Brighton and his letters

Brighton has been able to recognize his ABC's for quite a long time now. He started with being able to tell you what one was what with his puzzle pieces and he's moved on to being able to recognize most uppercase now when you ask him. We've just started working on lowercase, though. So imagine my surprise when in the middle of lunch he says, "G-E-R-B-E-R." This was the first time he had told me what a string of letters were without me asking about each one. I was even more surprised when I saw where he was reading the letters - from his fork & they were in proper case, so the "e" through "r" were lowercase!

Tiny Snowman

Brighton wanted to build a snowman, but both of the boys have been a bit congested so I didn't want them out in the cold. So he didn't have to miss out on all the winter fun, I told him we could build a snowman inside. Being two, he still lets me get away with things like that. He had fun, but it could be because he ate more of the candy we used to decorate than what actually made it to the snowman!

Six months old!

Rigley is 6 months old today. On one hand, I can't believe he is that old already - on the other, it seems like he's always been part of the family.

Here is what Rigley is like at 6 months:

• He really enjoys his brother now and laughs at him frequently. He also tries to grab him and has started trying to get his toys.
• He rolled over in his casts and has done it in the brace, too. In fact, he spent one day rolling back and forth. However, now he won't do it unless heavily coaxed and even then it's not a guarantee. We've determined he can do it, but he chooses not to.
• He hates tummy time, seriously hates it. He will scream the entire time. Brighton did the same thing.
• He can hold himself in a sitting position pretty well. He still tips over from time to time, but he can sit by himself for longer periods each day.
• He can easily get to sitting from laying down with a slight incline, like the Boppy behind him, and just today made it all the way to sitting from laying flat on the floor.
• He babbles - sometimes you can hear "da,da" and in distress you can usually make out, "mmmm-mom"
• He is so much bigger than Brighton was at this age; granted he started out much larger as well. He is wearing 12 month clothes already!
  

Brighton isn't fond of me taking Rigley's picture without him being in the shot, so here are a few with both boys.

Getting big

Brighton is getting so big. He left the room and was gone for a bit and very quiet - which means I must quickly go see what he is doing. He is apparently now tall enough to get his snacks from the pantry. He had gotten the Bunny Grahams, climbed up to the island, opened them, and was snacking when I caught him!

Avian flu?

Even though it looks like the avian flu has hit our house, no worries. Donovan has a sinus infection/tonsillitis and the doctor sent masks home with him so he wouldn't share his bacteria with the boys. Brighton thought he needed a mask too, so I made him one.

First tooth!

Rigley has a tooth! His lower right popped through today and I think the left will be coming in soon. Not that you can see it, but here is his first tooth picture!

Building a mountain

Brighton decided it would be great if he put every toy and blanket and whatever else he could find in a large pile. Every time he would put something else on his mountain, Rigley would just laugh & laugh.

We donated poop...

well, at least I think that's what happened. The DAV had called & said there was a truck coming. I was excited because I had quite a bit of stuff I hadn't got around to dropping off yet. I got it all ready the night before and set it at the front of the garage so all I had to do was open the garage door and push it out. Well, Rigley was up early and crabby and I totally forgot. When I went out later, there was a tag on the door that said "thank you for donating" at the top, but on down it said, "Sorry we missed you." I just figured they left it so I would know that they stopped, but my stuff wasn't there. Then as I was making dinner it hit me that I had changed a dirty diaper, but it wasn't outside when I went out there.We don't keep poopy diapers inside the house, we tie them in a plastic bag and toss them in the outside bin. Well, during the day when I'm busy with the boys I just open the door & toss the bag towards the bin & then go out later and actually put them in the bin.

I feel horrible, but what can I do? I mean, you could see through the bag - it was a very thin Wal-Mart one, so you should have been able to see it was a diaper. Plus, it was over by the trash bin. Our car was out front, if he would have just rang the bell I could have opened the garage and directed him to the actual donations.

So, I really think that the driver took the bag with the poopy diaper and left me a thanks for donating tax receipt. What's the charitable value of a dirty diaper?

A day in the life

We had a very busy day - Stroller Strides at 9am, followed by Jumpmania (indoor inflatable play place) for playgroup, a trip through McDonald's (a bribe to get Brighton out of the bounce house since I couldn't crawl in after him while wearing Rigley!), and then home to eat the Happy Meal and try to get a nap.

The boys are getting ready to eat lunch. If you add an applesauce to a Happy Meal, does that make it a balanced meal? ;)



After naps, I decided to do my new Jillian Michaels workout. Brighton thought he would do it, too. He went and grabbed blocks to use as his weights while we were doing a chest fly! When he wasn't exercising with me, he ran circles around me saying, "Go momma! Go momma!"
(I don't know if you can tell or not, but he is wearing his new Stroller Strides shirt. It's really cute - picture of a stroller on the front and on the back it says, "That's how we roll!")

Rigley decided everyone exercising was making him hungry. So, he decided to just chill and have a bottle during the workout.

Smash! Crash!

Brighton loves books and really likes to read aloud. He will take his books and tell me that he's going to read to Rigley. It's adorable, he turns the pages and "reads." He actually just has a bunch of his books memorized, each and every word! Brighton really enjoys the Trucktown books and this is an excerpt of Smash! Crash!

(Don't mind the Thanksgiving jammies! They're just so cute I didn't want to pack them away yet.)

Saying grace

Brighton had always said "AMEN" when we prayed over his food, but for some reason I hadn't thought of teaching him to say grace on his own. So we taught him the other day and now he says it very well before each meal.

Brighton loves Mexican food - chips & salsa, queso, quesadillas, rice, and beans. However, he had never wanted to try a taco before. I made "tacos" (I put that in quotes b/c I realize that they aren't real tacos - the super yummy fried ones like Nicole makes) for dinner and Brighton decided he would have one.

Multi-tasking

Brighton is quite the multi-tasker. Santa brought him his own computer, but I recently found an ABC game online that he enjoys, too. I had left him in the floor playing on my computer while I went to grab a bottle for Rigley. When I came back in, he had gotten his computer and was playing an ABC game on it as well.

What happens when a 2 year old won't take a nap?

He finally crashes...
Yes, that is Brighton asleep on the family room floor. Nap time at our house is, shall we say, interesting. Quite often there are several rounds of getting one to sleep only to have the other wake him up. This happened to be one of those days. About 5 o'clock, Bright went and found his bin-bin and Dog-dog and laid down on the floor.

First food

Rigley tried his first "real" food, oatmeal. He did really well, I think he has long been ready for this.

Happy New Year!

Since getting his casts off, Rigley has been able to sit really well while supported, does pretty well semi-supported, and can stay up for a bit all on his own.

Here he is sitting up - don't mind the drool spot on my pants!

Rigley (and Mommy & Daddy) are SO happy he can take real baths again.
Getting dressed after his bath.


With his brace, Rigley can't use a traditional exersaucer or jumper. So, we found this toy that works well because the tray comes off and we can sit him in it without removing the brace.
Brighton loves his new computer. He is learning so much from it, too! There is a phonics game mode where it shows the letter and gives the sound and you have to type it on the keyboard, he always gets all of them right! He was able to recognize most of his letters before he got this, but now can recognize all of them. He is also learning their sounds so much better. Just the other day he asked for milk and then said, "M is for milk!" (Which is not one of the sayings on his computer, he figured it out by himself!)