Fun Pictures Today

We are still in recovery mode from being at the lake this past weekend. I have a big blog post coming with lots of lake-time fun, but her are some fun pictures I took today to tide you over until then!

Hello Brother

Getting so Strong!

Reading with Daddy

Reese is busy busy growing up!

Reese has been working on trying to sit up alone:

He still needs pillows for support

Oh, tippy turtle!

But still so cute!

And a nice opportunity to capture those adorable little feet

He also seems to be thinking about crawling! When on his tummy he often gets up on his knees and elbows and tries to push forward. Maybe he will be a little ahead of his brother and not wait 3 more months to go somewhere!

He had been having quite the conversation with Clifford here!

It's hard to capture his pre-crawl attempts on film!

Also, something I haven't blogged about him yet is his first foods! I gave him some rice cereal for the first time on June 21st, but he didn't really seem ready (like none of it was swallowed, all spit out!) so I waited to try again for about another week. The second attempt was slightly more successful and he has been eating a little baby rice pretty much every night since then. He has also had some bananas, either mashed with a fork and mixed in his baby oatmeal or a chunk of banana in a mesh feeder bag and he can just suck it through the mesh. It's so messy but he is basically making his own baby food! He has also had some pureed pears that I made for him. I think some of the problem at first is that I was mixing the cereal too thin; he seems to prefer a much thicker texture right now.

Here is his very first try with cereal and a spoon from June 21st:

Another evening at the Branz farm last weekend and some excellent photo opportunities! Darrel's Aunt Cindy, Uncle Karl and cousin Clay came for a visit

An awesome picture of Clayton earlier in the day

Reese having fun with his Great Grandma Branz

Clayton in his cool new shades

Darrel's cousin Clay reading a book to Clayton

Unfortunately there are no other pictures of Clayton with the other family members since Clayton seems to be more than a little shy of our "stranger" family members (as in we don't see them very often, I won't speak here of there potential strangeness). Uncle Karl offered his fist to Clayton for some "knuckles" which Clayton was more than willing to do, but after a couple of seconds he realized he had no idea who that was and started bawling! There was still a fun time to be had though!

During Breakfast

So during breakfast I have this habit of turning on the radio for a chance of hearing a little snippet of the news so I can feel more connected to the outside world (but it usually turns out to be things like 2 year olds being run over by cars, so maybe not such a good idea) but usually they play good music and I dance and sing which Clayton thinks is funny and tries to dance and sing along too!

Happy Clayton eating his oatmeal

Reese on the other hand just looks at me like I'm moron!

Oh well!


And here is just a random funny picture of Clayton and Chloe this morning:

Our Little Monster. . .

He speaks monster . . .

Last Weekend's Pool Fun

From last weekend when we were at my parent's house so we could go to a wedding. . .

Reese thought playing in this little pool was fun, but Clayton didn't know what to make of it really. Especially when Grandpa kept spraying him with water every time he went too close! It was fun though!!

He is getting close to sitting up alone!

Visit to the Farm

We all went out to Great Grandpa Fred and Great Grandma Pat Branz's farm this afternoon after nap time so Daddy could get a little work done and show Clayton all the fun farm things, and spend time with family too!

Great Grandpa enjoyed a little Reese time!

Great Grandma did too, but we didn't take a picture - hopefully we can grab one next time!

Daddy and Clayton went to go see the tractors and the wheels:

We ate supper out there, and then before we went home Clayton got to drive the 4 wheeler around a little bit!

Reese was so interested in all of that, and maybe a little jealous of big brother!!

Sitting with Great Grandpa, watching Clayton drive the 4-wheeler

"When will it be my turn?!"

Reese Can Splash!

Reese has been getting a bath every other day now for a while (instead of every other) and he is starting to really enjoy his time in the tub!

21 Months Old!

Well Clayton is 21 months old now and in three short months will be 2!! He is about 33 inches tall (maybe a little more but it is hard to get a good measurement since he won't hold still) and now weighs 25.2 lbs.

21 Months old!

Reese looks like the forgotten child back there . . .

Clayton's favorite thing is still trucks, and loves to watch a History Channel episode of Modern Marvels called Monster Trucks on Netflix (Disney's Cars is OUT and he will actually cry if I turn that movie on!) He will also watch Blue's Clues, Elmo and other Sesame Street clips, but Monster Trucks are the favorite. Every morning after breakfast he goes and turns on the TV saying "I watch" and sits on the couch and yells "crucks!" (trucks) and uses the remote to turn on the PlayStation.  One day he did say "I watch trucks" so we are starting to hear him sting two and three words together to form sentences and will also repeat just about anything. Like I ask him "did you poop?" and he said it right back to me!

He also loves his brother! When he wakes up in the morning he asks repeatedly for Reese, and has to know where he is! He says "oh Rweese" (more "w" than "r" sound) all frown-y when Reese cries, and tries to rock his car seat if he's in it and turn on the giraffe that plays nature sounds for him.

His schedule this summer has been a pretty late bed time, with bath time starting around 8:30pm. He usually sleeps until 7:30am or 8:00am, sometimes a little later, and takes one nap around 1:30pm and sleeps until about 3:30pm sometimes longer or shorter depending on how much we wore him out in the morning!

His favorite foods are oyster crackers, M&Ms (or "meows" as he calls them for some odd reason I'm not sure why),  bananas "ah-nas," spaghetti, and Peanut butter jelly sandwiches, which I call PB&J and Clayton shortened to just "a J", but some how he rolls the j when he says it and it's really cute! He also enjoys raw baby carrots dipped in ranch, hot dogs dipped in ketchup, and almost anything else you can think of that can be dipped in ranch, ketchup or barbeque sauce!

He is getting better at saying different foods he wants to eat and things he wants to do. He will go to the door and say "go walk" or "pool" to let me know what he wants with out me running through a list of options. It's very helpful! When we do go for walks, which Clayton enjoys, we either take the double stroller on a long walk, or go for a short walk and put Reese in his own stroller that holds his car seat and let Clayton walk alongside. He likes to help push the stroller and is really good about holding hands when we ask him to if a car is coming. He also likes to yell out the things he sees and hears, such as birds, trees, cars, trucks and choo choo's. He is so smart!

We have been working on a lot of things too! One is trying to have him say his name, but when you ask him what his name is, he points to himself and says "me." He still won't say grandma, but this weekend when my dad and sister watched the boys so we could go to a wedding he called my dad "g-pop!" So yesterday while on a walk he was babbling on and on, and a couple times I caught the words "g-pop" and "cat cat" (bob cat) so he must have been remembering how grandpa took him to sit in his bob cat this weekend!

We are also working on having him take off his own clothes. He can get his shirt off over his head if we start him with one arm already out!  I'm not sure why we want him to learn this, but . . .they have to learn sometime I guess.

Sorry to go on and on, but I just never want to forget these precious times. Clayton is learning so quickly and it's amazing to be able to teach him and watch him grow!

All my boys! 7/10/12

Wrestling Moves

We took both boys over to the weight room last week for a change of scenery while Dad got in a workout. Clayton enjoyed running around on the wrestling mats and tried to copy his wrestling moves.

The first one he tried, called a Granby, I still catch Clayton trying out every once in a while and he even says Granby! I can't wait till he's old enough to start little kid's wrestling!

Reese Then Clayton

Here is a long but so cute video from the other day (July 1st). It starts out with Reese being tickled by mommy and screaming with delight! Then since we were ignoring him, Clayton decides to put on a show too!! So begins their perpetual competition for attention from Mom and Dad.

July 4 Fun!

Well neither of the boys are really a fan of the fireworks when they are up close and in our own driveway (which makes mommy sad!) but hopefully when they get older they will enjoying blowing stuff up more. Clayton did enjoy the snaps that we bought for him to throw:



We even let him stay up late to watch the first couple minutes of York's show (the evening of the 3rd) which he and Reese did enjoy but they were tired. I guess from a distance fireworks are less scary. He liked the "booms." The next day when he saw the debris in our driveway from fireworks he even called them booms! Hopefully we can have more fun with "booms" next year.

The morning of the 4th my parents came to play with the boys and for lunch. We had a Patriotic fruit pizza (yes there are 50 blueberries):

And taught Clayton to play Ring Around the Rosie:

Reese is 5 Months Old!!

Reese is 5 months old now! He weighs 14 lbs 6oz and is 25.5 inches long. He has sure grown a lot!

Here are some adorable photos from the waaaay too many that I took of him today:

Trying to get him to sit up - I guess he had a question about that!

Finger Games

He's been getting good at these!

Lake Time!

We spent a day at Johnson Lake with grandma last Saturday and spent the night. Reese had his 1st boat ride! (Clayton went on a boat for a little bit last summer). Reese HATED being in the life jacket and after he got all the screaming out of his system, he just kind of laid there with his eyes half open like "what the heck mom?" Clayton had fun for a while but didn't really like sitting still that long.

And I wouldn't necessarily say that he remembered it from last year, but of course he really enjoyed his time in the swing!

Clicker Hereto see the blog post from his time swinging there last year: