Kirsten and Mark

Whenever Brit sees a camera lately it’s “pitur” “pitur” until we actually take one…or a few.

Oh, and someone told him about saying cheese before a photo, and now he really does.

His bear “Bop”

All snuggled up!

Yes…he needed a picture of this.

Pick a color

Put it away

Notice there’s not really any coloring going on. Just putting them in and out.

This has been our excitement the past few weeks. I know. Tremendous amounts.

Maybe when this rain stops we’ll actually go out and do things again.

Brit definitely knows what he wants. The other night for dinner, he refused to eat his chicken and rice. He cried until Mark got him down. He pulled him to the fridge, opened the door and pointed to the mustard. Once he had his mustard he was happy and ate everything.

Well, one morning he wanted a hat.  We had to look until we found one he wanted. Apparently it was a baseball hat. He even called it that.

He loves the iPod touch and begs to play. His favorites are the letter and number games.

He pulled my glasses out of my bag the other day and showed us how cool he was.

Wednesday…the one before Halloween….we carved our pumpkins. Well, just one of them.

Brit colored his since we figured a knife wouldn’t be a super good idea.

Mark starting on his masterpiece

Brit likes the guts!

Yes, that’s his eye

Happy Jack

On Thursday we went Trick-or-Treating at a retirement home near by. Some of the residents were excited to see us, some of them couldn’t have cared less. But, the kids got to go running around in a new place, so that was fun.

On Friday at Musicmakers all the kids dressed up and then we decorated cookies afterward. Brit loves the sticks!

This is what you get when you have 2 toddlers decorating cookies.

Put your finger in the sprinkles

Dump them out

Get them all over the “designated work area”

Lick the frosting  and enjoy!

So, you remember when my friend Leslie came out more than a month ago? No, well, here’s a refresher:

We had a fun week. Did fun things…almost every day. Disneyland was one of them. I still haven’t posted about it. Until NOW! Yay! I know, you’re super excited.

We always get ribbed by non-Californians about how little we go to the beach. They claim that if they lived here they’d go every day…or at least once a week. Yeah. We’re not like that. We go maybe 3 times a year…and that’s when people are in town. Go on our own? There are way too many things to do on a Saturday to make that happen.

But, on the occasion of a visit, well, that’s a different story. We’re all about the beach. Especially Britton. He loves getting his legs splashed in the waves and laying in the sand. Though, not digging or playing much because he doesn’t like the feel of it.

Another couple of reasons we don’t go to the beach much–we didn’t know we actually liked any beaches in LA county. Malibu is only good for ?, Santa Monica is a little dirty, and I don’t know, we don’t think about the rest. But, thanks to a suggestion from my beach connoisseur friend Paige we went to Manhattan Beach and it was really nice. Second reason–I burn! Seriously, I must have had defective sunscreen because I put on SPF 30 waterproof everywhere when we got there, and in a few spots a second time and 2 hours later I was FRIED! It wasn’t noticeable at first, but by the next day I looked lobsteresque. Not fun.

Next stop–the Aquarium. Sadly, we’ve severely under used our pass this year.

The birds really liked Leslie.

Britton really liked the clown fish. This is him saying “Momo”

On our trip to Vegas for the Expo Brit chilled with the Fruit Loops. Woah crazy hair. Kristie–we miss you!

My mom was in town, so we went down to the only acceptable beach in SoCal…Newport. Suffice it to say, Brit was a fan.

At one point, he started crawling backward down the beach toward the water…in a round about kind of way. It was the same thing he does when he’s about to go down stairs backwards. Every once in a while he’d stop and look behind him to see where he was, then start backing up again.

We’ll have to make an effort to go down more often. It’s just so crowded on Saturdays when Mark can go with us. We should take advantage of it while we’re here though.

Seriously, this is what Britton does every day…multiple times. He’s constantly pointing to the drums and asking to play. He doesn’t care that they don’t really make noise, he just likes the motion. But, when we do hook it up to Guitar Hero, it’s that much more exciting. We really  might have the next “world’s greatest drummer” in our midst.

Brit was excited to give Mark his card and gift on Father’s Day. He drew on it himself and helped sign his name. The gift cert is to Amoeba, Mark’s favorite store in the world (it’s all music, what else?) When Brit and I went in to buy it he was enthralled. I’ve decided since they both like it so much, it can be a daddy-son activity from now on.

Because we love and appreciate him so much, he also got a new pair of shoes, and this most amazing “cookie brittle” with oreo and coconut. My friend Jewels makes it, and seriously, it is like the best thing ever.  Check it out at Celebritybakesale.etsy.com.

Britton has started to say dad really well, and loves playing with his daddy. They swing and play “toss the baby in the air” and with a look, Brit is laughing hysterically. The cutest is when he leaves for work, Brit waves and blows kisses! When he comes home, Brit runs in and starts laughing and wants to be picked up.

I love my guys!

Needless to say, it was a busy weekend. I got home from a short trip to Utah Thursday night, then after a day of catch up and Sprout Shell stuff, we headed quickly into a whirlwind of activity over the “holiday.”

Saturday morning we continued our condo search, with a mixture of results. We found one we LOVE that’s in an ok area, and then one we like a lot in an area that we like a lot better. It’s so frustrating!

On our way home the Getty Center beckoned. We haven’t been there together, and figured Brit would like the gardens. By the time we got to the top–an hour later–we were questioning our sanity, but it turned into a fun trip and we learned about the gardens there.

Brit really wanted to go into the water…we had to hold him back.

He likes the view from Daddy’s shoulders and had fun in this sculpture garden.

Very interesting poppies that looked like ladybugs. Brit wanted to touch all the flowers.

Sunday was spent relaxing and recovering from our adventure.  But, we couldn’t “waste” the holiday and sit around, so Monday’s activity was the Aquarium of the Pacific. We love having our season passes because we feel like if we’re only there a couple of hours we’re not wasting our money. Brit likes it more and more each time we go.  To prepare Brit has been practicing his sign language and now signs “fish” and calls them “shsh”

The rays were very interesting.

There was even a friendly ray who kept coming up to the surface and sticking his “arm” out of the water and shaking hands with people. Brit even got to feel a couple of times.

The friendly ray.

Squirting squids got Brit’s hand…over and over again…

Adoring the fish.

We had a fun day and ended up in Glendale to check out the area there. We really like it. It feels almost small town even though it’s right outside LA. We’ll see if we can find anything there.

Brit’s new favorite thing is his Baby Signing Time. He has learned how to turn on the DVD player–somehow he hits the right button every time–or he brings us the case. He’ll watch is 3 times in a row! Even today I turned it off because he wasn’t watching and he came back and turned it on again. When the first song called “Baby Signing Time” starts he makes the “baby” sign and then is glued to it the rest of the time.

He loves his milk too, and now that he signs for it, if we don’t get it fast enough, he’ll bring us empty cartons from the recycling to make sure we know what he’s talking about. Silly baby. He will now sign “eat” and today he FINALLY started to sign “drink” though, he can kind of say it, so sometimes it’s not necessary. He’ll sign “banana” and his other new favorite is “thank you.” He knows what other ones are though if we show him, he knows what they mean.

Another new trick we’re not sure how he learned is shaking his head no. He doesn’t do yes–even when that would be the obvious answer. But, when he doesn’t want something he’ll definitely let us know with an emphatic shake of the head. And, since he is a big fan of standing up in his high chair when he wants out, he now stands up and shakes his hands “all done” too.

He loves to dance and any time there is music he stomps his feet and moves around. We are having so much fun with him. There is something new all the time…next post? His new talent.

Whew, it’s been almost 2 weeks since my last post and I’m only getting to it now because I know that if I don’t I might not for another week.

Brit’s first Easter that he was aware of was pretty fun. We had a bbq with friends the night before and he gathered some eggs. He loved shaking them because that’s what we do with the eggs at Music Makers.

To get into the Easter spirit Kristie and I made sugar cookies. Someone (her) was more creative and perfection seeking than I. But, here are my creations.

She is a real full-service salon. She came to me, made cookies while processing color and cutting. Too bad she’s moving across the country!

We woke up Easter morning to this: Apparently the Easter Bunny likes Brit.

First he had to inspect his goods…

Then he realized he was excited about it. He really loved the bubbles and the eggs.

This is his Easter outfit. It looked really cute on him. Thanks Shanni for the pants…his shorts were a little long.

Brit and I enjoying a snuggle.

We had a great day. Church was lovely and we had Jared and Kristie over for dinner. I even got flowers–pretty purple tulips. There was ham, cheesy potatoes, green beans, rolls, carrots and strawberry short cake for dessert. After a year and a half we have a new table configuration too–it’s perpendicular to the wall now just looks better.

Also on Easter Brit learned how to stand up by himself from the floor. He makes a slight Downward Dog, then lifts up. He’s getting really good at it now and walks really well. He still falls when he gets too excited or goes too fast, but has great core strength and balances well, even to pick things up.

He started giving kisses. They’re open-mouthed and slobbery, but it’s super cute. Today at church he pointed to the circle in his shape book when I asked him where the circle was. He loves his shape book, so maybe it’s rubbing off!

Something we’re not loving is that he likes to turn around and try to stand up in his high chair. So not cool. So, we’ve resorted to putting a pillow behind his back so he doesn’t have room to turn.

In other news, Sprout Shell was on BabySteals.com last week (it’s a deal-a-day site) and they sold out pretty quickly, so we’re really excited about it. It also encouraged a lot of people to buy other designs from our site, so things are picking up. We won’t hear about the contest till the first of May…so we’ll keep you posted.

And, if that wasn’t busy enough, we’re looking into buying a condo in The Valley (seriously, I googled “The Valley” and that was the first entry). We’ve found a few options in our price range so far, so we could be moving soon. Mark’s commute time would triple, but his distance would quadrouple and he’d feel like he was actually getting somewhere instead of waiting at poorly-timed lights. So, we’ll see.

All of a sudden, there he was, letting go on his own. Standing firmer and more steady. Then, bam, exactly a week after his first birthday…there was this:

He did it several times before we got the camera out, so technically they weren’t his first, but it was still the same 10 minutes. Maybe he felt more confident wearing his awesome drum set shirt from RockerRoos. Maybe he felt a sudden surge of strength in his legs, I don’t know, but whatever it was worked!

During the past week he’s gotten more confident and will let go and walk for short periods of time to get to something else. He has really good  balance too most of the time, like he can bend his legs and stand back up without falling.

This, also a couple of weeks late…sorry!

I am also way behind on sharing some pictures…
Like, St. Patrick’s Day–nobody was going to be pinching him, that’s for sure.

Our baby the lounger. He just likes to sit back and relax while he eats.

Brit has also cut two more bottom teeth for a total of 8 now. They haven’t been fun, but he’s doing better!

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