Yearly Photos

We had the kids yearly photos done in early March this year. I've never gone for b&w photos before but I really liked these from the photographer. It was fun to get some professional photos done of them!

Happy Birthday to Chloe!

Chloe & Braden are just days apart in age and we finally got together with everyone to celebrate her 1st birthday! We all had lots of fun celebrating and catching up with old friends!

Madeleine found a fun friend to play with!




They had a cupcake for Braden too!

Tired boy on the way home

Into Everything!

He's into everything!

March Market

Madeleine's preschool put on a March market this past week. All of kinds of groups from the community came and put on different activities for the kids. She had a lot of fun!

Ice-Cream Date with Daddy!

Madeleine recently completed her sticker chart and her BIG reward was an ice-cream date with daddy! We were trying to motivate her to be gentle with Braden and to not pick her nose AND EAT IT - gross! She had other little treats along the way but just this week she earned her final sticker and Jeff took her out for ice-cream! She chose strawberry ice-cream in a waffle cone that was dipped in chocolate & sprinkles. Yum!

Little Gym with My Little Guy!

Braden started Little Gym over the weekend and he had lots of fun crawling & tumbling! He enjoyed all the little songs that they sing and all the other little kids that were in the class. Thanks to our family who gave Braden the Little Gym gift certificates for Christmas!

Other updates on Braden:

• He mostly walks now! He prefers to walk everywhere now and rarely crawls. It's amazing how quickly he started to prefer walking to crawling and how good he is getting! But walking this young comes with lots of bumps and bruises. He doesn't understand that he should watch where he walks and blindly walks over toys, ect causing him to fall and occasionally bump his head & body...ouch! Braden has had many more bumps and bruises than Madeleine did at this age!
• He prefers to feed himself than to be spoon fed. We didn't buy any baby food this week because we still have some in the pantry and we are trying to get him to eat it! I need to get creative and figure out some more recipes that he would enjoy.
• No more formula! Hooray! At $25 a carton, I am so glad to be done with it! He likes his whole milk! We are still giving him a bottle before bed time and need to transition to reading books with a sippy cup so that is our next goal. He likes the sippy cup and drinks from it through out the day so hopefully it won't be too hard of a transition.
• He can say "Mama" and "Dada", claps his hands and just started shaking his head "Noooo". He still won't wave, blow kisses, touch his nose (all things I try to do with him) or do any sign language I've tried. He will barely sit or pay attention to me long enough to show him anything so I've kind of given up. Every once in awhile I will try again but I figure he'll do all of this eventually??? I hope so!

Lunch with daddy!

We headed in Seattle to meet Jeff for lunch on Friday! We ate yummy Vietnamese food and the kids had fun visiting daddy. Braden did very well in the restaurant as long as we kept feeding him. Madeleine cried the whole way home though because she was sad she didn't get to see Jeff anymore. We did water colors when we got home so her mood brightened up!

Money & Playing Store

Madeleine is really into counting her money and playing store with us. She emptied her piggy bank and got out all the money to play with. We set-up a little pretend store and she used her money to buy our merchandise :) Of course she doesn't understand the difference really between a dime and a quarter, ect. but she likes to count her pennies (she has lots of them!) and look at all the different coins!

Braden's 1-year Check-Up!

Braden had his 1-year check-up today and all went well! He is in the 93% for weight & height and his head circumference is in the 85%. He is a healthy boy! We were given the official okay to move on to whole milk which I am so excited about! The formula Braden drank had gone from $18 to $22 to $25 and he went through over one a week. Now, what will we do with the money saved? Probably nothing because this child eats a lot of food ;-)

All joking aside, we are so happy that we have a healthy, growing boy! Is he still a baby or officially a 'young toddler' as they say? He's still my baby...

Happy 1st Birthday Braden!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy 1st Birthday my sweet boy! I can't believe Braden is 1 already. We celebrated today at home with my parents! Madeleine was sick so we didn't want to expose anyone else so we just had a small little party for him.

We started off the morning with a birthday waffle. He HATED his birthday hat and cried when we put it on :)
The official height check! He is just a tad taller than Madeleine was on her 1st Birthday.

My friend Jenni (who is amazing too) has an amazing sister-in-law who makes YUMMY cupcakes! They turned out sooooo cute! Thank you Linda!

I got a bunch of fun ideas off Pinterest to decorate for Braden's Birthday! It was so fun to make everything. I hung a picture garland that had a picture of him from when he was born and up to 11 months. I also found a free printable that I cut out and hung as well that said "Happy Birthday"!

Not sure what we are laughing at but glad we are having fun!


Braden wouldn't wear his hat anymore so I wore it instead!



He DEVOURED his cupcake. We couldn't believe how fast he ate it...the entire thing!

Grandma and Grandpa celebrated with us!

Braden received some fun gifts! We gave him a Fisher Price Little People toy that is all about cars. He got more cars, a dump truck and the cutest outfit - thank you!

Happy Birthday Braden! I can't believe this year has gone by so fast! You are my sweet little boy who we love so very much. We enjoy watching you grow and your personality develop. We love that little smile that you only give us when something is really funny :) I'm sure you will be eating us out of house & home with that big appetite and based on the bumps and bruises so far, I really hope we aren't making too many trips to the emergency room as you grow older! All those little snuggles you give us are so precious...we love you SO MUCH!!! Happy 1st Birthday to our favorite little boy!