Summer Vacation...

Jon had some time off last week, so Brayden and him decided to spend some time with his parents. Jon was pretty courageous. He decided that since we only have one car and I had to work, that they would take the train to South Bend and have his parents pick him up there. I tried about 50 times telling him it is not a good ideal to take a baby on a 2 1/2 hour train ride at 4 o'clock on a 90 degree day. But Jon decided he was brave and would try it out. I give him huge credit for being such a great dad. Well it didn't go as well as Jon thought it would go. First off, he thought Brayden would sleep. That didn't happen, so then he ended up with a crabby kid for half of the ride. Second, he some how ended up in the non air conditioned car for about half of the ride, so he spent most of his time cooling Brayden down with water. I asked him when he arrived if he would ever do it again and his quick response was NO! At least he tried.

Brayden had such a blast at Grandma Patty and Grandpa Dave's house!!

Grandma gave him rides around in the laundry basket

She also taught him "hog tie", he loved it.

Look at this face, it has mischievous written all over it!!

Grandma figured out that he liked to get into everything so if you look in the background you will see that grandma had to blockade him from the rest of the house because he was just too quick.

Daddy and Brayden enjoying their vacation

We got to enjoy the weekend at the lake house with the Amos Family. They are friends of ours from college and their daughter Kylie.

Brayden and Kylie

Kylie enjoyed her kiddie concoction, while we enjoyed margaritas.

Brayden had his first swim in the lake. He was more interested in trying to get the sand and rocks in his mouth!

His first official boat ride!!

Along with cousin Maddie, look at those beautiful blue eyes!!

Enjoying the wind in his face from the ride

Uncle Josh making me belly laugh

Overall, he really did miss his mom for a few days!! Actually I think I missed him a ton, it was the first time I was separated from him for just 2 days!

Oh, but what fun he had!!

Happy Father's Day!!

We have been very busy this week. Alright, well I take that back. Brayden has been busy exploring EVERYTHING in our house and we have been busy chasing him so that he does not get into everything. It is amazing how quickly he became extremely proficient in crawling and sitting up. So what is next on the check list, standing?

On Thursday night we laid Brayden down for bed and about 5 minutes later we hear this huge thud. Of course we were scared and ran immediately into his room. I walked in and started cracking up laughing at him. This is what I saw:

Brayden standing up in the crib for the first time and somehow during the stand he managed to tear down the mobile.

So out came the bummers (we thought those were helping him stand), and less than a minute later he was screaming because his foot was stuck outside the crib.

Then about one minute later he was standing up again on his own. Needless to say he spent the night in the pack and play until we were able to lower the crib down further.

Grandma reading Brayden a book.

Brayden got a kick out of the touch and feel book.

But his favorite part of reading books is eating them!
(We have had tons of discussions on how you have to be nice to the books, but for some reason he finds them very tasty)

Brayden delivering Daddy his Father's Day card. Sealed with a wet kiss!

Happy Father's Day Daddy!!
I love you!!!

Friends...

This is my friend Benjamin, he is 10 months old. I have never met him because he lives in Virginia.

This is Benjamin's mom, Jennifer. My mom went to school with her.

Benjamin and I getting introduced to each other. I wasn't too sure about making a new friend.


I'll give him my typical introduction, a slap in the head.

Then Benjamin gave me his, a little tug on the shirt.

After our introductions we were the best of friends!! We even taught each other a few things. Benjamin just learned how to crawl the day he came up and he was showing that off to me. So I decided that after a few days of training, I can now officially crawl the right way. I also showed Benjamin how to be a big kid and hold his own bottle.

We had so much fun, Mom and I were sad to see them go.

Daddy and I

Trying to get a good view of all the toys

Auntie Lauren came up yesterday to play with me.

And so did Uncle Josh.

I have been keeping my parents pretty busy this week. I have learned to crawl the right way, but I can't decide if it is easier to do my army crawl or get on all fours and crawl. I love to go to things that I am not supposed to be into, like the fireplace and the coffee table. I have also learned how to sit up from laying down. So now when I scream and my parents come to check on me in the crib, I am now sitting up and laughing at them!! I love all the new things that I can do so I really don't want to sleep during the day because I want to practice them!

One of those days...

Have you ever had one of those days??

Brayden was not so happy on Friday

So we took 2 trips to the park...

Played in the sandbox

Took 4 walks totaling 5 1/2 miles walked

2 clothing changes...

and 1 girl scout cookie eaten.

Looks like things turned around.

Nope, he is just happy about eating the coffee table.

Brayden got his first official haircut today. He was such a great sport. He only freaked out when the two year old boy next to him wouldn't stop screaming.

Nice hair!!

On a different note, Brayden has been sleeping through the night for the past two weeks!! We couldn't be more excited. This is his "sunbathing" pose.

Brayden showed us yesterday that he has learned to army crawl across the floor. Looks like I will be making a trip to Babies R Us to baby proof everything in sight!!

Brayden's First Haircut

Family Fun

First off, let me say sorry for not posting for a couple of weeks now. I know I have been getting slack for not posting! We have had a long couple of weeks. Let's just say Brayden hasn't been sleeping really well and nothing gets done with no sleep. All last week Brayden refused to sleep. We had to rock him or walk him up and down the hall in the stroller in order to get him to sleep. So I was convinced he was teething, since I can see the teeth right under the gums. But after a week of blaming it on teething and no teeth, I don't think it is teething. Since I have poked in Brayden's mouth so much, he now refuses to let me look!! He was getting too smart for his own good, he learned that if he cried we would come. We live in a small condo and we don't want to upset our neighbors, so most of the time he cries, we run. Funny thing is you go in there to get him and he laughs and giggles when you pick him up. Stinker. We had talked for a while that we were going to let him cry it out, but we just had to find the perfect place for it. So this past weekend, we went out to Jon's parents house and boy did he cry it out. He is catching on, we let him cry for 15 minutes at a time then went and calmed him down and then let him cry again till he fell asleep. Boy does it break your heart to hear him cry like that!! I will tell you though he has had much better sleeping at night once he does put himself to sleep. So hopefully we are on our way to getting more sleep around here.

Brayden had a blast visiting with grandma Patty and grandpa Dave. We even made a stop at their work places on Friday so that everyone could meet Brayden. He had fun flirting with all the ladies, he even gave a few pouty faces too!! Brayden also got to see cousin Maddie, who he hasn't seen since she was born. She is going to be 4 months old this week.

Cousins Maddie and Brayden

How cute, a kiss for my cousin....

Though her fingers do taste pretty good

Brayden loved playing with the dogs and petting them

He also thought that they made a good pillow

He got to go swinging at grandma and grandpa's house

Our little guy has learned in the last week how to get up on all fours and rock back and forth, I love the expression on his face like he is up to no good!

He got to watch his first Indy 500 (notice the cute racing outfit thanks to the Amos family)

Grandma Patty took very good care of him, she even let him play for a couple hours with her in the middle of the night so that we could sleep

He tried on his life jacket, so that we can take him out on the boat with us

Looks like those boat rides will be very short!

Overall, it was a pretty exhausting but fun weekend!!

Doctor, Doctor give me the news...

We have had a very busy week with doctors appointments. Brayden turned 6 months yesterday, so it was check up time with all the doctors. First doctors appointment was with the neurologist. He was evaluating him to see how things are going with him since he has been off the medicine. Last time he saw no physical difference between the sides. This time he saw slight discrepancy with his "tone" between the right and left side. Like he explained it, if you usually see a patient that had a stroke, sometimes their limbs just lay there and are not as strong as the other side. He said it was a very slight difference, but what shocked him was that he saw the weakness on the left, which it should have been on the right. He said it never amazes him what kids do and every case is completely different. Even though he did have a little difference, it wasn't too concerning to him, so we don't have to see him again till he is 12 months old. Though he did tell us that he is still at risk for having seizures, he said he will always have a 10-15 % higher risk than anyone off the street. So we just have to be cautious and watch him.

Round two was at the NICU follow up clinic. Last time he visited them was when he was 2 months old. This time he got evaluated by a physical therapist, a speech therapist, and cognitive specialist. It is amazing how they get him to "play" but really they are evaluating how he plays. He did really well again. Funny thing is he used his right hand the whole time, which he usually prefers his left. I guess physical therapy is paying off. The only thing that he couldn't do was hold two different toys, one in each hand. They were trying to see how symmetrical the two sides are. The doctors were really impressed with his progress and just recommended Brayden staying in therapy until the time he is walking. Which probably isn't too far off here in the future!!

Final stop, the pediatricians. It is so funny, so for the past two times we have gone there we can't figure out why but Brayden is in the best mood ever when he gets in there. We finally figured out why he loves that place so much, it is because he gets to be naked for like an hour!! He could be completely exhausted and ready for bed and you take his clothes off he can go for hours laughing and playing. Anyways, so we got his 6 month stats for you:
Length 27 inches ( 75 %)
Weight 16 lbs. 14 oz. (50%)
Head 42 cm (20%)
She was like oh, Brayden is thinning out. I don't feel like that at all, he could eat all day if you would let him. I guess he is just getting longer and thinning out a little. Still has a small head, but she wasn't concerned. Poor guy had to get 3 shots again. For some reason he didn't mind at all, he cried for about 30 seconds, then realized he was naked so he started screaming for joy again. Pretty funny.

Overall 3 doctors visits and three great reports!! We couldn't be happier.

Things Brayden has been up to lately:

I am learning how to drink water from a sippy cup (I think he gets more on the floor then he gets in his mouth)

He has learned that he can stick his foot in his mouth and suck on his big toe (Gross!!, but the doctors said to keep letting him do it)

I am sitting up all by myself and playing with toys

Ok, so let me give you the background on this picture. Brayden rubs his eyes like crazy when he is tired, so we wrap him up like a "burrito" so that he won't rub his eyes. Well since he has learned to roll, we find him in the crib in the weirdest positions. And they all look very uncomfortable.

I finally captured what he is really like on the swings. I told you he loves them!

Just saying hi!

Brayden giving me the eye. We let him play naked quite a few times this weekend, since he had shots he was not himself. So this usually cheered him up.

Brayden giving me his Mother's Day Card

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Especially our mom's and grandma's. We love you and appreciate all that you do for us. And a big Happy Birthday to Great Grandma O!!