New Blog! Go here... 06/09/2010
http://weeklybeard.blogspot.com/ What a vacation! 05/26/2010
Visiting the grandparents in NC was great! Brayden got to spend some good quality time with Pampa and Mimi! Brayden LOVES Pampa. Brayden would be really upset and my dad seemed to be able to calm him right down. Mimi loved holding Brayden and even changed her first diaper in 20 some years. That brought back memories for her! Brayden also got to see his great-grandparent, Nana. She was so excited to see how well he was doing. Brayden was a little to heavy for her (You know, my 17 and a half pound boy!) but she did get to hold him a little bit. I got to see an old friend from Wilmington, Mandi. She had just gotten married and drove alllll the way from Wilmington to see me in Salisbury! Well, she was visiting some friends in Charlotte, but still :) During the trip to NC, Brayden got to try rice cereal. YUM! He was such a pro at it! I had been practicing putting a spoon in his mouth the past month and when he realized a spoon now contains food, he was all for it. It took him awhile to figure out the tongue thing but overall he is just downing it! He ate half the bowl the first time and then after that he can down the whole bowl in about 5 minutes. Yesterday, we tried oatmeal and he likes that better than rice cereal it looks like. He gets upset if you wait too long for the spoon. The trip back was, well interesting. Brayden hates the car seat. HATES. I tried movies, playing with him, but he just does not like it. I can MAYBE get 30 minutes out of him sitting in there but other than that, no good. It was a long drive home needless to say. Now that we are back, Brayden seems like he has grown up the past two weeks. He can sit with minimal support for about 30 seconds, then topples over. He can also lay on his tummy and do push-ups. And rolling is his FAVORITE thing to do. He just laughs and laughs when he rolls from tummy to back and back to tummy. He is such a happy, happy baby! As for Mom and Dad here, we are doing well. The lack of sleep from the vacation is slowly starting to catch back up. Brayden is finally getting back on his sleeping schedule...thank goodness. During vacation he would wake up 3 times a night and he wouldn't want to go back to sleep. Now that we are home, the past three nights he has slept 10 hours with out waking up to eat. Oh how I love sleeping...I've missed it. Anyway, that's all I have right now. I'm starting back to school Monday and I should be graduating next May if I can get some Math classes in. I hate math!                   Mid-Vacation 05/15/2010
I'm sure some of you are thinking..."oh my, I bet they won't post for awhile." Think again! The boys are sleeping,... I should be, but I can't seem to get there. Just a little bit of an update. The drive Tuesday night was fine. Brayden woke up periodically because he hates the car seat. He did ok though. The aquarium was fun, Brayden saw tons of fish and seemed to really enjoy it. The next day (Thursday) we drove to Hilton Head. We drove during the day, I hate car rides with Brayden, oh my gosh. He was cranky and not happy. The past few days have been fun! Brayden has gotten the taste of the pool,...literally. He has seen the ocean and has been able to sit in the sand. On another note...my pump died. GAHH! I'm not happy with this. Brayden is also on a growth spurt so I have been up every two hours with him in the night. No sleep... this makes me sad.... We will push forward! Quick funny story... We were walking on the beach one night and a mom came up to us with her little one. She offered to take our picture, and she did. She had her little girl with her and I said what a cutie she was and asked how old. She said she was 6 months.... Brayden was twice her size...as in weight! She asked how old Brayden was and I said, "Almost 5 months." She looked at him and said, "Woah, he must be 90th percentile!! Big boy!" She is so right! Here are some pictures, the real reason why you are reading! haha More to come later on.                 Mother\'s Day! 05/10/2010
Mother's Day was great! We drove up to Kansas City to visit Mark's parents and visit with Michelle and the gang. We even got to talk to Jacob! (Jacob is on his mission, in Germany, it was a rare treat to be able to talk to him!) While we were visiting with the family, we got some pictures of the two cousins, Brayden and Bracken. It is amazing just how different they look and they both have some cute personalities. Brayden is the type that gets excited and doesn't want to sleep because there is just so much going on! Bracken just falls asleep when ever! These two boys are going to be the greatest of friends. :) My Mother's Day was great! I got a card and we are getting new pots and pans like I requested. It is so sad that I would want that more than anything right now. I'm just starting to really enjoy cooking and needed some good decent ones! The big trip is this week. Tomorrow night, we are driving out of Columbia and 11hours later arrive in Atlanta, Ga. There we are going to visit the aquarium, the Coca cola Factory and Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles for dinner. Then on to Hilton Head, SC where we are staying at the Crown Plaza at the beach. Afterward, we will head up to NC to visit my family. Many, Many pictures to come.       Look at 'dem rolls! 05/04/2010
Saw the doctor today for Brayden's 4 month check up. The first words out of the doctor's mouth... "what a big boy!" Brayden came in at a big 17lbs 4oz... he is now in the 90 percentile. He is also in the 50% percentile for his height...not to shabby. Shots were ok... he screamed but he is doing fine now. :) Just a quickie... 05/04/2010
No pictures... sorry! Do have a couple updates on the little man... Saturday, May 1st....he slept through the WHOLE night with out a feed. Yay! Brayden is starting to get ticklish! We tickle his legs and he will laugh really hard! He is also able to see a little bit farther, he can see and hear Daddy far across the room! Rolling, rolling rolling. That is ALL he wants to do! Brayden has also started "scooting" he tries to get to the other side of the blanket, its quite comical to watch! The doctor's appointment is tonight. Pray he doesn't scream! ah!! ooooo....eeeee....oooo 04/28/2010
Brayden has started using those vowels! After he eats, he LOVES to talk. I will make vowel noises and Brayden does his best to copy the vowel I am sounding out. Mark was really impressed :). We hope to get it on video, we just haven't had the time. He is also grasping things better. I can hold any object in front of him and he will reach out and grab it, hold it and then taste it. Sometimes, we will even get a little bit of gnawing time out of it! :) I have FINALLY figured out the Moby Wrap. I had to get a little bit of help from some friends, but we figured it out. Brayden didn't like it at first, but he is now getting the hang of it. It will be most helpful in Hilton Head.    The Playstation and Jumperoo! 04/23/2010
Brayden has started showing an intrest in standing. I'll put on Baby Einstein learning video's and he wants to sit in my lap, then when he gets excited he wants to stand up. Now, doing this for about 15-20 minutes a day was starting to kill my arms. They maybe strong, but when I am sleep deprived it is starting to kill me! So, we bought a jumperoo and a play station from the Disney company. Brayden likes the play station, but some of the items are a little to far advanced for him. He likes to bang on the buttons and hear all the noises. With the jumperoo, he just bounces and bounces and plays with the little links attached to it. The other play things on it, he just isn't interested in it just yet. The first time he got in, he wasn't too keen on the idea, but yesterday he spent about 30-40 minutes in it and is starting to get the hang of it. I have to put a book underneath him because he is still too short! His head control is doing quite nice while in the jumperoo, and it is helping him sit up a bit. When I have him on my lap, I just give a little bit of support on each of his sides, he is trying to be able to sit up on his own. He still has a few months to go to perfect this. In not too happy of news, Brayden is already throwing temper-tantrums it seems. When Brayden shows signs of being tired, I know it's time for his nap. I will shut off the lights, turn on his baby music and he knows what is coming...before I can even sit in the chair he starts SCREAMING! I have tried keeping him up longer to wear himself out but this just makes things worse later. During the day, sometimes he will scream for 45minutes until he finally falls asleep in my arms. Other days, I'll stick him in the swing and he will fall asleep in about 5 minutes. I'm trying to teach him to fall asleep with me because I'm not going to have him in that swing forever! He still cannot fall asleep on his own, and is too young to let him cry just yet. The American Pediatric Association says that he needs to be at least 6 months before we start laying him in the crib and "cry it out." Sometimes I'm tempted to put him in the crib to cry it out! Night time is starting to be the enemy right now. We will feed him at about 9, and usually he falls asleep and we put him to bed. He is now fighting us after the feed because he know he is supposed to go to sleep. He will fight for about an hour then tucker out. He is also reverting back to when he was a new born and wake up every two hours. It isn't because he is hungry because we give him a massive bottle of expressed milk before he goes to bed. I feed him anyway and that puts him back to sleep. Last night I let him toss around until he finally went back to sleep on his own. I guess I'm learning how to deal with him too. He woke up about 2 times last night. Better than the every two hours the night before. Brayden is having some MASSIVE drooling going on. I have had to change his outfit several times in a day. Time to pull out the bibs! He is also putting his hands in his mouth and that is all he wants. Usually, he likes to grab things and play with them, his hands are what gets the most played with now. I've tried his pacifier but he just wants his hands. Some days his gums are swollen, other days they aren't. It is just a waiting game to see what becomes of it. Here are some pictures of him and his play station. I haven't had any put up from the jumperoo yet.     Bath time and teddy bear time! 04/20/2010
Brayden is talking talking talking! A-goo, ahhh, hi are some of his favorite words. The occasional squeal is in there too! He is just loving being able to talk. He will talk to me early in the morning, then when Daddy gets home he starts talking all over again! Brayden loves to see new faces! Mark was giving Brayden a bath on Saturday and we thought we should get the embarrassing "bum shot" so his future girlfriends would get a kick out of it. Brayden has come to love his teddy bear. He will pet it and grab it and then stick the ear in his mouth. Sometimes, he will take the occasional squeeze to it too.Here are some pictures from the past few days. Brayden's nap times are slowly getting better. He has been really over-tired lately because he won't let me rock him to sleep. I don't know if it is because I'm waiting to long to put him down or what. He is getting a little bit better at it day by day, Mommy just has to be patient! Enjoy the pics!       Play time! 04/17/2010
Brayden is starting to babble! He is blowing razzies and getting Momma covered in spit! On top of that, he is starting to eye the food on the table. I will hold him at the table while Mark and I eat...and Brayden is starting to get interested. He even opened his mouth when Mark acted like he was going to give him something! We are going to start him on rice cereal in May and see how that goes!       | AuthorLoving our sweet baby boy!. |
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