A weeble wobblin' to a teedle toddlin'...

This past week (January 6-10) Drew has really honed his craft of walking. He quite literally went from a few unconfident steps here and there on Monday to maneuvering his turns and walking long distances before toppling over by the end of the week. We are very proud of our little guy (and also scared at all the baby proofing we must do again!) and his persistence.

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Wha?? Ya need proof of a laugh?

Martina writes:

At the very beginning of the video Drew breaks out into a huge laugh. It cracked me up and I couldn't keep it to myself. This kid has tricks in his bag that we can't wait to see! Enjoy!

Aaaand it's the one month mark 12/24

With all the other kids, I've taken pictures at one month, two months, three months, etc. With Ashley and Jonathan, I found some really nice frames and the standard Hallmark frame insert so I could put each picture in it. Then we moved to Austin and Paige was born. I'm admittedly not into the same things I was with Ashley and Jonathan, so I changed things up a bit. I gave up on scrapbooking the Creative Memories way, and decided to go digital. I mean, all Paige's pictures were on the computer anyway. So, when she turned one, I made an album of all her firsts and then the usual 1-12 month photos. With Drew, I may do the same, but I thought of maybe doing something in addition and something creative with his photos. Then it hit me. How about a flipbook of photos taken throughout the year? We take a picture of him almost every day and at the end of his first year, we'll find a way to make a book focused on his face to see where all the changes happened. It's going to be one fat book when we're done! But I've always looked back and wondered how they grew up so fast and where did those changes happen. This time, at least with one of the kids, we'll have a good idea which week those changes happened and where he fattened up or went through a growth spurt. So, in that spirit I'll be posting the one, two, three month photos as Drew gets older.

So, what's with title? I thought there were four kids...

Martina writes:

So, I'm sitting here staring at the computer...I have no clue what to name the darn blog and yet I have to make that decision right off the bat. It'd be nice to start off with a few posts and, eh, see how I feel - like maybe something will just come to me and I'll have the most brilliant title yet. Something catchy that most people will just hang onto my every word and set alerts to their mobile phones so they can keep up with us. And just then it hits me...yeah, still staring at the computer, still no title and I think I just saw a dustbunny grow a little. I decide on Johnny's Brother because there's a neat story about Mr. Drew and it's all connected to Jonathan. He called it. He must have placed his order with God and God decided to answer. Out of the mouths of babes...

Just after Drew was born, I had it on my "to-do" list to send out a little notecard that told the story about Jonathan and Drew. I bought all my cutsey scrapbook stuff to print it on and got a really cool stamp (and I'm not even into scrapbooking *or* stamping). I even wrote it up in Word and when it went to print, the stinkin' paper was pulled through crooked. It looked beyond amateurish, so I decided to pass. After all, it was good enough that we were sending out Christmas cards with the announcement in it and right on the heels of just having given birth so recently. So, now as an opening post I'm going to say what I wanted to say on that cool piece of cardstock:

As a departure from the usual Christmas letter, we thought it might be fun to share the story of how Jonathan wished for his little brother and how God answered that wish.

In late March, I picked up Jonathan from school as usual. What I didn't expect was his volume level 10 question "Mom, when is God going to put another baby in your tummy?". The question caught me off guard, not because I thought we wouldn't have more children, but because it was a random question, something Jonathan had never asked me before. At that particular time, I had a sneaking suspicion of pregnancy, but due to a variety of reasons, did not believe I was. I relayed the story to Neil that evening. I asked Jonathan to tell Dad what he had asked me, and so he did. He then went on to tell us that he wanted a baby brother and that we should name him Andrew. The following Wednesday, we found out that we would be welcoming a new addition to our family. The icing on the cake was that all the children were excited. Ashley and Paige were obviously pulling for a girl and Jonathan was holding fast to the idea that he would get his baby brother. On November 24, 2007 that wish came true.

I named it Johnny's Brother because, in the end, it seemed the most appropriate. Don't get me wrong, though. Ashley and Paige absolutely adore him - but there is something special about the brotherly bond between Jonathan and Drew. I see how simplistic and inspiring Jonathan is when we're on our way home from school and he's kicking rocks and telling me how he wants to teach "brother" (as he's called) how to whistle and kick a ball. He reminds me that it's not about the age difference between the two of them, but about how important it is that I do my job well to encourage them to be the best of buds.