I’ll give you fair warning: what follows is a poorly formed, clunky download of what Brady and Cate have been up to lately. This is the best way I can think of to catch up on four months of activity and officially get this update train back on the tracks. 
Brady: 2 years and 5 months old. Loves talking, singing, laughing and whining. Love trucks. Loves M&M’s. Loves going to McDonalds to get smoothies. It’s likely he thinks “McDonalds” is the word for “smoothie.” Not sure. Still loves Toy Story. Has added “balloon house” (a.k.a. Up) to the mix. LOVES “bump, bumps” - talking about them, riding over them in the car, walking over them (bump bumps are speed bumps/humps). Has started to tell us that he doesn’t like things, doesn’t want things. He definitely wants to do everything himself. In fact, the best motivator is to suggest that Mommy or Daddy might do something. “Brady do!” is always the response. And then he loves to tell us he did something all by himself. He jumps at the chance to be helpful – especially putting baby’s diapers in the trash and giving Emma & Billy their treats. He is not, however, ok with Baby Cate playing with his toys. Even if his hands are full of toys, he will take the baby’s toy and stuff it under his arm or between his two elbows. But by far, my favorite thing Brady is doing lately is learning song lyrics. Occasionally, he wants you to sing along and says “Mommy, sing it for me!” Some of Tim’s favorite phrases: goose in the grass, “what are you doing here?”, “blowferdit (blow on it)”, “don’t want to.”
Cate: 10 months old. Oh, Cate. She is so sweet. She loves to clap – she holds one hand still and smacks it with the other. She loves to shake her head when you say “noo”. And she loves to cackle. She has started eating table foods and is very excited about it. She prefers to feed herself. She still won’t eat anything cold and promptly gags when you feed it to her. She has also started to drink her own bottles. She crawls like the wind and always heads straight to the dog bowls, dog beds and DOGS in general. She is pulling herself up to stand on everything, walking from here to there while holding on. And if you’re patient, you’ll catch her standing on her own for a good 5 seconds now and then. Her punk hairstyle is completely unmanageable. Just try to put a barrette in her hair. We started giving her a formula bottle around 10pm about a month ago. It’s been very effective in helping her sleep through the night. I think the table foods have helped a bit, too. She used to wake up a couple times, fuss quietly and put herself back to sleep. The past couple days she wakes up 1-2 times a night and full-out screams each time. She settles quickly enough though. Hmm, what else? She’s solidly fitting into 12 mos clothing with a couple 18 mos (or 9 mos) here and there. She’s a snuggler and she’ll throw herself from one person’s arms to the next. She also loves to flip upside down. So you have to keep your hand on her back when you hold her!
Brady & Cate
They have their good moments and their not so good moments. Cate loves her big brother and always wants to be with him. But she wants to poke him and scratch him and smack him. He mostly wants to ignore her but is starting to find some enjoyment in things she does. When she smacks the dining room table and laughs in his direction, he will laugh and smack back. When she splashes in the bathtub and cackles, he will splash back. But he’s jealous of any attention she gets. He will smack her with toys or push her over to get attention from Mom and Dad. Ugh. It’s disappointing. But he’s very protective of Cate and will push, yell and pull the hair of any little boys or girls that get too close to his sister. When she cries in her crib, Brady stands up on the side and tells her “it’s ok, Brady’s here.” If she doesn’t stop crying, he’ll run to the gate and tell Mom and Dad that he needs help – baby is crying, needs her paci.
Brady turned three on September 15th. What's different than last year? Sooo many things. But in regards to this day: Brady knows his birthday, he knows that he is three, he special requests birthday cake, and he can blow out his own candles!! What's the same? He still doesn't want to eat anything special (or anything at all) for his birthday dinner, he still loves to sing the birthday song, and he's still not exactly sure what to do with presents. He let his new train set sit wrapped in Cars paper ALL WEEK! There still remains one unopened present in the house.
The first of the big day celebrations was the Saturday prior with Grammy & Poppie. Brady scored a super-incredible motorized Lightining McQueen car. He wants to push it. Next, Brady was celebrated at school. His friends and teachers sang happy birthday to him, made him a big, special birthday card and he got to wear a birthday crown all day! Then he came home and we had MORE BIRTHDAY CAKE! He blew the candles out twice and ate all the blue frosting off the cake with his hands.
birthday. He weighed in 33 lbs 10 oz (71st percentile) and was 38 inches tall (65th percentile). His blood pressure was 84/56. The doc advises taking Brady to the dentist sometime before he turns 4.
