10 Months

I can't believe that we are only two months away from Brayla's 1st birthday. It's time for somebody to get planning (ahem...me)! Here's what you've been up to in the last month:

"Oh, I'm 10 months old? Great!"

-You still go to sleep about 7:30-7:45 every night. You generally sleep until we wake you up at about 6:15, but occasionally you are ready to party earlier than that. This weekend's time change made your Sunday wake-up time a little later and it was much appreciated.


-You are still wearing a size 3 diaper.


-At your 9 month check-up you weighed 16 pounds 10 ounces. I'm guessing you are somewhere around 17 pounds now.


-You are still wearing 6-9 month or 12 month clothes. There are the occasional 3-6 month pants, though, that we are still holding onto and getting great use of for a very extended amount of time.


-You take 4 6-ounce bottles a day. You are not nearly as addicted to milk/formula as your older sister. You normally don't get all excited to drink your bottle and getting you to drink even 6 ounces is sometimes a challenge. I have a feeling you will be an easy one to wean from the bottle, but getting you to continue to drink milk as part of your diet may not be so easy.

They kind of like each other

-You eat 3 meals a day. You just tried a cereal bar for the first time last week and loved it. We are experimenting with yogurt for breakfast as well. You love the squeeze baby food. If you refuse all other food, I can count on you eating something so long as I get out the squeezable baby food. Modern conveniences sure are nice sometimes!

-You have enough hair that you occasionally wake up with bed head! This is a new concept to us and I am so excited that hair is visible on that cute little head of yours :)


-You now have 4 teeth. You got two top teeth this month. Unfortunately, they are not your front teeth. I'm hoping those come in soon or you will be sporting the vampire look. I don't think too many babies can pull this look off well, and I'm hoping we don't even have to find out.


-You are crawly almost always off of your belly. If you need to go somewhere in a hurry, you'll drop to your belly and move that way. You are still cruising along furniture and last week you stood by yourself for the first time! Once you realize you're standing, you inevitably fall down, but you're making progress.

Always on the move

-We are still waiting on that first word. I try daily to get you to say "momma" and daddy tries to get you to say "dadda" but so far all we hear is "babababababa" and shrieks that are traded back and forth while you "talk" with your sister.


-You do not like your car seat much at all. Once you're in it and the car is moving, things are fine. But you put up quite the fight when you know you're headed there.

-Things you love: clapping, playing patty cake, playing peek a boo, "talking" with Brynlee, bouncing up and down, trying to eat Turner's dog food, playing with the fridge toys, climbing, opening the entertainment center and eating the DVDs :)

Praying the next two months slow down a little and I can enjoy my "baby" for a little longer. We love you, Brayla!

Three-Year-Old Theology

Brandon and two other colleagues started a transportation company last summer. Things have been going well for them, continually growing their business. However, as with any company, there are always a few hiccups. Yesterday, Brandon had a half day off from his normal day job and spent the afternoon at the transportation company. He called me in the afternoon to let me know that 10 of their RVs had been broken into during the night. 8 TVs stolen, 2 broken, and some other miscellaneous damage.

Fast forward a few hours to last night. I had put Brynlee to bed, and as was custom, asked her what she wanted to pray for. Her favorite answer lately has been "I don't know." So, I suggested we pray for her daddy's work. I explained that some mean people had come and taken TVs that didn't belong to them and that the police were hoping they could find them. This story and explanation seemed sufficient enough for Bryn. But, as soon as we finished praying, Brynlee said to me "Tomorrow, Daddy go to work and he fight those mean guys." Oh my. How did she ever come to that conclusion from the story I told her?! I explained that we forgive the mean guys because Jesus forgives us and we just have to pray that they will feel bad and do the right thing in returning the TVs. Again, this seemed to satisfy Brynlee. We continue to talk about Jesus' love being like Mommy and Daddy's love. Jesus loves everybody, but still is unhappy when we do something wrong and disobedient. We love her, but are still upset when she does something wrong. To this she responded, "Yes, we go cut those mean guys with a knife!"

She was still at it again this morning, insisting that Daddy had gone to work to fight the mean guys. We never even use the word "fight" in our house, so I'm assuming this was picked up from somewhere else. But apparently, we've got some work to do in the way of teaching grace, forgiveness, and resistance to fight :)