Santa

Brooks loved meeting Santa!

He loved Santa's beard. The poor guy had to hold it on. Brooks had a pretty good grip.
In other news, All Brooks wanted for Christmas was his one front tooth and he got it!

Merry Christmas from the Hardys

Dilemma

We did a little rearranging in the front room today, for safety reasons. Then I realized we have a dilemma.

Option A: Couch where it has been against the banister. Baby can climb (not yet) on top of couch and fall over the banister and down the stairs. Not a far fetched possibility by any means.

Option B: Couch not in front of banister. Baby puts body parts through banister and potentially strangles himself.

Any suggestions?

And no, for those of you who read my last post, this is not considered helicopter parenting.

Free-Range Kid, it's not as bad as it sounds

A discussion and reading list on how less is more for kids

To get the full effect, I suggest clicking on the provided links and reading what's behind them. It may take you a while but it's totally worth every minute.

I am a big believer in free time and creative play for children and adults and how it shapes our lives. I read this article in TIME today and wholeheartedly agree. If you have kids at home or even grandkids, I recommend taking the time to read it for yourself here.

Reading the article reminded me of a book I read a few years ago, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. It was eye opening and really got me thinking about how I want to parent and how important it is for kids to guide their lives. The title really says it all.

I met a girl recently that grew up in a family of seven kids, all girls. They never watched TV (maybe slightly weird), they played outside all summer and had the freedom to decorate the walls in their bedrooms however they pleased. They all turned out wonderfully and can play on their own without needing to have the TV on, play video games all the time or be all over the internet when there's a quiet moment. Totally awesome!

I think that as parents, giving our children opportunities for creativity by letting them decide what they do during free time (which I would hope they have a lot of) rather than filling their schedules with dance, music lessons, math tutoring, they will grow into much more successful adults.

On Radio West a few months ago I listened to a broadcast about Creative play and commercialism. Very enlightening. I copied the following from the website of Author Susan Linn (www.susanlinn.net):

In her new book, The Case for Make Believe, Linn argues that while play is crucial to human development and children are born with an innate capacity for make believe, the convergence of ubiquitous technology and unfettered commercialism actually prevents them from playing. In modern-day America, nurturing creative play is not only counter-cultural - it threatens corporate profits.

Both timely and important, The Case for Make Believe helps readers understand how crucial child's play is - and what parents and educators can do to protect it. At the heart of the book are stories of children at home, in school, and at a therapist's office playing about real-life issues from entering kindergarten to a sibling's death, revealing feelings they can't express directly, and making meaning of an often confusing world.

In an era when toys come from television and media companies sell videos as brain-builders for babies, Linn lays out the inextricable links between play, creativity, and health, showing us how and why to preserve the space for make believe that children need to be happy and to become productive adults.

I suggest listening to the broadcast on Radio West where she discussed her book and beliefs about play. It can be found here.

Good-bye Baby Einstein (never had it to begin with), only one flashy battery powered toy, and absolutely no books where a pen can read to the kid. I never had these and I think I turned out okay, my parents and grandparents had nothing close and they turned out even better.

I'd love to hear from any of you who feel the same as I do, and and all who feel completely opposite. Let's have a discussion!

And for being patient you get some pics of the Brooks. He's a mover these days.

Monsters!!!

I've been eying a pattern to make these monsters for a while now. Brooks sure loves them, even the one that's twice his size.



We've started a new tradition taking pics of Brooks every Sunday. This is from last Sunday. He was five months and one week old. We had a Neonatology follow up appointment at the dept. of Health last week. He got weighed again and was in the 97th percentile for height still and jumped into the 90th for weight. 18 lbs and 2 ounces. No wonder he's so hard to carry around.


We had an impromptu girls get together last Friday. Grandma loved holding both of the babies.


Brooks and his cousin Beck like playing together most of the time. Brooks was pretty tolerant as beck kept kicking him in the head. Pretty funny.


It totally cracks me up that babies will hold hands without any help. Love it!

Halloween and Other Things

I worked last night and am way too tired to try to organize these pics into any decent order.

Chris took Brooks to Church solo while I worked. He was cute and took Sunday pics before they left for Church. I sewed that little tie onto his onesie on Halloween. We had fun crafting at my mom's that night.

Terra, Beck, Brooks and me on Halloween at my mom's

Ward party a couple weeks ago. I went as a nurse as I had to leave for work shortly after the party started.

Beck and Brooks

Chris the hipster and Audrey the witch. Chris' costume was scarier cause of how real it looked. He totally acted the part too.

Vee and Mom. Funny.

I made this for little Beck. (Terra- It's at my mom's next time you guys go up.)

My bro Chris made this for Brooks. Rad!

We didn't get any pics of Chris in his iPod costume. I wore it last year and he did this year cause at work he's over iPods. We thought it was funny, but his coworkers didn't see the humor.

Brooks and our friend Alex, Brooks really liked looking at the bright colors on the hat.

One last night out. We're really going to miss the de Poixs. Good friends. It's hard to find couple friends where everyone gets along well. I'll refer you to my friend's post on this and I feel the same way.

Hanging out with our babies at the ward Halloween party.

How to get Brooks to sleep

Exhibit A
Sing him a lullaby and rock him to sleep
Exhibit B
Hire Kyle to play the guitar so you can get your crafting project done before you have to leave for the night.

Fall Photos

I slept in today and took a long nap with Brooks just in case I got called into work for my on-call shift tonight. When we finally got up for the day I looked outside and decided it was a perfect day to get some fall pictures. I called my friend Jody and she brought perfect little Elsa over. We had lots of fun trying to keep her happy for pics. Brooks really didn't seem to mind. He just wanted to eat the grass, leaves and pumpkin. Thanks Jocelyn for letting me borrow the bumbo. Perfect! We sure missed JM. Thanks Adrienne for the cute socks Brooks is wearing and to Eliza for the cute shoes. These were my attempt at taking and editing the pics. Would you believe these are on my lawn?

baby Elsa

baby Brooks

I can't believe how big my "little" boy is getting. It's outrageous.

Update

Brooks couldn't get enough of this teddy bear at my mom's

He's rolling all the time these days

Hanging out at Uncle Brady and Aunt Sami's

We walked to the grocery store last weekend it was a fun little trip but all the bumps in the aveune's sidewalks put him to sleep

On our way home we ran into our friends taking fall pics, we thought we'd give it a try with Brooks. I think the ones I took today turned out just a bit better.

Last Sunday we had dinner with friends. Brooks is 6 weeks younger than this guy here. Brooks kept wanting to roll onto him. JM didn't seem to mind much.

Brooks kept trying to eat her ear, she wasn't a big fan.