Ethan and Noel - Quick video on their 8 month birthday!

Playing around with the new iPhone yielded a nice opportunity to capture just how adorable Ethan and Noel are as we celebrated my 42nd (yikes!) and their 8th month birthdays this past weekend. Managed to get smiles out of both of them in just 16 seconds.

Brudam's First Family Trip

It's been remarkably hot this summer in Dallas and we've been relegated to the confines of our house for the better part of July. We decided to head West to Colorado for a few days in an effort to beat the heat.

It was a lovely trip out there and the boys traveled with ease on the plane. We couldn't have asked for better weather, though given the choice, we probably would have left out the bookend Emergency Room visits from our trip. Bruce's mom had an unexpected fight with an elevator and she lost, resulting in a broken leg. She;s recovering rather nicely, all things considered, and ever the bright spirit she is, hasn't complained once.

Our other trip to the ER was for Bruce, who decided to listen to his Survival Instinct and bail on the first hill of the mountain bike trail we were just beginning. I mean, we are not even 60 seconds into "Rose Petal" (I'm serious...the trail was called for Rose Petal and was the beginner trail that merged in with the slightly harder trail, "Butterfly Kisses", about a mile away).

ER trips aside, the boys really enjoyed themselves, as did we all. Here are a few pics:

The crisp air on a bare bottom:

The Brudams on the Mountain Top:

Their first Gondola ride:

Ronnie and Ethan on a walk:

I think Noel sees a bear:

Extreme Baby Adventure:

Noel Month 7

And while Ethan is our resident thinker (and often times stinker), Master Noel's become quite the charmer. I imagine in this picture Noel welcoming someone to the party..."Hey, welcome, so good to see you. What can I get you? Milk? Juice? Pai....can you whip up some Super Porridge real quick?"

Month 7

Month 6

Month 5

Month 4

Month 3

Month 2

Month 1

Ethan Month 7

Yes, we just posted month 6 the other day, but that was old news. Seven months is the new 6 months and Master Ethan is looking rather dapper these days....

Month 7

Month 6

Month 5

Month 4

Month 3

Month 2

Month 1

Professional Brudam Brigade Photos - 6 months

(posted in January due to previous omission)

We continued our professional photo series with the passing of the 6 month mark for the boys. Chad and Marci suggested that we escape the Dallas Summer heat and head indoors to the Gaylord Texan out in Grapevine for some interior shots (that actually look exterior in some instances). We stll managed to break quite a sweat, but it was worth it for the cute pics that follow.

For the boys attire, we went with a "baby biker" outfit that we had to admit was pretty funny and adorable at the same time. The boys had really started to display their true personalities at this point and Chad and Marci managed to capture that in quite a few of the pictures.

The biggest surprise for us in viewing these pictures was just how brutally the 2nd quarter had taken a toll on our appearance . . . the bags and black circles under our eyes were well-earned after a series of long, long, sleepness nights with the boys, who had really struggled to embrace our intended sleep schedule. It wasn't too long after that we finally turned a corner and they were sleeping for 9-10 hour stretches, but we definitely earned our parenting stripes during the 2nd quarter of fatherhood!

Thanks again to Chad and Marci for really capturing the personalities of the Brigade!

Noel Month 6

And Mr. Noel continues to grow as well. His first tooth came in over the weekend, so now he can start eating ribs, like we promised him he could.

Month 6

Month 5

Month 4

Month 3

Month 2

Month 1

Ethan Month 6

Ethan has been great this month...he's almost sitting up on his own and has two teeth (sharp ones at that!). He's also discovered an amazingly high pitched squeal that scares Noel to death...to which he delights in a little too much. :O)

Month 6

Month 5

Month 4

Month 3

Month 2

Month 1

A very special visit for us and the boys . . .

Adam and I feel incredibly fortunate every single day to be able to have the family each of us had always dreamed about . . . when we began evaluating surrogacy back in 2008, who would have thought that we would have met such an amazing person that would help us usher the Ethan and Noel into the world. Kim is a Navy wife and a mother of two children over her own . . . she's funny, honest, straight-talking and was as dedicated to the process as we were. Over the 15 months or so that we were activitely pursuing surrogacy, Adam, Kim and I shared a lot of meals, a lot of bad television and a lot of laughter, which made the process incredibly fun, even when it wasn't easy.

As our delivery/birth complications are fairly well-documented on earlier blog entries, I won't go into them here, but an unfortunate side effect of those complications was that Kim didn't get to spend much time with the boys while we were in California. We'd been working on a trip for her to visit us in Dallas and it finally all came together in mid-May.

Ethan and Noel loved getting re-acquainted with Kim and the sentiment certainly seemed mutual . . . we stayed pretty low-key so that we could all get in some good bonding time, but we did make time to introduce Kim to a mambo taxi (or two) and our favorite Sunday brunch place, Kathleens.

We're looking forward to many future trips with an incredible person without whom our current lives wouldn't be possible. Thanks, Kim and we'll see you soon!!!

Noel's New Vocal Range

Noel discovered his new vocal range and it seems to scare Ethan and delight Noel. Check out the clip below and Noel's pure delight in his screech.