Enjoying Xmas presents and starting solid foods!

After New Year's, we have been spending most of January enjoying Christmas presents that we received.  One of our Christmas presents was a high chair for Brady, which has been getting quite a lot of use.  On Friday January 4th, Katie gave Brady his first tasting of solid foods.  Not sure if you can really call them "solids" per say, it is more like "soup", and we wondered how he would like them but of course it seems like so far this kid will eat almost anything we give him.  The first day he was a little hesitant and gave a look like this is the worst tasting food ever,

       

but after a few spoonfuls, he quickly warmed up to the spoon and started eagerly opening his mouth and gulping it down.  Each week, we have been introducing a new food, so the first week was all rice cereal, then pureed peaches, then sweet potatoes, then green beans, and now we are on pureed carrots.  It seems as thought sweet potatoes has been his favorite and green beans have been his least favorite.

Other than eating solids, Brady has been trying to roll over more.  He rolled over for the first time from belly to back on December 1st but now it seems like he has forgotten that task while learning the other way from back to belly.  He likes to flip over from his back to belly but starts to get frustrated because he can't figure out how to get back to his back.  I think maybe he is getting stuck on his big "milk belly", but it is so fun to see him try and learn all these new tasks.  However, it has started to cut into our night-time sleeping through the night.  We have been very spoiled since around 7 weeks old, he has slept through the night but now quite often he wakes us (well actually just Katie...Charlie sleeps through just about everything) up screaming because he has flipped over to his belly and trying to get back over.

He also got a Baby Einstein musical bouncer seat for Christmas and loves to bounce in it, so much that he seems to try to bounce even when he is not in the seat.  Every time we pick him up, he starts to kick his legs trying to bounce while we are holding him.  I think he is working those leg muscles to run track like his Daddy some day.

New Year's in Chicago

After spending Christmas and the week after in Ohio, we traveled back to Chicago in time for New Year's Eve and the last few days before Charlie's busy season at work starts.  New Year's always gives us a chance to look back on the year - and 2012 was a good year for the Mowry household - as we now have one more member!  This was Brady's first New Year's Eve - though we didn't expect him to see the ball drop - bed time is around 8:30 :)

We went to the suburbs.  Brady's friend Tessa was there (our friend Kris and Tina's parents' house), and some other friends of theirs were doing the New Years thing out there - kids included.  Charlie's old roommate Jay and his wife and son were out there as well.  This was our first time meeting baby Bob - so they had a stare down!

Then each decided the other baby was all right!

Kris and Tina ordered food from Maggiano's and Jay made some very potent jungle juice and Charlie made root beer floats with a vodka twist for some of the adults and virgin for the older kids.  Baby Tessa went to bed around 7:30pm, Brady went to bed around 9pm and Baby Bob I think held the record and stayed up till 10 or so (after taking a nap of course).

After all the babies went to bed, we played some good old fashioned drinking games.  Back in college, the two games of choice were usually Flip Cup or Beer Pong.....ironically enough it was not until we were all in our 30's that we discovered "Flong", which somebody at the party had played before.    We were all wondering why we never thought of this while in college, because it might possibly be the perfect drinking game....a combination of Beer Pong and Flip Cup.  Here is a quick tutorial, basically we divided into teams similar to flip cup with everyone on each side of the table next to a flip cup, then there are 2 people (one on each side) that go head to head in the beer pong.  Once a ping pong ball is made into one of the cups, it starts the flip cup competition.  And if the team who scored the ball into the cup also wins the flip cup competition, then they get the point for the round, but if the other team wins the flip cup competition then the point is deflected.  Quite a fun game that pretty much can go on for a long time.

While we have been in the central time zone before for New Year's Eve, we had forgotten about how the Times Square ball being dropped doesn't really mean a lot because it happens at 11pm in Central time zone.   But no matter where you are, it is still fun to count down at Midnight and celebrate the New Year with a kiss.

Here's to a very happy and healthy 2013 to all of our friends and family.

 Even Griffey had a date for the night, his new best buddy Kirby.  They were quite the team, chasing each other around all night.  

Christmas cards!

It's always fun to get Christmas cards over the holiday season!  And to send one, particularly with Brady getting front cover now!  This year we put them up on the fridge - here's a photo of how many there are (before we take them all down along with the Christmas tree).  We miss Christmas already!

Christmas in Ohio part 4 - seeing friends in Columbus and Cincy

The day after Christmas, we went to dinner at Buffalo Wings and Rings with our friends Brian and Adrienne and their daughter Charlotte. Brian is Charlie's high school friend; we used to see them quite a bit when we lived in New Jersey.  Charlotte is now over a year old and is more active compared to when we last saw her!

The next day, we met with Pastor David from the Mowry's church in Wyoming, who presided over our wedding.  We are excited that Brady is going to be baptized there in March.

That night, we drove up to Columbus with Brady to do Christmas with Charlie's brother Peter and his family.  We hadn't seen PEM, Becca and the kids in almost two years; a house fire canceled our visit with them last year.  So this was their first time seeing Brady!  We picked up Planks pizza - an old favorite from our Columbus days - and brought that for dinner and present opening with the kids.  It was good to see them - Tommy, Joey, Ricky and Mikey have gotten so much bigger and sure are growing up fast!

After seeing Peter and the kids, Tom and Leslie drove back to watch Griffey for a couple days.  We stayed in Columbus and went to our friends Bryan and Kristen's house.  We saw their son Will, whose 1st birthday party we went to when we were en route for our move to Chicago.  Brady got to play with one of Will's exersaucer - a seat that spins around with toys on each side.  Very fun!

We stayed in a hotel that night and then went to Katzinger's Deli for lunch the next day, which is a well-known deli in German Village.  Surprisingly, in 7 years living in Columbus, we'd never actually been there!  The sandwiches we got were very good!  After that, we went up to Dublin to our friends' Craig and Ashley's house.  A few other couples came over with their kids (Matt, Lisa and 1-year old Zane and Joey, Kathy and 1-year old Lilly).  Craig and Ashley have twins a week younger than Brady.  So it was quite the baby party!  With Zane, we got a glimpse of what might be in store with Brady - he had a lot of energy and takes a lot more watching than a 5-month old!

We stayed the night at another friends' house - Gary and Heidi, who have a 4-year old daughter Calla.  Brady also got to play with some old toys there, too!  The next day we drove back to Cincinnati, despite there being a lot of snow, and spent one more day there before driving home to Chicago.  We had a great time going back to Ohio, but were happy to get back to our house in Chicago!

Christmas in Ohio part 3 - Cincinnati on Christmas Day

After spending Christmas Eve at church and with family, we went to bed excited for Brayden's first Christmas!  Now, to a 4-month old baby, Christmas day really isn't that different from any other day.  Brady doesn't wake up wanting to run down to get presents - he wakes up and just wants to eat, and then maybe even get some more shuteye!

Eventually, we did get around to opening presents with Charlie's family - Griffey and Brady included.

Everyone enjoyed the gift-giving, we were excited to give some of the presents we'd purchased from Christkindl Market. in Chicago  Brady again seemed just as interested in the wrapping as the presents themselves!

He enjoyed some of the books he got and liked reading with his Mom and Dad.

He also got some warm winter outfits for the cold Chicago weather!

Even Griffey got a great gift - a sock monkey toy of his own!

Later that day, we had an excellent Christmas meal prepared by the resident chef on Wyoming Avenue, Charlie's mom Leslie.  In the evening, we went to the movies, which has become a family tradition.  Katie stayed at home to watch Brady, while Charlie and Leslie went to go see the Hobbit and Tom, Abby and Grandma Dorothy went to see the new James Bond movie.  It was a great Christmas and we were happy to see our son enjoy spending time with family this holiday season!

Christmas in Ohio part 2 - Christmas Eve at Wyoming Presbyterian

After spending a couple of days in Eaton, we traveled to Cincinnati to stay with Charlie's parents.  We drove down on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and Katie's parents Bob and Sue followed a little while later.  Charlie's parents Tom & Leslie, sister Abby, grandmother Dorothy and grandfather Chuck ("Grumpa") all continued our tradition of attending the 5:30 Christmas Eve service at the Wyoming Presbyterian Church.  This is always special, because it's the church where we were married.  It's good to see Pastor David, and the service is always interesting because it is centered around a Christmas pageant put on by kids from the church.  They always do a great job, from the strings instruments at the introduction, to the acting, to the children's choir!

This was a special night because it was Brayden's first Christmas!  We were nervous about how he would do going into church, so Katie was sure to feed him just before we went.  He started "talking" a bit toward the end of the introductory music, but then he fell asleep.  This meant Charlie's arm got very tired throughout the service, but it also meant he made it through without requiring a trip to the nursery! He woke up toward the end of the service and seemed interested in looking around the congregation and taking it all in.

That night we had a turkey dinner with all the family, and enjoyed hanging out.  Brady was sure to let everyone know what he thought of the evening by chiming in from time to time during dinner!

Christmas in Ohio part 1 - visiting Eaton

We spent over a week in Ohio for the holiday season, and it was a lot of fun!  We were there so long, that we can't really fit everything into one post, so we'll start with our first stop, staying at Katie's parents' house in Eaton.

Before heading to Ohio, we went to Charlie's KPMG holiday party on Friday the 21st.  It was held in Union Station, the biggest train station in downtown Chicago, and was very nicely done.  Katie's friend  Dorianne was nice enough to babysit Brady for us Friday night so we could go, and Katie got to meet some of Charlie's co-workers.

The next day we got packed and drove down to Eaton.  We got in pretty late, and Brady was already asleep, so we went to bed and woke up excited to watch the big Bengals game!  Brady was happy to see the Bengals beat the Steelers and qualify for the playoffs.  Since he was born, both Cincinnati professional teams have qualified for the playoffs, so Brady is good luck, and he probably thinks it's always like this!

(Griffey looks interested, too!)

On Sunday we also opened up presents - these were Brady's first Christmas presents!  He loved looking at the boxes, and he enjoyed the wrapping paper so much that he decided to see how it tasted :)

His favorite gift came from Santa - it's a Mickey Mouse doll that sings!  He seems enthralled by Mickey's song (which is titled "Hot Diggety Dog"), and likes to cuddle with Mickey.  And sometimes see how he tastes, too - basically, he is curious how just about everything tastes!

The Carico's old neighbor, Michael, stopped by to say hello.  Katie used to babysit him when he was quite a bit younger.  Now, Michael is a teacher and a wrestling coach at a nearby school, and just got engaged.  He hadn't met Brayden yet, so it was good the timing worked out.

We stayed in Eaton through the afternoon of Christmas Eve, then it was on to Cincinnati for Christmas Eve service and visits to the Mowry house.

Christkindl market with Brady's buddy Eli

Just before the Holiday break, we went to the Christkindl Market.  This is a German Market that opens up during December in downtown Chicago near the Daley Center.

The market was a really fun place to go right before the holidays.  There are a bunch of stores with all sorts of European-based themes (primarily German).  They had things from miniature Christmas houses, lots of different ornaments, handcrafted games, books and crafts.  We actually went there a couple of times and bought quite a few of our Christmas presents at the market.

And they also had very good food.  Again, this tended to be German in theme - Pork, Sausage, Wiener Schnitzel, and sauerkraut.  Charlie tried something new called Leberkaese the second time we went there.

Saturday the 15th of December was the first time we went there. We met Brady's buddy Eli and parents Rachel and Pete down there.

At the market, there is a Santa Claus house, so Brady and Eli got to hang out and meet Santa!

We hung out in the covered tent for dinner, and Brady loved the music that was played by the German folk band there - he even sang along to White Christmas!