Brecht Family Christmas

So after we opened presents yesterday... remember? It looked like this: ALL of the Brechts came over. I'm talking cousins, grandpas, grandmas, aunts, uncles, greatgrandpa and greatgrandma. MAN, it was a lot of people.
39 people all at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

It was a lot of people.

But I got to see a few of my new friends. I think I call them my 2nd cousins. Jordan is almost my size, but he's only 3 months old. Miranda was born 1 month after me. Their mommy's are cousins with my daddy.

There were SO many people I decided to eat my first stocking to soothe myself.

Then Miranda and I played with the new glockenspiel she gave me.
And we had a "who has the bigger cheeks" contest.

I won.

This is my family. The Brechts.

I love them, and they love me.

Merry Christmas!

PRESENTS!!

The moment has arrived!! The time has come!!
PRESENTS!!
Well, I was more excited about crawling around on the floor with Uncle Cal.I was everywhere! I was gonna open my presents! No one could stop me!

Except for Aunt Jennifer. She's a quick young lady if you ask me.

She handed me over to Grandma. I showered her with kisses all day long. I love my Grandma. She makes me smile.

She got me this cool chair!!

It's just my size.

Check out all the rest of my presents! I think I am one loved little man.


After we opened all those presents, I kinda went comatose. It was definitely naptime for me.
But I haven't stopped playing with Aunt Jennifer's cool tool box she got for me. I also really like the blocks Aunt Nikki got. And Grandma got me so much stuff I haven't even had a chance to use it all yet!

It was worth the wait.

The Day After Christmas

It's the day after my first Christmas and I am STILL hungry! You wouldn't know it by looking at me, ladies and gentlemen, but I ate 3 helpings of Grandma's mashed potatoes and gravy yesterday and came back for more today.

You think that would be enough to satisfy my little tummy, but NO!
I'm eating Cheerios like a big man now.

See?

And only 1 more day and I can open ALL my presents!!

Christmas Day

Guess what?! It's Christmas day and I think Santa came.

Bert was jealous of all my presents.
But mostly he was jealous that Grandpa played with me so much.

We laughed and laughed!
I had SO much fun with Grandpa!

Really? NO! Santa gave ME presents?!

WOW!!!

I was SO excited I ran around the room on Jaxxon! Not even Dad or Uncle Cal could hold me back!

Except for Aunt Jennifer. She's pretty good at catching me.

Then Grandma gave me just one of the presents to open because Uncle Justin and Aunt Nikki weren't coming until SATURDAY. But don't worry... it took me until Saturday to open the first present from Santa.

Because I started chasing after the camera!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Christmas Eve

We had a great time on Christmas Eve in Iowa with Grandma and Grandpa Brecht and Uncle Cal and Aunt Jennifer. We had a family picture in front of the Christmas tree and ate way too much food.

After much prodding (as it's tradition in Gail's family to open presents on Christmas Eve) Grandma decided to let Elijah open the first gift of Christmas!
It took him about 10 minutes to get the wrapping paper off...
but he had fun!

It's a TRACTOR!!!

Grandpa was proud. It's an AGCO tractor, and Elijah loves it!

First Snow Fun!!!

Sledding!!!

Elijah finally had his first snow experience! Let us be clear. We live in Minnesota, so we've had snow for a while, but we finally took him out to play in it just before Christmas. We have a little guy sled thanks to our neighbors, Troy and Lori. Here's the story:

Elijah didn't quite know what we were up to.
He gave us many looks that said, "are you serious?"

Dad pulled him around the yard. Dad had fun even if Elijah was unimpressed.

The verdict: Elijah is a daredevil. He likes to chew on electrical cords, pet ferocious German Shepherds (Bert), eat Cheerios, and play with toys for 18+ month-old kids. He was not impressed with this slow sledding around the yard. Soon we'll take him to the park with the big hill where he can do his baby sledding stunts.

Christmas is Coming!

I'm READY for my First Christmas EVER!!!

I heard you get lots of fun presents from some fat guy who lives in snow.
Doesn't really make much sense to me, so I decided to have a Cindy Lou Who look alike contest between me, mommy and daddy.


I won.

Obviously.

Here I am trying to help Mr. Grinch take down all of our Christmas Decorations to repair. I'm such a good helper when it comes to taking things apart.

Hmm... I wonder when Mr. Grinch is going to bring back that fun stuff so I can take it apart again? Will I get any presents for Christmas this year?

hmm...

Well, I sure hope that Santa comes for my First Christmas. We're going to be at Grandma and Grandpa Brecht's house, so I hope he's smart enough to bring me my presents there. I better notify mommy and daddy about this one.

I Can Chew, I can chew, I CAN CHEW!!!

I DID IT!!!!

I have LEARNED how to CHEW!



Okay, so maybe it's not the best ever, but I'm ACTUALLY eating Cheerios!

Elijah went to his first Choral Concert last night. We heard our friends Dane and Kate sing in The National Lutheran Choir at St. Mary's Basilica. It was beautiful. And it was at 4:30, so he would be able to stay awake for the whole thing! We went with our friends Derek, Michelle, Rachel and Theresa.

He did GREAT at the concert. Elijah especially liked the part where he ate the pews.

So when we got home the next day, he started singing along and making new crazy noises for mama. It was beautiful. Give it a listen!



Music to my ears...

Mii Faces

Has anyone ever created a Mii character on the Nintendo Wii?
If you have, I'm sure you've seen many options of faces to create.
But I'm sure you've never seen such as these:

This one's the BEST Mii Face.

(FYI... we were trying to feed him peas. Guess he's just like mommy and daddy.)

My First Tooth!

First, I had NO teeth.

See?

Aaahhh....


Then one day... all of a sudden... WHAM!

Just like that! There it came! My first tooth!

Check it out!

Isn't it beautiful?!

(You might have to click on my picture to make it bigger so you can see it better.)

Now I can eat all sorts of stuff! And bite things more.

YUM!

Dad's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Daddy!!!
I made a great video of me trying to blow out your candles...
Or you can interpret it as my rendition of "Happy Birthday To You."
Or me telling you how an elephant sounds...
Or me using my great new table manners...




Happy Birthday Daddy!!
You taught me so well!

Miss Haley gave me a cool new hairstyle after my bath one night.

It's pretty rockin'.

Is it good enough to be a Fuller Still mascot?

Done.

Vintage Vault

Here is a random cute video of our boy. It's been in a folder on our computer desktop called "Videos to blog" for about 3 months. So... enjoy some classic Elijah back when he was learning that he could use his voice!

Thanksgiving in Delaware!

This year the Brechts decided to go to Delaware for Thanksgiving. Why? We wanted to be closer to the original Thanksgiving location where the holiday was first celebrated. Mission accomplished. We got to experience many East Coast phenomena that we midwesterners (Josh and Elijah) don't understand.
1. Friendly's. Late night Ice Cream. Better than Cold Stone? Yes. Cheaper than Cold Stone? Yes. Especially when your waitress messes up your order and you get 2 sundaes and fries for free.
2. Cheese Steaks. Anyone who has EVER been to an eating establishment that offers a menu item called Philly Cheese Steak with Gail will know her passion, fury, and outrage!!!! "IT'S NOT A REAL CHEESE STEAK UNLESS IT'S IN PHILLY," she will scream as she slaps you in the face for even thinking about ordering one! So we had a Cheese Steak... in Delaware (which apparently counts as authentic, by the way). It was glorious. She's right. Midwest imposters are not even in the game.
3. Fancy Pants Thanksgiving Dinner. We even drank wine from Crystal wine glasses. Ooooo...faaabulous.

Here's the play by play:
Elijah's first Thanksgiving! He was PUMPED for dinner!

The feast begins... with sweet potatoes!

Remember folks... one of these containers is considered a full meal for him... our son knows what Thanksgiving is all about!!!

The formal pose:

Okay. This is Elijah's new favorite thing. He LOVES being upside down! He has discovered the joy of blood all rushing to his head and thinks it's HILARIOUS!

With Vera...

Uncle John teaching him how to listen to rap music

Uncle Bob throwing the kid...

Aunt Christine making Big E laugh...

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAL!!!!!!!!!!

My favorite new toy is my new soccer ball from Tia Christy. She gave it to me at the beach this summer. I've been practicing since I got it, and I think I'm ready to play!


He spies the ball...


He looks for the goal...

He kindly asks the goalie if he could put the ball in the net.

He shoots...

He...

sucks his fingers.

We've got lots of work to do, son.