Brighton Tries Baby Food

Here is Brighton's reaction to his first taste of baby food.

Don't worry, he likes it just fine now. :)

Christmas 2013

What a fun Christmas we had this year!!! We spent Christmas Eve at home with just our little family. I'm so glad we did. We got to do a few last minute traditions that we just didn't have time for before now. I won't list all of them.

 After we got into new pajamas that Micah got for the kids we got started in on the fun stuff! 

 

We made cupcakes instead of cookies for Santa this year because that's what I wanted to do. :) 

We were also able to spend more time on Luke 2 to explain it to Lila. She is so sweet whenever we talk about Jesus. Lila really does have a love for Christ.

                     

The next morning we all got up when Lila woke up. We did presents as a family then headed down to my Mum's house for the best Christmas breakfast ever. (We love her soufflé!) Then once the rest of the family got there we opened presents for siblings and cousins. 

Brighton's biggest gift this Christmas was his chance to try baby food! In my next post you'll see his reaction to it. ;) By the time Christmas dinner came around I was READY for it! I was so hungry, but it was worth the wait. It was so delicious. Great food, great dessert, great company! It was a wonderful Christmas.

We headed home after that and just spent some more time as a family. I love this time of year. 

 

(These were the best pictures we could get of our family for Brighton's first Christmas. I'll take 'em.)

Here are some videos of Lila and Brighton enjoying Christmas gifts.

ESA Sing Along and Temple Square

This December we were able to go up to the Energy Solutions Arena Christmas Sing Along with other members of my family. It was a lot of fun this year because Lila actually knows some Christmas songs… okay mostly just Jingle Bells, but she did pretend to sing the others, or at least clap along. 

I really wanted to go because I thought Lila would have a great time and I wanted to take her to the lights at temple square afterward based on her reaction to the decorations in our own home. She had a great time even though it was FREEZING! Don't worry, I kept Brighton all bundled up. You pretty much couldn't even tell that he was there. (I just looked very large :) ) I had some sisters take pictures and I don't have them yet, but until then just enjoy this cute picture of Lila with her cousin Sydney. (Can you spot Brighton in the background?)

Meeting Santa

At our ward Christmas party Lila and Brighton were able to meet Santa. Don't they look so excited. ;)

Maggie

On December 6th we got an early family Christmas present… our cute new dog Maggie! She is a five year old beagle from the animal shelter. She is well trained and VERY good with kids. She has already had to put up with a lot from Lila. The kids love her and so do we. Welcome to the family Maggie!

Getting Ready for Christmas

This year we were on top of our decorations for Christmas and put them out on the 1st. We decided to keep it simple and only put up our tree and some lights for Lila in her room. I would normally just skip over this stuff seeing as it has almost been a month, but Lila was so cute the whole night. She helped decorate the tree and initially I thought we'd fix it after, but we decided to leave it as is. Sorry about the blurry pictures, but my camera isn't that nice. 

 I love that we did. You can't really tell from the pictures how uneven the decorations were, with a lot being at the bottom and in one spot, but trust me, it was not decorated well. :) 

After we finished up the tree Micah put up lights in Lila's room. She just sat and stared at them, whispering to herself "so pretty". She would even come and grab us to come and lay down in her room and just look at the lights. We had to whisper though and hold hands. We'd stay in there for a little bit with her then leave and sure enough a few minutes later she would come back out and grab us again. It was really a magical time for her and even for me just watching her. I love the holidays more and more as my children are growing up. Brighton liked the lights, but of course didn't really know what was going on. He really just had a good time hanging out with mom. 

7 Months

I have so many things to post about, but I think I'll start with this one. Brighton is now 7 months! Can you believe it? He is the most adorable 7 month old boy I have ever met.

I can't remember if I've already said this, but for the past few months I've really noticed how incredibly ticklish this little boy is. It's SO funny. Even when I'm changing his diaper sometime's he starts to laugh and squirm. He's also really, really close to crawling. He has been able to get up to the right position for a while, but now he can move forward on one of his knees. It's just that after that he doesn't know to move the next knee forward, so he'll just kind of hang out.

I won't be surprised if he's got it down within the month. I can only imagine how mobile he'll be then! He already seems to be able to get around all over the place.

He'll be trying baby food here soon. I'm excited to see how he does with it. He's very interested in the food that we eat so I'm sure he'll love it. He also slept through the night completely on his own on the 17th. When I woke up in the morning I was a little worried and had to go and check on him immediately. :) Of course he was just fine.

He really is the sweetest boy. Everyone just loves to hold him because he'll cuddle up to you, giggle with you, try and play with you and just be such an angel with you.

We love you Brighton!  

P.S. Aren't these ties sweet? My awesome sister-in-law Tracee made them. 

Thanksgiving Part 2

Due to the fact that we had Thanksgiving on Wednesday, Micah and I decided to do our very own Thanksgiving on Thursday for our own little family. I will admit to being nervous. I understood that doing a bird isn't actually that hard, but I had never done one. It was SO much fun! I loved creating an entire feast.

 

I started by getting the mashed potatoes in the crock pot… these turned out really creamy by the way. Then, I moved onto the turkey. As the morning progressed, I did little things, like prepared the filling and topping for the fresh apple pie, got the rolls, veggies, and stuffing ready, and set up our little table. I was going to do more for decorations, but then I decided simpler was better. 

 

When it was time to feast I was really excited. It turned out DELICIOUS! We had such a good time with our own little family. I was beginning to see what we would like look regularly in the future.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Part 1

A few people in my family were leaving for Australia on Thanksgiving to go be with my dad and the rest of our family for the holidays, (Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas, Dad!!!) so our family celebrated on Wednesday instead.

We got together at Eliza's condo clubhouse. It was good that there was so much room as we had, I think, 25 people SITTING at the table. 

 It was a lot of fun and of course being with my family is always the best! Lila especially loves being with her cousins.

 

Jess made these cute m&m turkeys for everyone, Emma made a delicious cheese ball, and I made some Turtle Cheesecake fudge for us to munch on before dinner. 

Everyone contributed to the food, but I can't remember who brought what. Eliza and Josh did the turkey though, and it was very juicy and tasty! All of the food was delicious and the desserts were, too.

 

Lila got to sit at the table like a big girl! She didn't even use a booster seat.

 

After, the kids ran around and then went swimming. It was quite the madhouse, but felt just like the holidays. Happy Thanksgiving! 

6 months

On November 20th, my little boy turned 6 months old. I can't believe it's already been that long since he joined our family. He has come such a long way and is a lot of fun to have in our family. He can now sit on his own, stand for a few seconds by holding onto something, and get into crawling position. He's growing really well and his length is starting to catch up. At his 6 month appointment we were told that he can't quite yet start on regular baby food as he is only developmentally a 5 month old. We haven't even started with cereals, because we hardly did it with Lila and will probably just skip it. 

His statistics are:

Length: 26 in. (23%ile)

Weight: 17 lbs. 9 oz. (53%ile)

Head: 17.75 in. (93 %ile- big one! :) )

At 6 months he loves:

rolling- he will roll EVERYWHERE, it's his mode of transportation :)

toys- he really likes having something in his hands

his exersaucer- it's still one of his favorite things, but I don't think it's going to last much longer

cooing- he will coo with you all day if he could, but still no repeated syllables

being on his tummy- if he's on the floor and hasn't chosen to roll, then he wants to be on his tummy

being walked around- sometimes this is the only way to get him to be content

people- he doesn't have any stranger anxiety yet

being cuddled- I love this, because Lila wasn't a huge fan of this at this age

HIS SISTER- She'll run around his exersaucer and he'll try and "catch" her. Heaven for him!

stuffed animals- just like his sister

He doesn't love:

being alone- as soon as you leave the room, he starts to cry, or when we're all eating dinner at the kitchen table and he's in the living room

not being mobile- this little boy wants so badly to crawl, he can get up on all fours and has been able to scoot forward, but crawling is definitely a ways off

I love this little boy so much! He has the cutest smile, the sweetest spirit, the warmest love, the best giggle, and the handsomest features. We love you Brighton!

What a blessing children are! I feel so grateful to have such sweet spirits in my home.

Grandpa and Grandma Pratt

We got to spend all of last week with Micah's wonderful parents. They were on their way home from their mission in Palmyra, New York and were sweet enough to stay with us for a time. Having them here brought a wonderful spirit into our home and it was so great to see Lila interact with her grandparents that she hardly sees. 

They really spoiled us while they were here by taking care of Lila, feeding us, telling us about their mission, bringing us REAL maple syrup, and allowing us to attend the temple together. It was so good to have them around. 

Lila LOVED her grandparents. She would always ask for them and tried to follow them around everywhere in the house. They were the first people she looked for in the morning and the last people that she said goodnight to. Even after they left she kept on talking about how Grandma and Grandpa had gone to Texas.

We miss them and can't wait to be able to see them again!