Florida Fam

Everyone's back home in NOVA... and here are some pictures from the family in Florida:

Mia and her grandsons, B and Ethan

Cousin Kisses (B and Ethan)

Playtime with Poppy

Aunt Nancy and B with a new toy

Aunt Linda and B ride the dog!

(Random roamings to follow...)

A very snowy day

The weather forecast last night called for the potential for freezing rain and about 1/4 in. of ice. Little did they know... As of lunch time, we had received more than 3 inches of snow and up to 6 inches is expected by the evening. Nic and B go to Florida and look what happens! That meant that this time, the video is of the eldest child - Zoey. Here it is - it's rough (and a bit long) but it shows just how beautiful the trees are:



I also drove around behind our apartment complex, just because I thought the trees (again) were awesome. Please forgive the obsession with snow. And yessum, I'm taking video and driving down an icy, untreated road. Pardon.



NOTE: Yes. I am from Florida.

A new ride

B's been getting bigger, and that calls for some new dubs. We tripped out to BRU to find him a light-weight ride and found this hot little number. It's less than half as heavy as the Graco system we had and folds up to the size of an umbrella stroller (well, almost as small). I think tangerine is just what he needs to up his cuteness factor. Nic and B will be strutting around FL with the greatest of ease.

Ooh... check it out

Don't bother me

PS -- for all the 'rents out there, we love this stroller. It's a MacLaren Volo Saffron.

The Old Man and the Bath

Today is Brayden's 9-month birthday! And to celebrate, we took pictures with our new camera! Finally, we're back online. Many apologies for disappointing you for so many days. I hope to make it up to you.

Brayden had a wonderful day, including a trip to the doctor's office where he was checked out and everything looks great! He is 29 1/2 in. long (90th %) and 19 lbs. 7 oz. (35th %). The doctor cleared him to begin eating more, more often. Tonight, I snapped some photos in and after the bath. Doesn't he look so old?!

Bathtime smiles

Mmm... I taste good!

Who doesn't love a clean baby?

Nanners

No camera yet, but we have another on the way and we'll have it in a few days. Yay! Until then, a little more video action. Here is Brayden chewing on some bananas -- yummy. Happy President's Day!

The Lazy Crawl

Sorry for the time lapse on the posts. I've been dealing with a personal crisis -- I think I've lost our camera. I'm still holding out hope, but it's not looking good. Anyone have an old camera they want to replace and would make a donation to the ME fund?

In other news, Brayden has two exciting developments: 1) he got his first tooth! and 2) he finally crawled!! Now, I say crawled b/c he's only been doing the lazy-crawl for the past couple months. I tried to catch the real crawling on video, but all I got was the lazy-crawl. Enjoy, anyway.



Also, in case you're interested and need to kill a little time, here's my latest sermon, preached last week. If you have any deep thoughts, please share!

Chewing, chewing...

Messy Boy

Hey all. I hope things are much warmer wherever you are. Can you say COLD? I do believe that I just experienced the coldest weather I have ever physically been in. Ever. As I prepared to walk out the door to class on Monday, I casually walked over to my pc to check Weatherbug and to my horror (horror) the wind chill registered -1 degrees. That's below zero. To my knowledge, that has never happened in my little world. It's so cold that it looks like I'm blowing smoke out of my nose every time I exhale. I am officially the wimpiest cold-weather kid at school (my Florida roots coming out in full). Brrr.

Mmm... yummy

I figure it's time to give you, the fans, a quick update on Brayden's progress. He's been doing very well with crawling, although he only rarely gets his belly off the floor. He's very proficient at the little army crawl and it's more than efficient to get himself across our massive apartment (and by massive, I mean teeny-tiny). He doesn't need to work much harder to get where he wants to go. Beyond that, he has been chatty-chatty, mimicking our inflections very well and talking very intentionally to all of his favorite toys (who have yet to talk back... how rude!). You saw him clapping a few posts ago, and that has improved day-by-day so that he's now clapping whenever we say anything to the effect of "Yay, Brayden!!"

Still chewin'

Besides all that, he's laughing up a storm. Again, I can't seem to catch it on video in all it's glory because he finds the camera fascinating (and thus, ends the laughing fit). I'll keep trying. The funniest thing these days is that he laughs in response to our laughing, something that he had only been doing randomly until recently. And, as you can see, he's begun eating actual solid solid food. He loves Zweiback crackers (which I can't ever remember, so I call them sky box). We're moving straight through the 2nd foods in the Gerber line, mixes of fruits and vegetables. He has also begun pulling up on his own from the a sitting to standing position (which is redundant, sorry). We've officially begun to adjust the house for a traveling toddler, including lowering the crib. In fact, I had to lower it multiple levels because when I did it halfway, the bar only came up to his waist when he stood up, making his escape imminent (the kid's so tall!). So now it's almost to its lowest point. Our little boy is growing up!

The Super-Holy Grail in a Bowl

That has to be one of the strangest Super Bowls I've ever seen, particularly the first half (or first quarter, for that matter). Brayden was a very tired boy this evening, so he wasn't able to see much. BUT, he did watch some of his very first Super Bowl. In celebration of this, America's greatest religious event, here he is in the moment:

Some game time

Hey, I'm watchin' here!

Claps for Ethan

We're still celebrating Ethan up here in NOVA, and Brayden's the head of the party. Here he is, cheering Ethan! He started clapping yesterday, and we are rightly assuming it was the sheer excitement of having a new cousin. Yay!

Introducing Ethan Matthew Weitz!!

Welcome to the family, Ethan! Brayden's FIRST first cousin, Ethan Matthew, was born this morning (1:30a) in Tampa. He was 7 lbs. 1 oz. and 19 1/2 in. -- and perfectly healthy! Mommy (Jen, Nicole's older sister) is doing as well as can be expected only hours after giving birth! Daddy (Eric) has even gotten to feed Ethan! Here are some of the first pictures of the proud parents and the little beauty:

Beautiful Mommy and Ethan

Proud Papa and Ethan

Ethan Matthew!!

A hungry little man

Observation: Even though Brayden and Ethan were born more than 600 miles apart, their hospital-issue baby blankets were the very same! Both boys born with a natural fashion sense, of course.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Dean, Beth, Sarah (with Tristan),
You-know-who, Chris, and Casey

How many times can you say it's your first birthday as a Mom?! For Nicole, this is the year (well, B was present tummy-style last year... but he couldn't laugh and give kisses then). We celebrated with a morning of baked goods - waffles and blueberry muffins (and gifts, too!) - and ended the night with a little party. The Bojarskis, Lawrences, and Duncans threw a little surprise party for Nicole, complete with hats, noisemakers, and balloons. Here are some of the party-ers before dinner. The BIG 26... now she knows how old I feel every day!

Party people

We also wanted to give a shout-out to all the people we know sharing Nicole's birthday -- Elizabeth Landry (Happy 26th! -- same day AND year), Natalie Evans (Happy 2nd!), and Boris Yeltsin (Happy 76th!). I have a soft spot for former Russian leaders. Anyway, we hope you all had a wonderful birthday! I'm sure we'll have some good B-stories (we haven't shared many recently) once we recover from our sugar-high... mmm, birthday treats.