Christmas Break and the New Year

A new thing Brandon has started is saying "Oh-oh" when he drops food or has an accident. He also uses it when other people drop things. He is very observant. In the last post I mentioned how he understands everything we say to him, and in the last week or so, he's been shaking his head up and down if the answer is "yes", and left and right if the answer is "no". He's also surprised us by using sign language to signal some things to us, even though we taught him signs many months ago. This has made it a lot easier to understand his needs and wants. Here's Brandon having fun with Play-Doh.

Last week, we started to sleep him in his crib for several hours at a time, and it's my hope that in a few more weeks, he can sleep by himself. But now let's talk about Christmas. Brandon's Christmas morning is show in the video below:

For Christmas, we had a busy 2 weeks planned. It started by us flying to Denver to see my mom and siblings, and Brandon had fun seeing his uncles and aunt. We went shopping in Boulder and walked around the Pearl Street Mall. He really enjoyed going to the many specialy stores there, especially Into the Wind, where there was all kinds of unique toys to ply with. We came back on Christmas Eve and cleaned up the house for Christmas the next day. We were pretty tired, but Brandon woke us up and we all started opening presents. Zenna got him all kinds of fun stuff, and he loved it. I stayed up late the night before assembling his little trike.

Then we left for Idaho late in the afternoon, trying to make the Moser Christmas dinner. We actually got stuck in some snow drifts near Grant, and were only about 1 mile away. Brandon handled it pretty well, considering he had to sit in the car for 4 hours until he got out. But once there, we stayed a week until New Year's Eve, and came back down to Ogden with Zenna's mom. We stopped in Willard Bay, since the 31st was the last night for Fantasty at the Bay, which was a fully lighted-up park with all kinds of Christmas themes. Zenna's brother Spencer and sister-in-law MaryAnn stopped by later in the night, so that we can celebrate the new year. Here he is wearing his Supreman pajamas on the last day of 2008.

For the last two weeks, we've been trying to get back into some sort of schedule, especially since November and December were quite hectic.

We haven't posted in a while, the last 2 months have been quite hectic. Zenna's dad passed away on November 12, and we spent some time in Idaho for the last week he was there and the funeral. Brandon was on really good behavior for those weeks, almost like he knew that someone was about to leave and therefore he should let people grieve. This is the last picture we have showing Brandon with his grandpa.

For Thanksgiving, we went up to Island Park, where we had a condo reserved for a week. Brandon had a lot of fun playing in the pool, going on ATV rides, even on a wagon ride to Big Springs. He loves being outside, or just out of the house. He also liked to play with the other kids from the extended Moser clan.

Some fun in the pool and a meal later on. The next day we played out in the snow, and he thought it was a little bright!

The 2 pictures below are from the wagon ride to Big Springs, where we all posed for ashot. Then we went back to the clubhouse and had smores, Brandon loved them.

For the last few weeks, he's been becoming more articulated in his demands and babblings, pointing to things he wants by saying "That, that!". He's more into getting books read to him and he tries to add to the stories as well. We can't wait until we can understand what he's got to say. One thing that amazes me is that for at least the last 6 months, he seems to understand everything we say to him, and he sometimes acknowledges it, other times he acts like he's a baby and can just ignore us. He definitely is smart and has a mind of his own. Below is a video of Brandon expressing affection to Max sometime in mid-November.

In a couple days, I'll post about our Christmas vacation and the new year so far.