Cruising around with Daddy

Wipe out!

My little seat

today we ordered this travel seat for feeding Brandon when we're not home.  For Thanksgiving we had our home highchair with us, but it was a whole ordeal of taking it apart and putting it back together and then taking it apart AGAIN!  So I knew we couldn't do this any more.   My goal was to find something compact and easy to set up.  This is folds into the size of a diaper in a matching cloth case.  We ordered the blue and gray polka dots.

Grandma and Grandpa Kelly time plus some Manhattan time

Paul and I took a road trip to Long Island to visit his parents before we go to my family's Thanksgiving on Thursday.  Brandon got to meet a good amount of his Aunts and cousins between Saturday and Sunday, he also got to sleep more than I've ever seen him sleep in his life. 

On the car ride he woke up once in Maryland for lunch and then slept again until we were in the Lincoln tunnel.  At this point I moved to the back seat of the car because I know Brandon likes to freak out during the last 20 minutes of any car ride.  Well our last 20 minutes turned into 2 hours.  Paul made one wrong turn after the Lincoln tunnel and we ended up forced on to 42nd Street during grid-lock!  Brandon seemed to not care, but Daddy was stressed.  After we made it over the Queens boro bridge the GPS said we were only 5 minutes away, but for some reason this neighborhood (Astoria) did not look like Aunt Pat's neighborhood.  So after calling Paul's father we found out his dad forgot to put a number on the house address.  So we were 20 minutes away from Flushing Queens!!!  By this time none us were happy, Mama had a head ache and was hungry, Brandon soiled his diaper, and Paul had road rage mixed with exhaustion and was probably hungry too.  But in the end we made it to his Aunts and visited for 2 hours.  After we piled in the car to go further East on the island to his parents house.  Saturday night Brandon stayed up until 11PM!!  It was a rough night, but I think we got him back to sleeping at night and not during the day.  B just loves his new car seat so much he can sleep 3 + hour intervals!  Great for car rides, horrible for  bedtime because then he wants to play at 4AM.

Yesterday Marie and Pete had Aunt Anita, Uncle Ashvin, Aunt Dana, and Uncle Steven over for the afternoon and dinner.  Here are a few pictures from my camera. Ignore the time stamps I never set the date for this camera and didn't learn how to take them off until this morning.

Papa Paul lookin' good!

Nov 21 I learned how to tip the sippy cup to drink on my own!!!



Uncle Ashvin and Aunt Dana in the back



mama and B at dinner

Rosie the Roomba babysitting Brandon

house pictures slowly coming up

So I am having company over tomorrow so it was the greatest excuse to finish unpacking AND clean house!  And when I have a clean house I can post pictures for all you folks too far away to visit us.  I'm sad that we're not decorating the walls with our art or framed family pictures, but they'll be saved for when we buy a place.  So below are pictures of Brandon's room.  After a month it's finally complete, it only took so long because our dryer vent was broken and was just fixed this past Tuesday (after 1 month with no dryer).  I refused to put sea/air shipment laundry away without being cleaned.    I'm hoping tomorrow morning I can get pictures of our den, dining room, living room, and kitchen before Brandon's play date with some new friends!

Brandon's new nursery plus some new pictures

You can see my rocking chair I restored and painted

Part 1 of Brandon's clothes

Part 2, this kid has even more clothes put away for later next year

While Mommy cleans Brandon spins in his crib.  I can't believe how long he is!

Such a cute smile

Thumb man!

Hey B are you catchin' flies with that open mouth?

I love those baby blues!!

what a face!!

Hi Everyone!!!

B can move his eye brows

Hungry Baby

I feel like I've been obsessed with how much B is eating everyday, but it's only because I"m not used to seeing someone so small eat such large portions of baby food.  I wish this kid would get some teeth in already so he could start on some other yummy foods.  But for now I have started to just give him a lot more baby food.  This boy sat and ate a bowl of rice cereal, cup of yogurt, and a Gerber 2nds cup for dinner last night.

One major reason I've been worried he hasn't been eating enough is that he is waking up in the middle of the night.  We were blaming it on teething, but after a couple nights of B waking up really hungry we knew he maybe not getting enough dinner.  So after Tuesday night food fest Brandon slept all night.  It's so funny because Paul and I awoke at 6AM to Brandon making his "come get me" noises we both looked at each other wondering if the other went to get B in the middle of the night.  I keep forgetting that it's normal to be able to sleep all night, just not when you have a baby.

I can't believe were at the halfway mark of November.  Where has the time gone?  I guess with a baby, moving, and being very busy with family and friends time just zooms on by.  Paul and I are really happy that we are almost completely unpacked.  Right now we're still trying to find homes for kitchen appliances, dishes, books, and other belongings.  But we did find that there were a couple of things that just were to large or we had to many of.  So we decided to donate them. For the most part we are giving a good amount of Paul's books he doesn't read to the Fairfax County library.  But for the other items we have consigned so try our luck and see if someone else wants to buy it.  The consignment shop I chose gives 40% of the sale to the Fairfax hospitals (we get the other 60%).

Today's big project is getting our dryer fixed.  Our repairman told me that our entire dryer vent was clogged with lint and that the outside vent was screwed closed (Why would someone do that??).  He's also fixing the window screens, and the storm windows (none of them stay opened) I felt bad to make such a long list of repairs for the owners, but if we don't ask then the next owners or tenants will have to get it fixed.  Hopefully after today we won't have any more problems.  It's so exciting to think that in less than 6 months we'll be in the process of buying a house!

Aunt Lindsey and Rob came to visit

hugs

snuggles

Brandon likes to walk up people

Brandon checking out Robs 12 hour shadow!

Look how happy B is to have Lindsey and Rob here!

such a cutie!

Daddy (aka Horsey) and Brandon

Almost bedtime and reading his books!

would rather play his guitar

Aunt Lindsey time

Cell phone

So I bought Brandon a toy cell phone.  But when I got home we took it out of the package flipped it shut and I realized it is also a purse.  I hate to take it back because B has drooled all over it and seems to love the rings all over the handle.  Plus he really likes it.  I'll make sure to not get him girls toys from now on.

Cell phone opened (this was how it was displayed in the packaging that never claimed it was a purse)

TOTALLY looks like a purse when closed

New car seat

So it's been 1 week in the new car seat and besides the 2 hour freak out from our road trip Brandon seems to love his forward facing seat.  He's in it a bit early. (The label says to wait until 9 month)  But his weight and height are at the starting mark.  He's so funny, every time I put him in the seat he is asleep in less than 2 minutes.  This makes running errands a bit difficult because I have to take him out of the seat into the stroller.  But he seems to stay asleep most of the time between transfers.

He also LOVES playing with his toy steering wheel.  Here is a picture of him sleeping at the wheel he's nice and cozy in the recline position here

Visiting Aunt Christine, Tyler and Lauren

watchin' Dora

Tyler shared his childhood toy with brandon

Cousins!

The boys and ducky

Hey Tyler look at ME!

Tyler and

Come here and give me hug Ty!

Taken by Aunt Christine

Taken by Aunt Christine

Aunt Ashley and Brandon with Tyler and Lauren

Standing boy

Brandon is growing up way to fast on me.  This week he has begun to stand while holding on to furniture.  He also LOVES to say Da Da all throughout the day.  I've noticed that when he is around other children close to his age he likes to mimic what they can do.  So Monday at Mom's group a little boy who is 8 month was bouncing around while standing with his Mommy.  Well the next day Brandon decided when I let him stand he has to bounce now.

Today B and I had a play date over at our friend Aneta's house.  Her two kids Daniel, 2 1/2 and Sarah, almost 1 year, they are so much fun to play with and love including Brandon.  It's so nice that Brandon already has great friends in his life!

Week in review

I can't believe I almost went a whole week without blogging and it didn't even cross my mind until today.  I've been very busy.  Brandon got his first cold after his first pediatrician check up.  After a week of stuffy noses, coughing, and lots of waking up in the middle of the night we think Brandon's cold has passed.  He only has a tiny stuffy nose which is only noticeable when he goes from outside to indoors.

In other Kelly family news we are finally 80% settled into our townhouse.  Yesterday our sea shipment arrived.  It was a flurry of boxes, wrapping paper and tape.  Everything made it here.  The wardrobe couldn't fit upstairs, so we had to take it apart, carry it upstairs and then rebuild it again.  Brandon spent most of the day in his jumper and exer-saucer.  He had lots of fun whenever someone walked by him, if they acknowledged him, he would jump up and down in dance, if they didn't he would just sulk.  He was like a monkey that dances for quarters.

After all of our stuff arrived, unloaded into the house and out of the boxes, the movers left we had to put away everything.  We wanted to wash all of our clothes and linens after sitting in the box for the last 6 weeks but our dryer is still not working right.  So it is taking a while to get everything cleaned.  The same goes for all of our kitchenware but the dishwasher is working fine.  The weekend will be spent put everything away and the next few weeks will be spent reorganizing everything.  It never ends...

Brandon and the jumperoo

Exersaucer fun

LOVES to eat the toy bars

action shot of B jumping

Hey B it's more fun with BOTH hands up in the air

Hold on Brandon!!!