Valentine's Day 2011

The Malko's celebrated Valentine's Day last Saturday, February 12th! My parents kept Anderson so Jon and I could celebrate with a day together! We dropped him off around 1pm with them, but before that Mommy gave Anderson her Valentine's gift! Here are the pics:

Here is Anderson Pre opened gifts - this picture is hilarious to me - he is making the funniest face! I love it!

Here he is with opened gifts. He got a new book, a little soft toy mouse the plays music and vibrates so it will move on it's own across the floor, and a red and white striped onesie.

After Jon and I dropped Anderson off at my parent's we went to lunch at PF Chang's. We then went to downtown Louisville and perused the Antique/design shops on Market and Broadway! We had a ton of fun just hanging out with each other! For dinner we enjoyed J Alexanders.... mmm! We were going to go bowling to complete our evening, but the wait was so long we decided to just walk around the mall and enjoy each others company! We were SOOO excited to have some uninterrupted time alone together that we totally forgot to take pictures! We did exchange small gifts. I got Jon some candy and Microsoft Game points. Jon got me an iTunes card for some new music, some candy, and some coffee. He also made me such a special card which was prob my favorite part of my gift! All in all we had a great day!

~Brooke

4 and a half months

We have been parents now for 4 and a half months! 4 and a half CRAZY months! You really can never really be prepared to be a parent. We had so many "plans" and "ideas" that were completely naive! We really are just feeling settled into a new norm where regular every day activities can actually take place as expected! Anderson is loads of fun! He can do so many things now! It is AMAZING how fast babies learn and grow. Here are some things he can do:

• Push himself up on his arms while layone on his stomache without ever tiring - he could hold this pose all day!
• Roll over from belly to back or back to belly
• hold himself supported on his legs while we old him steady - he can do this for a very long time!
• trun himself all the way around in a circle on belly or back
• He tries really hard to push himself up out of his Bumbo seat - of course I don't let him push all the way out but I really think he could!
• Sleep all night long!! (9pm-7am) with only 1 wake up to get his paci back in!
• Eat 5.5 oz in one sitting! Not every sitting but occasionally he drinks this much!
• make any noise imaginable haha! He tries new ones all the time.
• Make noise to "sing along" when we have music on! He LOVES music and kicks his feet like crazy
• Ride in his baby bjorn facing outward and loving it - he moves his feet in a running motion which is HILARIOUS!
• Play with all his toys - he especially loves toys that play music and have lights.
• He reaches for anything and everything
• He tries to copy what you do - we are working on waving bye bye! He tries really hard to move his fingers open and closed like we do!
• He can sit up for brief period. Especially if he has his hands on a toy.
• Stay awake for 3 hours or longer!
• He hits with his hand - like the table or his toys.
• He laughs - he has a funny laugh - it is kind of deep and not high pitched like we expected it to be!

Those are just a few things off the top of my head! We are loving life! Our family is so full! We are developing new routines that work best for us - like taking a bath around 10:30-11:30 (depending on our 7-8am wake up time) we have learned that bathing him after his first feeding results in a poopy bath tub! And we now read a book, sing a song and say our prayers every night before bed! It is fun to decide these things, but it is also kind of a lot of pressure! We really have to think and be intentional about trying to help him learn things! He loves to explore around the house and touch everything so we have been trying to say the names of everything - like sink and door and mirror and cabinet. When we touch the refridgerator we say "BRRR cold" and when he reaches for the stove I grab his hand and say "HOT, hurt the baby". And of course not a day goes by without saying "ma ma ma ma" and "da da da da" hundreds of times! It is amazing how quickly he picks up on things and seeing his smile and excitement when we praise him for doing somehting new is the rgeatest joy!

Needless to say being a mom is unbelieveable! It is so much more than I ever expected! The Lord is so gracious to give us this opportunity!

I will update this week with a Valentines day post! (We celebrated Saturday!)

~Brooke