Halloween 2015

This year we decided to be Ninja Turtles for Halloween!

I actually kind of decided this a year ago when I found the cute Ninja Turtle sleeper (with cape!) on sale the day after Halloween.  I immediately bought it in the size I predicted Brandon would be for his first Halloween.  So it wasn't too much of a leap to decide we would represent the whole gang.  I actually had originally planned to be April.  But then I looked at what she wears...  Yellow, low cut jumpsuit?  No way.  I'll be Donatello, thanks.

I was nervous that Andrew would refuse to dress up since he just doesn't do a lot of costumes here at home.  But we talked up the ninja turtles for months before Halloween so he was ready to go!  He loved it!

We went out with our good friends and got so much candy around my neighborhood that we parents had to help carry the goods.  It was pretty great and Andrew and Addie were so cute- they would knock on the doors and yell, "Trick or treating!"  Brandon was exhausted by the end of the night since it was well past his bedtime but I was glad we took him out so we could all trick-or-treat together.

For other Halloween festivities, we carved pumpkins and roasted the seeds.  Andrew "helped" a lot... meaning he played in the bowl of pumpkin guts and washed his hands (repeat x10).  Oh and he ate a bunch of the roasted seeds too.  My parents also came a couple of days before (to help with the basement again) and we made some fun cookies that Andrew got to help decorate.

I didn't buy any clearance costumes this year, so I have no idea what we'll be next year!

Andrew's First Science Project- Growing Robot

When I was buying little toys to take on the airplane with us for our Arizona trip, I found this cute little robot that grows in water.  Andrew is a pretty typical little boy who gets excited about stuff like robots and monsters and trucks and trains, so I knew he would like this.

We put it in a huge container of water and left it alone for a day at a time.  Andrew loved checking on his robot every day.

Once I thought it had reached full size we left it out of the water and kept checking on it every day until it had shrunk back to original size.  He now keeps the robot in his room.

I need to come up with more simple projects for Andrew to do since he loved this so much!

8 Months

Guys.

Brandon is 8 months old.

It's been a pretty busy month for this little guy (and all of us).  He rode on an airplane for the first time, met lots of cousins, aunts, and uncles for the first time, mastered crawling, and tried to walk.

Last month Brandon was making his first attempts at crawling with his belly off the ground, after a while of successful army crawling.  Now he's a master crawler and has moved on to cruising.  Not only that, but he also loves to walk while pushing a toy around.  We bought him a walker and he loves getting around while pushing it, or he just uses a big toy truck and pushes that around.  He seems to think he's a big kid and tries really hard to keep up with Andrew.

We've started to introduce the sippy cup to Brandon this month.  He's not terribly interested in it though- he prefers his bottle for sure.  I gave him some juice in a sippy though and he loved that, but only as long as I held him like I hold him when he has a bottle.  He's done okay when I put some formula in it and have him sit in the high chair but he sometimes just chews on it instead of holding it up high enough to drink.  We'll have to keep working on it if we want to stop using bottles at a year like we did for Andrew.

No sign of teeth yet.  Aaron seems to be a little anxious about this.

And no haircut yet either.  I think we'll do that soon though, since Brandon's hair is getting so long in the front that little whisps are getting in his eyes pretty regularly.

New Things for Brandon this on Month:
Airplane ride

Sippy cup

Some new foods

Juice

Crawling

Cruising

Walking with walker