world as well. Benson likes to suck on anything that gets close enough to be sucked on; blankets, arms, fingers, binkies, you name it. He definitely has some lungs on him but he is also a grunter and pur-er. He likes to be in motion and prefers to spend most of the day asleep in the moby wrap. Don't worry though, because he also sleeps at night, though he prefers to do that in the swing, or in mommy's arms. He sleeps a lot, as long as he is in the right spot.

Vanessa is still very petite but strong. I think someone tells me that every time we go to the park. She just goes for it and thinks she is so big. Her latest and greatest is climbing UP the slides. We also tried out a new park the other day and she followed the three year olds around, doing everything they did like it wasn't even a big deal. Of course, I was biting my nails hoping she wasn't going to break her arm, and not wanting to squelch her independence.

Vanessa starts nursery in just three weeks. I can hardly believe she is really that old already. Most parents look forward to nursery so they can enjoy church and heaven forbid, actually get something out of a lesson. I think now that we have two, I might appreciate her going to nursery a little more. True, I just may have more separation anxiety than she does, I guess we'll see. And I will probably miss her more than she'll miss me, that we will also see about. I really hope she doesn't pick up any bad habits and stays as sweet and innocent as she is now. I guess two hours a week can't be that damaging right?

Wonder Mom...

These kids definitely deserve one. And I wish I was.




There have surely been tears and prayers. My best just isn't good enough, and with angels like these, probably never will be. We'll stick to the prayers and get over the tears.