OMG!!! He's already 10 months old????

First of all, I added A LOT of pictures to the 5/14 post on 5/17, so if you already read it, you may want to look again!

Where has the time gone? I can't believe our little guy is 10 months old already! Time really does fly when you're having fun! We're only half way through May and already this month has been very eventful for Braden! It seems like he's learning new things every day!

Braden loves music now! Of course most of his toys has lights and music. He has a little farm thing that sings different songs. You open the barn door & the music starts, you close the door & the music stops. He loves to play with that thing and bounces when the music is going. I also downloaded some toddler songs to my iPhone/iPod and started playing them for him. He smiles & laughs and now bounces to it as well. It's good fun. Whenever he starts to fuss a bit because he doesn't want his diaper changed I sing a song to him and he immediately quiets down & smiles. It's great!

May 9th: So, I'll give the best news first. On Mother's Day, Braden started saying Mama!!! :-) From what I've read & what others have told me, babies usually say Dada first because the "D" is easier, etc. I fully expected it. HA! My smart boy said Mama first! He's been saying it A LOT since then and it makes my heart sing every time! LOL. The things that make me happy anymore.

May 10th: Braden FINALLY got another tooth in. He's been working on 2 more FOREVER. As usual. The one on the bottom to the right of the middle 2 teeth finally came through. He's still working on the one to the left but it hasn't quite shown up yet.

May 13th: Every day I leave Braden at daycare I give him a kiss & say bye-bye and wave. Michelle at the daycare grabs his arm and helps him wave. I knew one day he'd finally get it! On the 13th he waved bye-bye! Yeah! He did it again the next day and today the 17th also. Too cute!

May 14th: Braden learns how to clap! It was bedtime so B & I were in his room rocking & relaxing while he drank his last bottle of the day. He usually falls asleep before or right after the milk is gone. This night, he was still bright-eyed but just hanging out in my arms looking at the animals on his walls. All of a sudden he starts clapping. Then he realizes he's making sounds while he slaps his hands together and it's great fun! I've played pat-a-cake with him quite a bit and I also say "YEAH!" and clap when we're playing. Obviously the light came on and he realized what he was doing. It was pretty funny. Fortunately, he just relaxed after that and went to sleep. The next day, he was smiling and clapping A LOT! I would say "YEAH" and he smiles & claps. He's been doing it all weekend! It's really cute to watch and was fun to show dad our new trick when he got home from globe-trotting on Sunday.

Marty:
So, Dad has been globe-trotting quite a bit the last couple of months. He left for South Africa on 5/4 and got home on 5/16. He flew in to Johannesburg, then drove out to Lephalale to the Medupi Power Station. He worked on a few cranes there and left a couple of days later back to Johannesburg. He was able to go to a wild game reserve which sounds like it was a lot of fun. He has some great pictures which I'll get posted shortly. He was able to see lions, tigers, zebras, wart hogs (boy are they ugly), rhinos, hippos, impala, deer, weird birds that he doesn't know the name of, panthers, cheetahs, cougars, meerkats, lizards (or whatever they were), water buffaloe, etc. He got to go to the nursery and pet lion cubs. I'm totally jealous! They look adorable, you'll see the pics. And then he was able to pet full sized cheetah's. Way too cool!

So, he had a nice, relaxing weekend. Then it was off to Tete, Mozambique on Monday! So much for relaxing! The airport has a tiny, 2 lane short runway. I looked it up on the satellite maps. He headed SE to the Moatize Coal Mine. It's supposed to be one of the biggest when it's done. Right now, there isn't much there and it's definitley 3rd world. The accomodations weren't much to say the least. The guys at the mine warned him that everyone that had been there gets sick for 2-3 days. So far, Marty hasn't gotten sick. We're hoping for the best! If someone takes a shower, there is no hot water left for anyone else to shower. Marty got up at 3am to shower before he left. I told him he was going to be the stinky guy that you get stuck next to on the plane! The public restrooms are on the side of the road....people go anywhere and everywhere. Yuck! The locals bathe and wash clothes in the river. Occasionally a crocodile gets one of them. The camp has a kitchen that feeds 3000 workers, the food isn't good and you have to wait an hour to get it. Fun, fun! But, one of the crane guys, Stan, took Marty down to a shack one evening and bought him a cold beer. :-) Who knows how they get it and the fact that it was cold was surprising but Marty was pleased. Marty repaired the 2 cranes he went there to fix AND was able to put together their biggest crane yet in a record-breaking 2 days. Well, they had a couple small things to do after he left but it was nearly complete. The guys at the site were surprised and happy. Friday morning Marty was headed back for Johannesburg. He got stuck somewhere else along the way, sorry I don't know the name of the city. It was supposed to be a quick stop in which he ended up waiting 2 1/2 hours to leave again. He arrived in Johannesburg late and ended up having to meet with several people at Kentz (the company that purchased the cranes he's been working on). It was decided that he need to make the 3 hour drive BACK to Lephalale to work on one of the cranes again as it had a bad computer chip. So he was up at 4am Saturday morning and headed back to the Medupi power station. He got the crane running correctly and had to make the 3 hour drive BACK to Johannesburg to catch an evening flight to Atlanta. Fortunately, he made the flight! But, he arrived in Atlanta and was a bit late to make his connection to Denver. Luckily, the next flight was only an hour or so later so he didn't have to wait long. He finally made it home around 11:15am Sunday.....after about 26 hours of travelling! Ugh! Anyway, he's glad to be home and has some wonderful pictures and memories. Oh yeah......he brought home diamond and tanzanite earrings for me!! Woo-hoo! Tanzanite is a gemstone more rare than diamonds. It's found only in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Due to export laws, etc., it's difficult to find quality tanzanite in the US. So, I guess Africa is the best place to get it. I thought it was pretty cool to receive something so special and unique.

I tried to keep this post as short as possible while giving the important details but, as you have read, a lot has happened in the last 2 weeks! I hope this post finds everyone well. I'll get the pictures up soon...promise. :-)

If Braden can't crawl with it in his hand, he puts it in his mouth and crawls/climbs everywhere!

Catching up on posts -- 8 and 9 months old

Well, I got so far behind in my posts that I have much to catch up on. Since I always seem to write a book, I'll try to tone it down a bit this time and just give you the basics!

March  -- Braden was 8 months old

Obviously, we spent some time in the hospital. Braden and I had a talk. We're never doing that again.

Braden got his 2 front teeth in. They came in after the two on either side of the front ones, a little backward but they're in and looking good! :-)

Around 3/8 he started crawling. So yes, he's been crawling for a couple months and I hadn't posted it. Sorry!

April -- Braden turned 9 months!

Braden still has a total of 6 teeth. Four up top and two on the bottom. He has such a great smile and shows it off ALL the time! He's been working on 2 more bottom teeth for a bit and had recently started biting! THAT we're going to stop. I think it just feels good on those emerging teeth, little stinker. You're holding him and his head is close to your shoulder. Somebody plays and gets him all excited and he leans over and chomps down on your shoulder! Or, should I say, MY shoulder! Ouch! Marty does it on purpose and thinks it's SO funny! I finally got bit twice in a row on my way up the stairs one night (Marty was behind us getting Braden going) and I got mad at Marty and turned around & punched him in the chest! :-) That'll teach him to think biting is funny!! Ha, ha. So, we're working on teaching Braden NO.

He's pulling himself up to a standing position on most things. There is a little fence in the room at daycare where they put the swings & bouncy seats, etc. with the tiny babies. It protects the little ones from the mobile monsters. :-) Braden is starting to shuffle down the fence. Too cute.

Of course, we had to lower the mattress in the crib. Marty said he now needs a step stool because he can't reach way down  in there to get Braden! Ha, ha! Although, since we've lowered the mattress Marty hasn't been home much and has yet to put Braden to bed. So, it has yet to be an issue.

Pictures!!!!

Great Grandma Beverly, Great Grandpa PH and Grandma Phyllis came out mid-April. Braden was needing to get his 9 month pictures done so it was great timing. We had a few 4 generation photos taken! They turned out pretty good. Braden hadn't hardly slept all day so he was pretty tired. Fortunately he wasn't crabby but he wasn't real smiley either. He was just somber and ready for a nap. But, we managed to get a few smiles out of him (with some hard work) and a few good pictures. Dad put his cowboy hat on him and we ended up with a great solo picture of him as well!

Okay, so I'm FINALLY adding some older pictures of Braden that I just downloaded from the camera!

January

Grandma Phyllis came out for the stock show. The weather kept her from being here at Christmas so she brought his presents in January. Boy does Braden looked shocked at his gift!

Grandma! You REALLY got that for me?

And Braden becomes the present!

February

Our perpetually happy kid!

2/28/10: I just pulled myself up for the first time!

March

3/14/10: Daisy playing with her little buddy!

3/28/10: Kandi holding Braden 2 days after he got home from the hospital. Still a sick little guy but being very sweet and cuddly!

April

4/1/10: Definitely on the road to recovery!

Easter morning! My dad bought me this cool crane but....look at these eggs!

4/17/10: Mom made me a burrito and I ate the WHOLE thing! It was yummy!

And messy too!

4/25/10: My friend Jessica came to visit today. Doesn't she look cool in my wagon?

Hey! These balls are great for teething huh!

Trials of having a child...

Okay, we've had a ton going on so I've been terrible about updating this. Sorry! Guess I have a lot to post now!

Braden gave us the scare of our lives! Marty was working in Nicaragua. Braden seemed a bit off for a couple of days so I thought he may have been starting to get another ear infection. I took him to the doctor on Thursday, March 18th. Was told he had an ear infection starting but the doc could also hear a slight wheeze in his lungs and said he had RSV. (By the way, it turned out it wasn't RSV) Being a nurse, I know that RSV can turn ugly very quickly so I pressed the doc with many questions. The doc thought since he wasn't having any issues breathing, he'd breeze right through it. HA! I picked him up from daycare around 5:30pm and he looked much worse than he had that morning. We ran a hot shower & sat in a steamy bathroom for a bit that night....it didn't help. So, just to be on the safe side, I slept in his room with him. Neither of us got much sleep that night. About 7 Friday morning I thought I'd take him to the pediatrician's office to get a nebulizer (breathing) treatment when they opened at 9. At 8 am Braden was getting MUCH worse in a hurry! He was suddenly really struggling to breathe and couldn't get enough air to "talk." I rushed him to Children's hospital north campus.

We went through A LOT that day. In an effort to make a really long story short, his condition continued to decline and the weather was getting pretty ugly with a snowstorm. I called Marty and told him he needed to come home. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of flights out of Nicaragua each day. The doc up north decided to have Braden transported south to the main campus where they had ICU "just in case" he needed it. It was certain he would be admitted to the hospital, we just didn't know what floor at that point. We headed south and didn't spend too long in their emergency department before I was told he was being admitted to ICU. Things in the ICU weren't much better, he just kept getting worse. By 11pm that night I was told he needed to be intubated. Talk about scared! I think I just went numb for a second. The thought of losing my little boy was almost too much. I asked the doctor if he thought Braden was going to "make it." Unfortunately, there were no reassurances to be made at that time. The doc told me my son was in intensive care because he was very sick and was only going to continue to get worse for now; he needed a machine to help him breathe. I kept asking if he was going to be okay, I couldn't lose Braden, but no one would say yes. So, I just got the facts from the doc and learned that we would have to get him intubated and see how Braden did with it.

Fortunately, a few hours after intubation, the doc looked at me and said, "He's going to be alright."  There went the waterworks again! Braden was responding pretty well to their treatment and was able to be adequately ventilated. It was still an ugly situation with lots of ups and downs but things had just gotten better.

My little guy is such a fighter! He kept trying real hard to breathe on his own. He was fighting the ventilator. So, the docs had to give him a paralytic agent to kick him out of the equation and just let the machine do the breathing for him. He ended up with an IV in both arms, a central line near his right clavicle, an arterial line in his right wrist, a catheter, an NG tube (for feeding), obviously the breathing tube, ECG leads on his chest, pulse ox on his toe, and 8 IV pumps. Yes, I said 8. It was amazing and horrifying all at once. Imagine being in the hospital and the stupid IV pump keeps beeping and waking everyone up. Annoying. Now, imagine 8 of them. Every one of them beeping when they became occluded, empty, etc. And every time his heart rate was too high, the monitor would beep, when his blood pressure dropped, it would beep, when his O2 levels dropped, it would beep. Then there was the ventilator that had alarms as well. All night it was non-stop action.

Braden was very sensitive to the sedatives. If he didn't have quite enough, he'd wake up and fight. Of course, it wouldn't be fun being awake with a tube down your throat and the last thing we wanted was for him to pull the tube out. So, we'd rush over and try to soothe him. The nurse would give him a bolus of sedative to put him back to sleep. Then his blood pressure would drop from the sedative. Then they had to give him dopamine to bring his BP back up. It was a constant up and down with everything. He eventually needed a blood transfusion as well due to his hematocrit levels being very low. Once he received the blood, he got a good dose of energy with it!

Braden would cough, though you couldn't hear it with the tube in. But his whole body would jerk. It was awful to watch. And even worse, he would cry when he woke up. You couldn't hear it but tears would run down the side of his face. That, of course, made me cry.

Dad got the earliest flight home possible and arrived at the hospital Saturday afternoon. What a shock that was for him. There's no way you can ever prepare a father for such a sight. That's all I'll say about that.

Our little guy fighting and coughing, etc. the whole time really helped him. He worked hard and helped get all the mucous out of his lungs which ended up giving him a much quicker recovery. Yeah Braden! That's my tough kid!

So, Tuesday he got the tube out. Wednesday we left ICU for the general medical floor. We were glad to be "moving up" but sad to leave the docs & nurses in ICU. They were absolutely incredible. I can't tell you how GOOD those people. We are forever grateful. We spent 2 more days on the 8th floor, didn't like the  docs or nurses much so I had to light a fire under them a couple of times. Friday, March 26 we took our baby home! What an awesome day!!!! The feeling of taking your son home after nearly losing him is incredible. I'm still thanking God daily. What a blessing.

In the mean time....I need to say thank you to everyone who helped us through that really tough time. If I don't mention someone, please forgive me!! We are truly grateful for everything!!

Rick -- thanks for bringing me food and spending time with Braden & I on that really tough day 1. I hadn't eaten in about 30 hours and I was starving! Braden really enjoyed playing with your watch in the ED. Thanks for feeding the dogs, etc., etc., etc.

Angie -- thanks for everything! For always being there at the drop of a hat, listening, crying with me, bouncing Braden when I thought my arm was going to fall off, and most of all, for loving Braden like your own!

Zizz -- Boy, we didn't plan your trip to meet your God son to be like that! But hey, God is really smart! He knew WE would need you. I FINALLY slept because you were there praying over my son all night. Every time I opened my eyes, you were right there. He was in great hands! I told you.....he will love you as much as I do. I was right....again! Ha, ha! :-) There's so much, I can't ever cover it all so, thank you. I'm REALLY glad you were able to hold Braden before you went home.

Phyllis -- Thank you so much for driving 400 miles and taking 5 days off work to help us. Having you there to help me catch a few hours of sleep and definitely to help get Braden to sleep for the little time he was able to was really nice. By the way, your little "your eyes are getting droopy" trick has never worked for me! LOL. Having the support and extra hands is very much appreciated.....by all of us.

Kandi -- Thank you for driving out to help us when we got home! Braden was just exhausted after 2 days of no sleep. My arm was going to fall off...again, dad was trying everything he could think of...it was great to have someone else sing to Braden and love him though his screaming. You got an A+ for getting that little guy to sleep in the crib! Boy did he need it. And I got 12 hours of sleep....12 hours straight. After 8 days of not sleeping, that was heaven.

All our family and friends -- Thanks a million for all the kind thoughts and the many, many prayers. Our sons name was mentioned in at least 3 church services on the Sunday he was in ICU. He was included in many prayer chains and personal prayers. I can't tell you how humbling it is to have SO many people care SO much about your child. The response to Braden's illness was just amazing and overwhelming. My heart still overflows when I think about it. All of your prayers meant more than you'll ever know. God sent our little boy home with us.....that's the biggest blessing ever.

Braden stayed home for another week and went back to daycare on April 5. By the 14th he was clearly feeling great and back to his old self! He's crawling everywhere and into EVERYTHING!

So, below are some of the pictures we took while in the hospital. After Braden had the tube removed, he was so blown up from fluids he looked like a sumo wrestler! I finally got to hold him after 4 days of waiting crib-side. Awesome! And the Don Zizz finally got to hold his God son......

Mom and Grandma talking with Braden

Zizz called the stand with all the IV pumps "The Christmas Tree" :-)

Zizz, Nurse Corey & Braden

The Don Zizz & Braden

Our sweet Braden

The little Sumo Wrestler. He'd just woken up and been extubated.

Grandma and the tough guy!

Grandma finally gets to hold him!

Wow! 7 1/2 months already!?!

I can't believe how quickly time is flying by! One minute I look at Braden and he still seems so small and the next he's just so big! It's amazing how fast these little ones grow up, not to mention how quickly they learn! My little sponge! :-)

So, I was wrong on my last post when I said one of Braden's top front teeth came through, it was actually the one to the right of the front tooth! No wonder I couldn't see it but could feel it, I was looking in the wrong spot! What a dork. Anyway, those 2 front ones have been SO close! You can see them just under the skin but they're being stubborn. Finally, on Saturday I saw his other lateral incisor, to the left of the front teeth came through. On Sunday, his right front tooth came through! Hooray! One more front tooth to go! He's been SO GOOD with the teething! He has been working on these 4 teeth for a while, drooling like crazy but fortunately hasn't been fussy.

I gave him a biter biscuit on Sunday just to see how he would do. He loved it of course. But, we have to stick real close to make sure he doesn't choke. He was a COMPLETE mess when I finally took the last bit away. His hands, face, chair, clothes, etc. were covered in cookie. It was fun watching him get messy though. :-)

Sunday evening, 2/28, Braden wiggled his way over to his jumper. He grabbed the sides with both hands and pulled himself up to a standing position! Marty and I were both watching intently with huge grins on our faces. It was very exciting even though we know he'll probably be cruising furniture soon and walking not too long after that! The kid wants to walk before he crawls! I got the camera out and took pictures while he was pulling himself up the 2nd time! Too much fun!

He's VERY close to crawling. He gets up on all 4's and rocks back and forth. He can get one "stride" forward and falls down on his belly to try again. He ends up pushing himself backward and then he gets frustrated. :-) He doesn't quite have the coordination down but is getting there. I'm guessing this one will start crawling about 2 seconds before he decides to walk. He wants us to hold his hands all the time while we "help" him walk around the house. It's great fun for him but not so fun for mom's back! Oh well, whatever makes Braden happy makes mom happy!

We're still working on mama & dada. He was listening to Jessica say "dada" over & over again a couple weeks ago & finally said it. LOL. Dad wasn't around to hear it! Even though he was just repeating for fun, I don't think they know what it means yet anyway. I look at Braden & ask him to say mama or dada and he just smiles like crazy; he thinks it's real funny! So, it's fun to play with him and say it. I'm sure he'll get it one day. In the mean time, his new favorite thing is blowing raspberries and giving us a bath. It makes dad laugh every time.

Braden is still struggling with ear infections unfortunately. I think he's had 5 since the beginning of October. We finished antibiotics on the 21st, I took him back to the doc on the 27th and his right ear is infected. I think it never went away, the doc thinks he got another one within 3 days. Whatever, the end result is the same. Poor guy is back on antibiotics. We have an appointment with an ENT at Children's Hospital on March 10th. That's for a consultation and we'll be scheduling surgery to have tubes placed in his ears shortly after that. I feel bad for the little guy. He's such a trooper! He doesn't act sick or hurt at all. I just notice little things like he eats a little less, sleeps more, etc. or we go to the doc for a regular check up or shots. I make them look at his ears and they're infected. The last time we went for flu boosters and I asked the doc to look. As soon as they put the otoscope in his ear I know whether or not he has an infection because he only fusses when they're bad. Oh well, hopefully the tubes will make all the difference and we'll be on our way to healthier ears and NO MORE ANTIBIOTICS!

Well, I think that about covers it for now! I'll try to get the pictures up in the next day or two.

Braden's 6 month pictures and recent developments

We had Braden's 6 month pictures taken on 1/12. He was all smiles....then we put the balls in front of him. He was so serious about picking up the balls it was tough to get more smiles out of him. Playing is serious business! But, he's such a happy guy we were successful; and also managed to get a couple of "surprised" faces.

Braden sits up on his own quite well now. We're going to have to stop using the Bumbo seat soon as he is figuring out how to get out of it. The little guy will be mobile in no time! He's just now starting to show some interest in crawling. He still prefers to be standing or walking with assistance from mom or dad; however, he's figured out that if he wants that toy 3 feet away, he's going to have to figure out how to get there without help. :-) He tries to go from a sitting position and then LUNGE for whatever it is he wants at that moment. That gets him a foot or so closer but he ends up on his stomach. He's starting to try and get his legs under him and his little butt up in the air so we're working on crawling. He also tries to pull himself up to a standing position on the couch if he's on his knees by the arm. Too cute. The little guy just wants to go, go, go! When he finally does get mobile, Marty and I are in BIG trouble!!

Lastly, Braden has another tooth! His top right front tooth came through on 2/3. The left one should be a couple days behind it.....hopefully. I knew it was really close but couldn't quite see it. So, I got brave and stuck my finger in his mouth and felt the tooth. Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone and put my finger in his mouth again to check the other one and got bit! He really bites hard!! :-) Those 2 bottom teeth will definitely be serving their purpose soon, ouch!

Dad loves giving Braden new foods to try. He had a piece of pizza crust the other night to lick. Then he got a big piece of ham that he was trying hard to chomp on. It's fun to watch his faces and see him chomp away. Braden decided he wasn't ready for bed at his usual time after dad gave him the ham. He was in his jumper going crazy, jumping up & down and bouncing forward & backward like the most hyper kid in the world. Dad said he was on a "ham high!"

Other than that, everything is going great for us. Braden is growing like a weed and changing constantly. He's always good for several laughs. Marty has been staying busy at work. He just recently made a quick 3 day trip to Managua, Nicaragua to perform a crane inspection. So, the brat gets to add another country to his list! :-) He took some pictures, I'll try to get them and share with you all soon. It looks like a pretty country and definitely makes me want to go fishing! I'm staying busy with the little guy, work and school.

Sorry, the resolution on these isn't great!

Braden wears dads favorite outfit!

Yes, mom dresses Braden in his Huskers outfit occasionally. But he also gets to wear his CU clothes! This kid is going to be torn!

So many changes in such little time!!

Well, we have a lot of developments to post just since December! First of all, Christmas was absolutely wonderful! Having a baby to celebrate the holiday with is such a blessing! Watching Braden open gifts, try to eat the wrapping paper of course, and either smile with joy or see his eyes become as big as paper plates in awe was so much fun! Marty and I were certainly more excited than he was this year! :-) The lights on the Christmas tree and the music in the background were all Braden needed to be quite content.

Unfortunately I got the flu Christmas night. I locked myself in the bedroom until Saturday evening. Marty got it on 12/28 and in turn locked himself in the bedroom. Whatever we did worked because Braden managed to stay healthy which was our main goal! Yeah!

Grandma Phyllis was going to spend Christmas with us but unfortunately the weather poo-pooed those plans! She'll be out to visit soon and enjoy the stock show with us. It should be fun for her to see how much Braden has changed since Thanksgiving! And of course, Braden will have a great time hanging out with Grandma. She always spoils him. I mean, shows him tons of love! :-)

Speaking of changes......Braden seems to continue to develop new skills quite rapidly these days! We've had a few exciting developments recently. He finally has a couple of teeth! He had been working on the bottom 2 middle teeth since his 4 month check up. The right one came through on 12/27 and the left one showed up on New Year's Eve. Yeah teeth! They're not too far up yet but are starting to look really cute. So, we got through those and he started biting and drooling again like crazy! My untrained, first-time mom fingers have been unable to detect any additional teeth but based on his signs, I have been sure that he's working on more. So, we went to the doctor on 1/12 for his 6 month check up and I asked the doctor what she thought. She shined her pen light on his top gums and we were able to see the outlines of his top 2 middle teeth. She thinks they'll come through in about 3 weeks! Yeah, more teeth! :-) I'm definitely much more excited about these things than Marty. He thinks, okay, so he has teeth. I think, we can feed him table food that he can CHEW before too long! I know, I'm such a dork sometimes. It's exciting to see our little boy growing up!

The last exciting news we have is.....................Braden is sitting up by himself!!! Woo-hoo! For about 2-3 weeks now we have been able to sit him on his bottom and he would sit up, but only briefly before falling over. In just the past week he has come a LONG way. He sits up on his own for several minutes, reaches for toys, plays, etc. We still have to be near, if he reaches to the side too far for a toy he's likely to do a face plant. But, for the most part, he's got the hang of it. It won't be long before this new skill is mastered! Did I already say how fun it is to watch him grow and change? We're constantly amazed by him! Kind of makes you want another one.........................Ha, ha! Not yet at least!!

I'm still trying to figure out how to post videos on here! Apparently it's not that easy. I'd really like to get a couple of them on here. We took video last night of Braden laughing like crazy. I was feeding him and telling a story about how he "blew" carrots all over me the night before. I imitated the "pbbbbttt" sound and suddenly he was cracking up. It was too funny to not get the video camera out. So, if I generate some more brains in the near future and get it figured out, I'll be sure to post that one!

The following pictures were taken Christmas Eve.

Heh, heh, heh! Look at ALL these presents!! And they're all for ME!

Can I open this one next?

Eeewwww! This paper doesn't taste good AT ALL!

All that work and it's clothes! Where are the toys?

Okay, I really like the clothes. I was just hungry! I need energy to open all those fun presents!

What do you think is in THAT package? Looks pretty good to me!

Can I open the big bag now?

What the heck is THAT?

Look! A new toy I can CLIMB on!

The pictures below were taken Christmas morning.

Do you have the camera ready dad?

Yeah! A new book to read at bedtime mom!!

A front-end loader! Dad and I can play with this!

Whoa! It's bucking me off!

8 seconds? No problem!

Christmas Day. Dad decides to give Braden a pretzel. And of course, nurse mom was freaked out the whole time he had it; worried he might choke on it. But, mom kept a close eye on him while dad took pictures and laughed. Braden really enjoyed licking all the salt off the pretzel and all went well.