Brooks - 11 Months

Brooks was 11 months old on Christmas Eve. It's hard to believe in just a few short weeks, he will be one! With Christmas and New Year's keeping us busy the last few months have flown by and suddenly I'm frantically planning his first birthday party!!

Brooks is doing great, let's see, recent updates.....

- he has six teeth
- crawls super fast
- pulls up on furniture and can balance with one hand
- furniture walks, especially on the hearth (we had to move all decorations)
- says "mama, dada, eat, indy" he's trying to say Carter, but it's a little tricky.
- points
- finger walks, but would much rather crawl
- loves to splash in the bathtub
- gets really mad when you change his diaper
- suddenly not thrilled with the car seat either. I think we're getting close to transferring him to upright seat
- eating everything but honey. we started peanut butter early and he's going crazy for it!
- I beef up his bottles with one extra scoop of formula each time. He only drinks about 4 oz at a time so this way I can get some extra calories into him....seems to be working
- He loves Daddy and books it for the door when he gets home from work. Jeremy picks him up first and he looks down at the other kids as if to say, "Beat Ya!"...really cute.
- Brooks is taking two naps per day, sometimes one if I'm out running errands during pre-school. He's somewhat flexible as long as he gets the afternoon nap and several morning naps each week. No longer will he sleep in the car seat.
- Favorite toys: race-car (old toy of Carter's) He can crawl while he pushes it since it's easy to grab, plastic balls, activity table, vacuum cleaner cord unfortunately! - he unplugs it every time I'm vacuuming., the Christmas tree was a huge hit too - I could not wait to take it down this year!
- he sucks his index and middle fingers to go to sleep, similar to Leah, but different fingers.
- Brooks has a few nicknames including: Brooksie, Brookster, Brooksandrus (all one word), Brooksie Baby...kind of reminds me of the SNL skit in the copy room.

This was taken Christmas morning. Brooks, wearing his new mud boots and riding the pony from Santa.

Here he is playing at the activity table with a big smile

Another favorite activity is spitting to make Carter and Leah laugh. he sucks his top lip and spits everywhere (shown below), funny the first time, then not good especially in the middle of church.

This was a recent video of him standing at the table....also shows the other kids playing hide-n-seek with Jer. They play hide-n-seek all the time. Another favorite game is "Brooksie Monster". Jeremy carries Brooks around like he's flying and chases the kids. Brooks howls laughing and the kids think it's hillarious to run away from him!