Brady A-Z

So our little B-Man has been a busy boy lately. All of a sudden his toys are just "OK" but everything else in the house is AWESOME! Not only do I have a shadow that follows me everywhere I go, but that shadow leaves a trail of destruction behind him. (That shadow is pretty darn cute though!) Here's a little glimpse of how things have been around here...


Dirt was everywhere...plant relocated.

All house plants are fair game.

So this is dangerous...definitely doing some rearranging.

The cat has never figured this door out, but Brady did!

Seriously left the room for 2 seconds and this is what happened!



If this is how it is with army crawling, I can only imagine walking. He just started showing an interest in cruising, and that made me painfully aware of how many candles I have sitting around. It's time for those to go to higher ground!

So since Brady has shown such an "interest" in the world around him, I decided to make a picture/ABC book of the things in his world. I've seen cute, professional looking ones such as:
Shutterfly Picture Book   Buuuut, I'm a momma on a budget and a teacher at heart, so I knew I could come up with one on my own. Basically I took pictures of things around our house to go with each letter of the alphabet- sounds simple enough until you get to "u," "v," and "x." Here's some examples of what I came up with...

I thought this would be a great way to help Brady identify common objects, work on his vocabulary, and eventually phonics and sight word recognition!! After I printed all the pictures (using a Walgreen's coupon-Holla!) I just put them in a small soft sided photo book. The whole project cost me about $4. I'm pretty sure I would have spent more than that on shipping if I had made the other "fancier" kind. Brady already had a photo book of "People Who Love Brady" with pictures of friends and family that he's obsessed with, so I figured this one would be a hit too. Here he is checking out his new book...

He is at such an awesome age and we are enjoying every minute of it! He finds humor in the littlest things, observes everything so closely, and is learning so quickly. I swear he has been trying to say the word "alligator." He says the "aaah" and then follows it up with "gay gay gay" when looking at his Gator mobile. We practice it every time I get him from his crib...Gator brainwashing has begun! We know that the real fun has just begun and we are totally enjoying seeing the world through Brady's (enormous, gorgeous, blue) eyes!

Spring Break! Part 2

The second leg of our trip was to Atlanta. Our good friends Lindsay and Jake get tickets to the Masters every year and Jake invited Chris to come with him this year. This was HUGE. The Masters was on Chris' "bucket list" and is so impossible to get tickets to. Basically Jake made one of Chris' dreams come true- *tear* While Chris and Jake went to the Masters, I got to hang out with Lindsay (one of my college besties) and her sweet little boy Jackson who is just 4 months older than Brady. It was awesome to see Lindsay as a mommy and get to know her little man. He is quite a bit bigger than Brady and more mobile, so Brady was a little intimidated by him at first. Jackson is so loving that he couldn't resist giving Brady lots of "kisses." Brady even had an Oreo colored ring on his forehead after hanging out with Jackson! This part of our trip went too fast and we wished we had more time to hang out with our friends...

Chris at the Masters

B-Man and J chillin' in the wagon

After Atlanta, we started our journey home. It's about 8 hours from Atlanta to Clearwater. Our only stop was in Gainesville (about 6 hours from Atlanta.) So basically we drove 6 straight hours with a 9 month old. That was a little crazy of us, but Brady did surprisingly well on this part of the trip. Again, he only took one short nap but played and ate snacks the rest of the time. You might be asking yourself, "How do you go 6 hours without changing a baby's diaper?" The answer is, yeah, you shouldn't do that. When we pulled into Gainesville, we parked on University Avenue in front of the row of bars that we spent so much time in in college and I had to change Brady's diaper ASAP. It was very surreal being able to see drunk college kids partying on one side of me and Brady on the other. Oh, how life has changed in the past 10 years!

Brady at Grog! I can't tell you how many nights were spent here with my Gator girls!

It was fun to walk around the campus and take pictures with Brady. We even had a picnic in front of my old dorm (because apparently Pita Pit doesn't have high chairs!) Here's a couple of my favorite pics of Brady.

The last two hours of our ride home felt long, but we made it safely and successfully conquered an 8 day road trip with a 9 month old. Whew! Here's my unofficial/ unprofessional tips for traveling with an infant:    
                     *make frequent stops/stretch breaks
                     *buy a few new toys that intrigue your lil' one
                     *pack fun snacks
                     *bring a DVD player/Ipad to play short videos
                            (fully charge before leaving!!)

One last thing...Brady and I played a very silly game to pass the time. Basically I used my cell phone to reflect a light on the ceiling of the car and pretended to chase it around. This entertained Brady for so long and I managed to capture some of the giggles. The link below will take you to the video- hope it brings a smile to your face!

Road trip giggles!

Spring Break! Part 1

Us Smiths decided to take a Spring Break road trip. Well, actually Chris was given an opportunity to go to the Master's (more on that later) and we planned a little vacation around that. On our first leg of the adventure we went to Savannah to visit my dad and step-mom (Grandpa and Nana) but passed through Daytona on our way. Clearwater to Savannah is about a 6 hour drive and Daytona was a good stopping point. We had a little picnic on the beach and let Brady stretch out and play for a while.

The second part of our drive went pretty well. Brady was entertained by a bottle, Elmo snacks, Baby Einstein videos, alphabet links, his photo album of his favorite people, and a short nap. Once we got to Savannah we were able to settle in for about 5 days and feel at home. It was a lot of fun to show Brady some of our favorite spots in Savannah, spend time with my parents, and eat lots of yummy foods. Chris and my dad went on a motorcycle ride one day and we got a couple shots of the boys before they left on their ride.

We also did lots of shopping, eating, and relaxing. I think the highlights of Brady's trip were playing with Grandpa and Nana, visiting the Easter Bunny and playing at the park. He apparently had so much fun that he did not feel it was necessary to nap during the days...yeah... Oh well, he was in vacation mode!



The bunny kinda creeped Chris out, but Brady LOVED him!



After 5 days in Savannah, it was time to head to Atlanta. We were on the road again! More on that after I work on unpacking, laundry, and sorting through Brady's fun new Easter stuff!