Brody's 2nd Birthday Party

 Brody posing with his tractor cupcake platter and his custom made tractor shirt just for "B"!

 A half smile:)  It's never fun to not feel well at your birthday party, but despite the lack of smiley pictures I can assure you that he had a fun time!

 The kids' table, haha, just kidding Josh & Whit.  Sometimes it's hard to pin down all toddlers to get them to eat at the same time.  At least Brody and Claire seem to be digging on the great food.  We had fruit, monkey bread, punch, coffee, cupcakes, egg bakes, banana muffins, and mini muffins, an excellent spread!  Thank you to my mom and Cindy for pitching in on the food!

 Brody is telling Paco all about his Farmall 300 tractor that Paco fixed for him.  He loves that tractor, I just wish he'd quit breaking off the wheel.

 I got his shirt from someone on Etsy, now he'll have a tractor shirt to wear all year!

 Aunt Sue showing the kids how the farm puzzle works.  A puzzle with pieces that don't come out?  Genius from my perspective!

 The goodies for the kiddos.

 Thankfully Brody had Claire to show him the ropes.  She really helped him keep moving during the present opening.

 Not surprisingly, the football present resulted in a bonked head about 5 seconds after opening.

 "Open, open, open"  New round baler for his tractor.

 Remote control skid steer.  I think the kids stood there as it pivoted in a circle for a good couple of minutes just staring at it.

 Brody likes his farm "ba-yoon"!

 I took the liberty of blowing out the candles for him.  I figured I'd do my best to spare everyone his sickly spray!

 The Minnesota crew; Brody, Max, Claire, Andrew, Everleigh, Briggs.  I cannot even believe that we got 2 of the 6 actually smiling and no one crying or running away.  This is true progress if you've seen previous attempts, even as recent as Christmas Eve.

 There's a smile:)

Brody's 2nd birthday party was on Sunday.  We had a good crew and great food.  Thank you to all for coming and for all of the wonderful gifts.  Brody is having a blast playing with all of them in the after math!  Even though he wasn't feeling the best on Sunday, he still had a fun party.  He felt worse on Monday and this morning when I left he looked even worse.  Poor kid can't take anything of use for a head cold.  Even with wonderful boogie wipes his nose is raw.  Last night he kept coughing so hard that he'd throw up.  No fun turning 2 and being sick.  It reminded me of pictures of my younger birthday parties where I always seemed to be sick in the picture.  We have Brody's 2 year check up in a week, so we'll see how he's doing at that point.  I think he's doing wonderfully!  He wears 2T at minimum, some of his size 7 shoes are now getting snug, he seems average for height and if pictures are any indication, he's pretty set in the food department.  He says more and more all of the time and makes short sentences now.  At Party City when I bought his balloon he saw little tractor party favors, picked them up, looked up at me and said "mommy buy dis?", how can I say no to that (and the fact that it was 59 cents)?  On drives home from daycare he tells himself the recap of the day.  I hear all about Omi, Papa, tractors, C-yaire's house, mommy It-ney (Whitney), Josh, Max, trains, and much much more!  He loves to watch whatever we're doing in the kitchen.  He pulls up his chair and stands their and says "atch, mommy?", making sure I'm preparing supper properly I guess.  His bedtime routine is glorious, he is so good at it and we're so fortunate.  We do jammies, books, and bed.  He sits on the couch next to me and reads book after book (often trucks and tractors) until either I say bedtime at 7:30 or he gets up and runs to his crib and tells me it's time.  Last night I didn't want to put him down right away because he kept spitting up when coughing and I didn't want him to sleep in that, so we just sat and read until he finally begged me, eyes half open, to pick him up and put him in his crib at 8:15.  The other day Brody was with Barry and Brody said "daddy cleaning, mommy happy", now there's a wise kid!  Of course last night when I buckled him into his car seat after daycare the conversation when something like this:
Brody: No home.
Me: Yeah, we're going to go home. 
Brody: No, mommy home.
Me: Yeah, mommy's going home with you too.
Brody: No! Mommy It-ney (Whitney) home.
Me: Oh, Whitney is Claire's mommy, she's staying at Claire's house.  I'm your mommy.
Brody: No mommy.  Mommy It-ney.
Me: Sure (change subject). Should we go home and make supper?
*Oh well, we pick our battles.  He can't be perfectly smart all of the time!

Towel Boy

 There goes our very scary lion, roar!  Omi and Papa gave the kiddos a nice big bath towel for Christmas.  Brody loves to get all warm and snuggly in his lion towel after bath time now.

Cindy made Brody a sauna towel for Christmas.  It velcros at the waist so it doesn't fall off.  It has to be the cutest half towel for a toddler that I've ever seen!

It's been a rough day today for Brody for some unknown reason.  Maybe he slept on the wrong side of the crib?  As if that's possible the way this kid sleeps like a tornado.  Today consisted of many time-outs (including 2 in Target).  He always takes them so willingly, it's the weirdest thing.  And he always gives a hug and says "sorry" to us when he's done.  When asked, "are you going to say sorry or do you need a time out" he oddly usually responds "out".  This means he's opting for a time out, after which he knows he'll say sorry anyway.  Kids, right?!  Today also consisted of a lot of crying, a lot of tears, many tantrums, and way too much whining.  There were a few moments of happiness...the 5 minutes where he was helping make cookies and sampling a fresh baked chocolate chocolate chip cookie that daddy made.  And now shortly before bath time, jammie time, bed time he is happily eating tuna hotdish with a fork AND a spoon and he's on his side dish of pickle number 3.

What in the world did I sit around doing when I didn't have someone either whining in my ear or saying "hi mommy, hi mommy, hi mommy, hi mommy"?!  I have to say that of the many things I'm thankful for, I am especially thankful that Brody is such an amazing sleeper!  Bedtime is never any trouble and nap time is rarely any trouble.  He's flexible and sleeps like a rock.  He loves getting tucked in with his moo-cow and snuggles up to his pillow with his eyes closed before I even close the door.  Usually (not this weekend for some reason) he sleeps in on the weekend.  Maybe he knows his daddy is home or maybe it's because I'm not awake getting ready for work and making noise for an hour before I wake him up anyway at 6:45 to walk out the door.  It's anyone's guess, but I sure hope that baby Park will be equally as wonderful in the sleep department.  It sure would make sharing a room with Brody that much easier!

Other updates: Brody says more and more everyday.  Most things are now at least a two word sentence.  He turns 2 shortly, how times flies!  We painted his room blue and I love the calming color.  It's not a baby blue, more of a steel type blue and I think it'll coordinate well with the combo baby's sea life theme and the new Brody's airplane theme!

 "Helping"  "Me help"

 Brody, Max, and Claire on New Year's Day lunch at the farm, such great cousin friends!  At least Max and Claire each took a turn smiling at them camera!  Notice that Claire and Brody both got magic wands from Omi.  

Salsa

This boy loves salsa.  He loves dip of any kind really.  He also doesn't mind spicy things.  Sometimes he loves them just a little bit too much.  I assure you that not even one minute later he was back dipping his chips in the salsa bowl and enjoying them just as much!  This boy did not come from me, he clearly belongs to his daddy. If you look at the picture below and you knew Barry as a kid or have seen pictures of him as a toddler, this would be quite obvious.  I have not seen many pictures of young Barry, but I've seen enough to know that this looks like a Barry-replica (I've seen that exact face before, expression and all).  It makes me wonder, will baby #2 look like Brody (and Barry) just as much?

MINI-BARRY!

Today we painted Brody's room blue.  We planned to paint it blue regardless of what baby #2 might be.  Now that we know it's a boy, the color is even more perfect!  Brody is saying more and more each day.  Gone are the days of 1 word sentences and I love it!  With that comes an even stronger opinion.
Baby stages as I see them:
1. Eat, sleep, poop: pretty easy to diagnose a problem for a newborn
2. Cranky and unable to point or say a word to clue you in.  Cry, cry, cry...frustration can be high for all.
3. Able to say a few words, 1 at a time, mostly foreign though.  Frustration continues.
4. Parents can understand their toddler's 1 word sentences with ease and know exactly what they want while outsiders think it's all foreign.  Frustration decreases.
5. Toddler says even more, parents know exactly what they want (often outsiders can understand too), toddler knows this, parents don't always say yes, toddler can't hardly believe this.  Frustration increases and returns to that of stage 3.
*It's a good thing in this current stage that half of what he says is just so darn cute.  It sure makes the screaming protests slightly more tolerable.  I hope that with step 6 reasoning starts to increase.  A girl can dream right?

Visitors

There were a lot of things I loved about Christmas this year.  A major one was that Barry was home for two whole weeks!  Another was all of the great visitors and the places we got to visit.  Audrey and Kelly came over a few times to visit.  Brody loved them both of course!  They played tractors with him, racing them around the living room, the chair, down the hall, and into his bedroom!  They colored, read books, chopped food, and much more.  Gotta love friends!  Brody could say Kelly's name pretty well, but every time he tried to say Audrey's name it came out sounding like "sorry".  We'll have to work on that one!

Christmas Day 2011

We spent Christmas Day up in Ely with the Park family.  Brody got to enjoy some snow!  He went sledding, snowmobiling, and slipping and sliding on the frozen lake.  He had fun playing with his new toys from Grandma Cindy, Grandpa Steve, Uncle Zach, Aunt Aimee, and Uncle Eric.  He loves Aimee and said her name every few minutes, it was so cute!  At first he thought Zach and Eric were both Eric, but by the end of the day he knew who "tac" was too.  I think it's safe to say that he now has the whole opening presents thing down and I'm sure next year will be filled with even more excitement!