Taking Chance

A few days ago Dave and I watched a flim on HBO called Taking Chance. It is a very moving true story and one that makes you proud of having men and women who are willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Watch it if you can, I can guarantee you won't have a dry eye at the end of the movie. I copied the summary HBO had on their website of the film:


In 2004, Lt. Col. Michael Strobl volunteered to escort home the body of a 19-year-old Marine killed in Iraq. It would prove to be a life-altering experience. Kevin Bacon stars as Strobl in this profoundly moving HBO Films drama that looks at the military rituals for honoring its war dead from the perspective of one fallen soldier named Chance Phelps. Strobl never knew Phelps before taking the assignment, but as he journeys across America, he discovers the great diligence and dignity in how the military handle such dark duties--and comes to grips with his own issues of guilt when he meets Chance's gracious family and friends. Directed by Ross Katz; screenplay by Lt. Col. Michael R. Strobl, USMC (ret.) and Ross Katz, based on the journal by Lt. Col. Michael R. Strobl, USMC (ret.) (NR) ()

A parental visit and The Cute's nine month stats

Haven't posted in a few weeks. Things have been busy! Dave's parents came for a visit over President's Day weekend and we got to show them around the pretty Crystal Coast. I wish we lived closer to both his parents and my parents. They are such an invaluable part of our lives. After next year when we move to Arizona, we will all be closer to them and our friends. I can't wait! In the mean time we are really enjoying North Carolina. It is so pretty here and of course the million dollar view from our (small) home is breathtaking. I am so lucky to get up every morning and watch the sunrise over the water and let the dogs run free on the private beach. This base housing is tops! Below is a pic I snapped of the sunset while Dave's parents were here. His Mom liked this one so I thought I would put it up. The horizon line of sky and ocean melt into one another. The sunset isn't that spectacular but the water had turned so still that it looked like ice:

The Slay's at Fort Macon:

Brenden at Fort Macon.. he gets so serious when we put him the the stroller:
At the aquarium:

On another note, Brenden had his nine month well baby check a few weeks ago. His stats are:

Weight - 24 lbs 12 oz. 95-98 percentile

Height - 30 1/4" 90-95 percentile

Head - didn't write it down but in the 90-95 percentile

Hey at least he has dropped down under the 100 percentile mark! A big boy no doubt. We are in the tail end of 18 month clothing size and starting the 24 month size. I didn't think we would zoom through so many clothes in 9 months! I have tubs full of wonderful cute clothes for him that he barely wore. I guess that is just a part of it. He is almost walking now and loves pushing buttons - the literal ones and not mine - yet. In fact his favorite are pushing the DVR on/off button and the phone talk button! Don't be surprised if he speed dials some of you and there is nothing on the other end of the line when you say hello. How thoughtful of him, right? Let the fun begin!

The Cute LOVES bath time....aka the Terradactyl cries in excitement

The video is self explanatory ~ he digs baths big time! We are also teaching him the word "a oh" which is something that comes out of our mouths about a hundred times a day when he drops something or does something he isn't supposed to, etc. He is just starting to associate that with the action that happened before. You can hear him in the clip when he drops his rubber ducky - he doesn't get it just right but is starting to. It really is just endless laughs as we video tape him.

Bath time and a oh!

and of course right before we get him into the bath he gets the 'diapes away!!!' when the diapers are ripped off with enthusiasm....by this time he is almost at the crying stage because he wants in the bath so badly but somehow when he gets in there, he is strangely calm. By the way, in the Slay household one doesn't wear diapers but diapes.

Diapes away!!

Here come the choppers

I think I mentioned a few posts back that Brenden's teeth were coming in. All four front ones at the same time. It has made for a lot of sleepless nights as he wakes up often from teething pain. The funny part of this is that his smile has changed due to him biting down on the new teeth nubs. He reminds me of Marlon Brando in the Godfather for some reason - maybe it's the big pinchable cheeks? They look like they have cotton stuffed in them like Don Corleone. I tried to capture the 'new' grin below:

On another note, we have one of those tubes that drawings are stored in and of course Dave and I talk into it with a deep voice to play with the dogs and Brenden. It gets the dogs excited and makes The Cute laugh and laugh. Last night, Dave captured Brenden picking up what we do. Kids are smarter than we think - of course I am sure he was just putting it to his mouth to chew on it and a sound came out at the same time but it's funny anyhow I think.

The Tube:

Dad's big juice....

It happens whenever we drink out of any bottle of liquid but for some reason when Dave gets out his big jug of iced tea, Brenden is polarized by it. He wants so badly to drink out of it. It doesn't hurt that it has a nice big handle to grab onto as well. The bottle is about half the size of him but you wouldn't know it by how he manhandles it. Take a look:

The Big Juice

The daily baby proofing of the house continues and presents new challenges each day. Things one wouldn't think would be interesting to a baby suddenly are! We need a storage shed to put all the things that aren't baby friendly - at least for a year or two. It certainly changes the landscape of the decor!

Snow at the beach

Yesterday was apparently unusual for this part of North Carolina. Beaches and snow colliding is a rarity - sort of strange as I see it, but nothing out of the ordinary. Barely a skiff of snow actually accumulated. The news varied their reports from about 2 or 3 inches. That equates enough for the region to basically shut down. I mean shutdown big time! Schools and Government establishments for the state were told not to show up 24 hours before the storm even hit. So with a 70% chance of 2-3" snow you can see why you would want to shut everything in the state down. Then the storm finally hit. It took us 8 hours to get some coverage on the ground. But after the storm was complete, the first ten minutes of the local news was not on the momentous Presidential inauguration holding the attention of the country but the "horrible road conditions making travel extremely hazardous in Eastern North Carolina." It made David and I laugh and laugh...I guess growing up in Utah for thirty years, I got used to snow and A LOT of it. Still it was bizarre to see it on the sand. The dogs and Brenden hadn't seen it before, so far be it for me to not take my camera outside and document the day wind and snow a blowin'. Here are some pictures of our place:Have to snap a family shot. Dave is good at doing this:Had to take the dogs out to go to the bathroom. It was really windy coming off the water and they were definitely not amused:I dig this photo: The Cute all warmed up inside with Dad's hat on:

I knew this day would come.....

.....where we would have to baby proof the house. I was just hoping it would be later rather than sooner. A few posts ago I posted that Brenden was starting to crawl. A few days after that (literally)he stood up on his own grabbing onto the coffee table. In just two weeks time he went from being immobile to crawling to now standing. I guess I thought we would have a little bit more than a few days in between to put things like power cords and lamps in a place where he couldn't grab them. Very detail oriented this boy - he sees a speck on the carpet from a room away and goes for it!
As for the baby proofing, we don't exactly have traditional furniture that one can easily pad. Our coffee table is an architectural flat file with a 1/2" thick glass top that freely slides around. I ended up wrapping it up like a big present with one of the moving blankets the movers left us. Not exactly ideal but we shall see. The other option is to put away what we just spent four weeks unpacking and organizing and letting the lad run around an empty house.
Brenden's favorite thing now is to stand up in his crib and walk around. We lowered the mattress to the lowest setting with my back thanking me on a daily basis. Here is a video clip showing the enthusiasm he has for the crib rails:

Strong boy


and the big grin he gave me after filming him.. what a ham!

I had to put this picture up beause it cracks me up. He loves my old laptop as you can see - oh and also check out my coffee table wrapping job~
I think he will be walking by nine months.. help us all!

Recent photo sesh....

We recently had a professional photo session, the first time since The Cute was three weeks old (I know we are lame in the professional photo area mostly because the thought of it all makes my head hurt). I guess I enjoy taking my own pictures too much ~ the control freak that I am. If only I had four arms to hold baby and operate camera. Oh well...
We couldn't get to this before Christmas because of the move so better late than never, right? Here you go - it's just a sampling of the pictures that we have.. short but sweet post :


I like the last one because if you look closely.. his first tooth is on the left bottom..

I think The Cute needs to work for UL labratories

He is a bruiser no doubt. Granted this video is from about a month ago when we first got to the new house and set up his Exersaucer that he hadn't seen in about a month. He is a jumping fool and also didn't have his doorway jumper thingy (as I like to call it) for the same period of time. You can tell he was itching to jump. We thought the hydraulics on the thing weren't going to take the abuse but it held up fine. By the way, this is him after his first bout in it when he was really crazy. I went and retrieved the video camera after that and believe it or not, this one is toned down from that one. He hasn't been this aggressive since then on the poor unit but it made me stop and think this boy should be testing products for durability at UL labs. Any product that can withstand his abuse gets a thumbs up in my book. Take a look and you be the judge:

The Bruiser

Right before our eyes

I always told myself I would write this blog to document the ordinary events of our lives. The events that when taken singularly don't mean all that much but when strung together tells the story and experiences of our family.
Some posts are much more significant and/or important than others for various reasons. This post happens to be about crawling. Brenden's crawling to be exact. Literally two weeks ago he was on his hands and stomach but couldn't quite lift up his belly to go anywhere so he would roll around until he got to where he wanted to go. Effective but inefficient. Last week he started lifting up his belly and moving backwards which wasn't the direction he wanted to go which got him frustrated enough to motivate forward. This weekend.. boom! He is off full steam ahead! It's a good thing that we have just finished unpacking boxes and cleaning up the house - just in time to baby proof it. We also discovered this weekend that he has cut his first tooth. It will only be a matter of time before he is eating a T-Bone steak with us. Everyone always told me that babies grow up fast. They are right. It's only been eight months and I can't believe how much he has changed.

As usual I couldn't let you escape without a visual aid - here you go:

Watch out here he comes....