21 Months...WHOOP!

Mr. Braden turned 21 months on May 27th and he is getting SOOOO big! :) He is a bundle of joy and a source of many of our laughs. :) We love him to pieces. :)

Here are some highlights for Month 21:
1) Braden is IN LOVE with our Armada. He could take or leave the Altima but for some reason there is a big obsession right now with the "big car". If we pick him up from school in the Altima, he talks about the "big car" all the way home. The minute we get there he gets out and walks over to the garage to try and lift the door so that he can get to it. It really does crack me up. There have been evenings that Chris and Braden have had to ride around the neighborhood in the "big car" just to get him to stop talking about it over and over again. ;) And everytime we talk about going somewhere he asks "In the big car?" :)

2) He is into matching things right now. We have some matching books and he really likes to put things together that look alike. He also likes to match up different puzzle pieces and magnetic animals, etc. He is great at it too! :)

3) As random as it is, Braden loves bandaids right now. If he ever gets hurt he first wants his "football ice" or "puppy ice" which are just a little football and a little puppy that are ice packs. Then if he scrapes himself and he is barely bleeding then he wants his character bandaids. He will talk about the "Cars" bandaids, "Toy Story" bandaids, and "Mickey Mouse" bandaids as long as you will let him. :) One night he was so upset that he could not have a Mickey bandaid on his knee before he went to bed that I literally thought I was going to have to let him sleep with the box in his bed! :)

4) Braden remembers everything these days. If you are talking with him about something one evening like "Tomorrow we will go swimming" then he will literally wake up the next morning saying "Go swimming?" And if you try to distract him from something he wants in an attempt to get him to forget about it....it is not going to happen. The dude is smart. :)

5) Potty "practicing" is still going on. I would not really call it potty training b.c we have not really started working on it diligently yet...but he does use the potty whenever he wants and that is good enough for now. :) Every night before his bath he insists on sitting there for a little while before he hops into the tub. :)

6) Braden is IN LOVE with his daddy. I mean WOW!! He cannot get enough of Chris and he usually wants him to do almost all activities with him. "Daddy Go", "Daddy Go".....is a common conversation in our house. He just thinks it is so cool when they are together. He will often say "Hold you Dada" when he wants Chris to pick him up. :)

7) Braden can officially unlock the front door and walk out on the porch. Before he could just open the door if it was unlocked...but now he can also unlock the deadbolt. UGH! :( Scary stuff. So we are going to have to turn our chime on our house alarm back on, as well as institute some additional safety measures. Before long my entire house will be completely childproofed, and I might not even recognize it anymore. :)

8) He has decided there are some mornings that he is ready to get out of his crib but not completely ready to get up. So on those mornings when you walk in to get him up he will say "Rock". He wants you to take him over to the rocking chair and hang out with him for a little while. I went into his room one morning last week and he said "Rock". Well I was not going to turn down any cuddle time for sure...so I obliged. :) He laid his head down on me and sat like that for a little while, and then he popped up and said "Music". So I turned his CD player on. A few minutes later he popped up and said "Hair" which apparently meant that he wanted me to run my fingers through his hair while he laid there. What a life, right? :) Spoiled rotten much? HA! :)

9) It is very important that we know that Braden is a "big boy" now that we have Brant at home. He is obsessed with telling us that, and he must do so AT LEAST 10 times per day! :) It is so cute so we have to mess with him sometimes. We will say things like "Are you a baby Braden?" To which he will promptly respond "I a BIG BOY!!" very emphatically. :) He wants to make sure we are certain about this fact. :) He also tells Chris that he is a big boy as well, and he tells me that I am a big girl. If that was not coming from a toddler then I might be a little offended. :)

10) He still loves to hold Brant and thinks it is so cool that he gets to do that. I think it is the most precious thing ever. :)

11) A good nap for Braden (pretty much since he has been born) is about an hour and a 1/2 at a time. I know that when most babies move from 2 naps per day to 1 that they often take two shorter naps and combine them into one longer one. Well not Braden. :) He decided that for the last 9 months (since he turned a year) that he just really needed an hour and a 1/2 a day. Oh my!! So that was kind of annoying. The good news is that as of the past week or so he has changed his ways. :) He has decided it is cool to nap for 2 1/2 to 3 hours and we are in LOVE with that! :) It even often gives Chris and I a chance to take a nap as well on the weekends. :)

12) He is into singing these days, and the song he likes to sing most right now is "Jesus Loves Me". He does pretty well...and if we sing along with him then he can get most of the words. :)

13) I mentioned that he was WAY into flags in his month 20 post. Well in addition to flags, he is also WAY into airplanes, motorcycles, and bicycles right now. He points them out constantly when we are driving around. :)

14) The cutest thing ever that Braden is doing right now is learning to whisper. :) Oh my gosh I love it!! His little voice is just precious and he does such a good job!! Sometimes when I am putting him to bed we will just sit there and whisper to one another. He loves it and he actually does it very quietly. ;)

15) And last but not least, now that Brant rides in a stroller most of the time when we go out, Braden has decided that he LOVES his stroller again. You know...the one that he hated from about months 12-19. :) He gets upset if we get somewhere and Brant gets to ride in the stroller but he does not. Gotta love how things change in a toddler's world. :)

So that is what is going on in the life of our 21 month-er. :) Never ever a dull moment! :)

And On The 102nd Day....

HE SLEPT!! As in ALL.NIGHT.LONG!! :) Whoop!! :)

Talk about happy campers.....that was Chris and I!! Brant just decided that he would go ahead and sleep through the night on Friday night...and we were more than onboard with that plan. I could not have asked for a better Memorial Day weekend present. Thank you little B! How about you keep this up and give your parents a chance to catch up on their sleep. How does that sound? :)

I think a couple of things helped with this transition...1) He hit the 10-12 lb "magical weight range" where a lot of kids start sleeping through the night. 2) We were able to get more food into him throughout the day...so he did not need to get up and eat around 3 am. He is still on a special preemie formula and he has increased from taking 24 oz a day to about 26-27 oz per day...so I think that helped out too. 3) Or maybe he just decided that he likes to sleep through the night, and he would rather sleep than wake up for a bottle. HA! :)

We all know that every kid is different.....but sometimes it is hard not to compare what the 2nd does to what the 1st did. It is all you have to go off of, right? :) Braden was sleeping through the night at 10 weeks, so that was before I even went back to work. Based on that, I felt pretty well rested by the time I was back in the work groove. This time has been a little bit different b.c Brant took about 4 extra weeks to give the "sleeping through the night" a try. But even if it took him until 14 weeks to learn, we will take it!! He was a preemie so he gets some leeway. HA! :)

A typical night is that we feed him around 7:30, swaddle him, and put him in his crib for the night between 8-9 pm. He will sleep until about 10:30 pm when we wake him up, and give him one last bottle before we head to bed. Then he will wake up about 3 am to eat one more time before sleeping in until later in the morning (7:30-ish). We have been doing this same schedule pretty much since we got home from the NICU. Well Saturday morning he just kept sleeping and woke up at about 6 am. He never got up for that 3 am bottle. NICE!! Then he did it again during the weekend, and he slept from his feeding at 11 pm until we woke him up at 7:30 am. I liked that for sure!! Yee haw! :)

We are just hoping this is not a fluke....and that he is well on his way to making that happen on a regular basis. Now if Chris and I can just get to bed at a reasonable hour then we will be on our way to a very restful night. We are hopeful! :) Come on Brant! :)

Kid Split And The CF Walk....

Last Friday night Chris and I had a babysitter (thank you Heidi!) so that we could go out for dinner and have some time "off". :) Despite the crazy rain that we had that night, Chris and I had a wonderful time. We headed out to a new place in downtown Austin called "Enzo", and we ate some good Italian food-caprese salad, pasta, pizza, and strawberry tiramisu. :) It was nice to just be able to sit and enjoy a few hours of kid-free conversation. :)

We dug the "purple-ish" hue....and they have some really cozy booths in there. :)

On Saturday morning our family headed to a lunch with Chris's co-workers...at one of their houses. It was their summer work party and it was fun to see everyone. :) It was nice to catch up and Braden was in love with the trampoline in the backyard. He thought it was great fun to get bounced around by his friend Meredith. :)

After we wore him out a bit, he and I took off on our adventure to Fort Worth. We decided we were going to split things up this weekend, and I would take Braden and Chris would stay in Austin with Brant. Sunday was the Cystic Fibrosis walk, and it was really important to me to be there in honor of our niece and nephew-Lainey and Graeme. We did not want to travel with Brant so early (since he is really less than 2 months- gestational age)....but at the same time we wanted to be sure someone from our family was there to partcipate in the walk and celebrate all of the money raised for CF! :)

I have never traveled alone with Braden before but I was up for the challenge. Not really sure why we have not traveled together by ourselves but I guess it is just b.c we always travel everywhere as a family. I was not 100% sure if he would sleep in the car, read books, want snacks, watch movies, etc. Turned out that he did incredible on the 3 hour tour there and back...and I was so glad we went. :) It really was like a vacation to only have one kiddo for the rest of the weekend. HA! :)

Of course Braden just LOVED being able to see his cousins, as well as his Mimi and Popple. He had the very best time..and it is always so fun to see them all togther. :)

Cake time to celebrate 4 years of being a part of the CF Foundation and the Great Strides walk. :) The name of the team has changed from "Lainey's League" to "Strength to Soar". Cory and Jennifer changed the name when they found out that Graeme also had CF this past December. Miss Lainey wanted to blow out the candles. :)Braden decided that he wanted to lay on Graeme to show him how much he loved him. :) Lainey wanted to join in on the party. :) Poor Graeme! HA!We heaed out to Arlington on Sunday morning for the walk. It was amazing to see that the teams had raised $301,000 for CF this year. :) My bro and sis in law raised about $30,000...which is simply incredible. That is 10% of the total for the entire walk. I am so proud of them...they seriously rock! And to all of the amazing friends and family that made that number possible. What a blessing to have more and more money going to CF research each year. They have to find a cure with all of this dedication! :)

As soon as we got out to the walk, Braden and Lainey saw some of the Looney Tunes characters...and they were pretty much mesmerized. :)
The walk was a 5K and it went around Cowboys stadium and Rangers stadium in Arlington. :) The kids were all ready to go in their wagon!
Dad and Cory getting ready to make it happen!Sweet little Graeme was all ready for the walk. He even had a fan attached to his stroller to keep him cool while we headed out. How awesome is that? I want one of those attached to my person for the summer! :) Cory and Jenn....... :)
Miss Lainey...Mr. Braden getting ready for the fun...Papa Spencer was getting in the zone. :) Jen and I before we got started.... Mom and Dad smiling for me....before they started sweating. :) The teams are getting ready....At the finish line waiting for everyone else to get there...
Lainey and Braden really wanted to stand in front of the sign. :)
The sweet Jaetzold family....
After the walk we headed over to Pappasitos for a little lunch with the gang. Then it was time to hit the road back to Austin. Once again, Braden was a trooper!! As a treat for being so awesome for me, Chris took him swimming once we made it back home! :) He loved that of course! :)

At least now I know that I can make the trip with one of the kiddos by myself....and that makes me excited for future adventures. :)

Bathtub Bliss......

Mr. Brant is really starting to get into his bath these days and it is too cute. :) He especially likes to be sprayed off at the end of the bath with the hose on the faucet. He gets very calm, and I know he must be thinking "please do not turn that water off." :)

I am so glad we have moved past the newborn "freak out while in the bath" stage. :) This is much more fun!

10 Pounder...

We have a 10 pounder in our midst!! YAY Brant!! :) We are so stoked that you are still gaining weight like a CHAMP!! :) You have amazed us, as well as doctors and other friends that have had similiar experiences with their kiddos. In short...you rock! :) And I can tell everyone from personal experience that a 2 lb baby is WAY different than a 10 lb baby!! WOW!

I am still constantly reminded of what a miracle we have in our little man. I continue to hear stories and read preemie forums about babies that are struggling to survive in the NICU....or that are really having challenges once they make it home. I realize that God has held Brant in his hand and protected him every step of the way, and I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for that. I think that we all know what an amazing blessing it is to have a healthy baby, much less one that has overcome the rocky road of prematurity along the way. Brant has made a huge impact on our lives in the short 3 1/2 months that he has been here....and I can only imagine the great impact he will have as he gets older. He has such a story to tell!!

I feel like I want to soak in every moment with him b.c I know how fast they grow up. So I just feel especially thankful today for this precious little boy...and for the joy he brings into our lives every day with that sweet little smile. :)

We love you to the moon and back Brant! :) Keep on growing baby! :)

Tumbling Time....

Braden checked out a new place to play on Saturday morning....JW Tumbles. :) He learned a few gymnastics moves and met some new friends. :) He has a lot of fun with Saturday morning activities and it gets him all ready for a good nap later that day. :)

Just a few pics from his tumbling adventure. :) During class he had worked up quite an appetite...so we took him to eat at a new place in Steiner Ranch-Suelo Nuevo. :) He grubbed it up! :) Later that day we went and grabbed some sandwiches and some great cupcakes from "Lick It, Bite It, or Both" :) YUM!! We headed out to a park in central Austin for a picnic, and also so Braden could get some playtime in on the playscapes. Of course he wanted to play more than he wanted to eat...but that was a good chance to work on patience. :) After church on Sunday we decided to go and get some dim sum to spice things up a bit...and to get one more good meal in before the week started again. :)
So ready for next weekend already!! We love our weekends around here! :)

Bye Bye Bumpers....

Well if you can believe it, we just took the bumpers our of our 20 month old's bed LAST NIGHT!! I am in shock that he lasted that long!! I put him into bed and heard him talking for awhile like he always does. I just happened to look on the video monitor to see how things were going in there. And alas...what do I see? I see a little bootie trying to manuever it's way over the side of the crib rail!! I think not!! :) He was using his bumpers as leverage to try and get his leg up over the top. Goodness!! Is there anything this child does not think of? :)

So it was time for them to come out...and for him to sleep in a "naked" crib that is not pretty anymore. HA!! Just a sheet, his pillow, and his favorite blankets. :) Since he has not actually crawled out, I do not want to put him in a toddler bed just yet. If we can just make it to two years old. :) I don't know though..he is pretty darn smart, and I know one night I am going to wake up to him walking into my room and saying "Hi Mama!!". :)

The Politician...

Oh Braden....you are so stinkin funny!! We think there is a chance that you might be a politician when you grow up. LOL! :) The teachers and Chris and I laugh about the things he does on a weekly basis. They said at school that he is very serious about making sure that everyone is taken care of each day when he gets there. He goes around to check on everyone. He wants to know that all is peaceful in the classroom for the day. :) He is so PC. :)

In the past couple of months he has always called each of his friends by name when he has left school for the day. He tells them bye individually, as well as saying bye to his teachers. Today when Chris picked him up to leave he decided that all of a sudden he knew some of their last names too. So he walked out calling his friend Cameron by his last name too-"Bye Bye Cameron Jackson".

Really?? Where does he get this stuff? :)

3 Months!!

Brant is 3 months old! :) A quarter of a the way to a year, right? HA! :) We fall more in love with this little guy each day...he is so amazing. :)

Chris took him in for a weight check for his birthday and he was 9 lbs 2 oz.....HOORAY!!! What a stud!! We are over the moon with this weight gain which has now risen to 1.6 oz per day. That means that about every 10 days he gains a pound. :) He is an oveachiever and he is quickly catching up to other babies his age. I love it! :) I cannot wait to see what his length is at his 4 month appt in June. :)

Even though his adjusted age is just 5 weeks old, he is doing really well getting on a schedule, and eating more than a baby his size would. He is too cute when it comes to eating. :) He is serious about his food. :) He is up to eating about 24-25 oz per day, and is starting to form 3 distinct naps per day as well. I am loving the really long afternoon nap that he takes b.c his little evening "witching hour" seems to have vanished. That makes me happy. :)

Brant is working on his tummy time and I must say he is doing quite well. It is great to watch him get stronger every day....and to see the head control that he is starting to exhibit. He is starting to focus on us when we talk to him, and hear him begin to coo and smile. It is just so awesome to see him meet these milestones. I mean he was a 2 lb baby and so much has happened in 3 months. What a blessing! :)

We are so excited to see what the next few months will bring with our little man. It sure has been fun to watch him grow up. :) Can you believe I am 3 months old already? :) I like to sit up. :)
I like to sleep on Daddy.....I love all of my toys...and playing on the floor with them. Just not on my tummy! HA! :)