Braydon is 1 today!

I can't believe it's already been a year! I feel so blessed to have such an amazing son. He is better than anything I could have asked for. He is sweet, funny, mellow, loving and perfect in every way. He has brought new meaning to mine and Craig's life.

Today we started off the day watching cartoons and drinking a bottle, then we went to Stroller Strides with Mommy. He got lots of extra attention there because it was his birthday. Everyone sang him "Happy Birthday" and he got to play with his friends. After that we went home and took a nap to get ready for the best part of the day...the Sea Life Aquarium at Legoland with Mommy and Daddy! It's the first time we have ever taken him to anything like that and he had the time of his LIFE! He ran around banging on the glass, pointing at fish saying "Blah, blah!" and "grrrring" at each fish as they passed by. His favorite was when he got to touch the starfish, after that he would get frustrated that he couldn't physically touch the fish behind the glass. He loves people too, he would run after the other little kids and grab at them. When he gets really excited he'll dance, which he did often at the aquarium. After the Aquarium we went to Casa De Bandini and ate some Mexican food, Braydon ate rice and threw it all over the place. Then we went shopping around and played around in Brookstone where he was the most popular guy. All the employees crowded around him and played with him. He was throwing these glowing balls around, of course we ended up buying him one :) At the end of the day we took a bath and were SO tired that he went to sleep an hour earlier than usual.

Braydon's 1st Birthday Party

We threw a party for Braydon on Saturday, December 18th to celebrate him turning one. It was such a fun time! A lot of great friends and family turned out. And a few of Braydon's friends as well :) He was playing DJ for a while outside. It was so funny! He would stand next to the stereo with one hand on it and bounce up and down (his way of dancing). He just loves to dance, it cracks me up! He also rode his car around with Kingston and ate his very first cake! I think he had a great time and we did too!

A Dancing Machine

Braydon LOVES to dance! He is hilarious! He'll get in this squatting position and bounces up and down while waving his arm in the air (we call that his fist pumps). If he's really into the song both arms will fly in the air and usually he'll get so much momentum he'll fall on his bum :) Even when a commercial comes on with any kind of music in it, he'll stop what he's doing to dance. If there's a live band around? He'll run over and put himself center stage and dance, dance dance! The band loves it and usually the crowd is pretty entertained as well.

Picking out Braydon's 1st Christmas tree

We went to the Christmas tree farm last night and Braydon got to pick out his very first Christmas tree. He is a fast and curious walker! He didn't want either of us to hold him or even assist him walking, he just wanted to run around and grab sticks and put his hand in the Christmas tree water bowls. We got a 7-8 foot tree and are trying to figure out the best spot in the house to put it. I love how the house smells like pine :) Can't wait to have my little helper assist me in decorating it!

11 Months old already!

My little man is 11 months old already. He is the funniest little guy ever! He is walking and slightly running everywhere. He has such a lighthearted personality, laughing and playing all the time. He's got 6 little teeth that show when he scrunches his face at you. He'll do that when he doesn't get his way, he'll snort at you and scrunch his face, it's so cute! He LOVES to eat, I call him a goldfish-aholic because he can't get enough of those cheddar goldfish. When I walk over to the jar he'll laugh and get all excited. Him and Monty beg for food together. If I have something he wants a bite of he'll walk over, open his mouth wide (dropping the pacifier) and try and get me to feed it to him. He loves to play chase. Even if I'm not chasing him, he'll act like I'm trying to get him and shriek with delight. He's REALLY funny with Monty now. Whenever he sees him he'll yell "Ga!" and chase after him. In the mornings he'll walk over to his cage where he's sleeping, lean down and bite him on the head. Then he'll crawl into the cage where Monty is, and Monty will try to escape under the bed. Then Braydon will follow him under the bed to harass him some more.

He's really playful and gets really excited when Daddy comes around because he likes to wrestle him. He copies his Dad all the time, if Craig is fixing something, Braydon will get right in there with him and take the wrench from him. He also copies how his Dad plays with Monty, he will lay stomach down next to Monty and tuck his head down into him to get him to play with him.

He has a major personality and will voice whether he wants something or not. He runs around and laughs. He's a tough little dude too, he will fall or hurt himself and all he'll do is grunt and make a scrunchy face. We love him so much! He makes every day that much better!

Brady and cousin Dylan

Cousin Dylan came to visit the last week and a half and her and Braydon are so cute together. She is 6 months old and Bray is 10 1/2 months. Braydon is fully walking now and Dylan is sooo close to crawling. She will sit there on her play mat and Braydon will do his zombie walk over to her and pat her on the head like she's the dog. She usually has her pacifier connected to her shirt and Braydon will walk over and take it out of her mouth and put it in his and when he tries to walk away it will fall out because it's still attached to Dylan's shirt. When they are in the backseat together in their car seats they will sometimes hold hands which melts your heart. We took them to stroller strides a couple times and they loved it. It was so much fun having Wendy and Dylan live with us for a short bit. We got to bond with little Dylan, she is the cutest thing!

Halloween stroller strides

Stroller Strides was Halloween themed this last week. All the kids dressed up and we did a scavenger hunt. It was so much fun! Braydon has the best time hanging out with the other kids in the class. There's this girl Sophia that's the same age as him and they play together a lot. Her Mom Jessica is really nice, she's from Nor Cal too. He got in his first wrestling match with a little boy his age named SCott. It was hilarious! They wer laughing and wrestling with each other. I think Bray won ;)

Halloween

Braydon LOVED his first Halloween! Grandma Schwarz made him the most beautiful Lion costume! It kind of freaked him out at first but then he got used to it. Our neighborhood is the best neighborhood for Halloween. There are a ton of little kids that live on the block. We went to a block party up the street where they blocked off the streets and all the neighbors gathered and the kids played. Braydon is super social. We let him out of his stroller and he took off after the little kids, crawling and yelling with them. He played with a 3 year old boy for a while. He had the best time! We had a bunch of trick or treaters and ever time the doorbell would ring Bray would crawl to the door yelping with joy and when the door would open he'd crawl out the door and take off after the kids in costume. So funny! I made corpseloaf and ghost mashed potatoes for dinner. I think Halloween may be Braydon's favorite holiday.

Braydon is 10 months old!

Braydon is 10 months old already! I can't believe how quickly he's grown! He is a VERY funny little guy. He makes me laugh so hard every day. He has such a great personality. He is REALLY smart and a quick learner. He'll watch us do things and figure out how to do it himself. He loves to throw balls for Monty, I think he'll be a baseball player. I figured I'd outline a typical day with Bray:

6am - wake up with a huge smile and play with Mommy and Daddy in bed

7am - while Mommy takes a shower cause massive destruction, crawl over to the scale, flip it upside down, dismantle the battery holder and take all the batteries out, then cruise over to the drawers and empty them out, crawl over to the shower and pound on the glass door to say hi, crawl over to the trash can, open the lid, take everything out of the trash, then cruise into the hallway, take the nightlight out of the wall and scoot it around the ground....ALL this while Mommy is in the shower!

8am - we go downstairs and Bray sits in his highchair and eats cheerios, a few for himself and then he gives some to Monty who now sits beside his high chair begging because Bray will feed him, eat breakfast, try and rip off his bib, and give Mom big grins with his mouth full of food and his 4 little teeth showing.

9-10am - Chase Monty around and pound on him while laughing, empty all the kitchen cabinets and drawers, bang on pots and pans, push the chair around-using as a walker, quickly crawl over to Monty's food bowls hoping he can out run Mom, take handfuls full of dog food and put in mouth if successful at beating Mom to the bowl, try and exit the house out of Monty's dog door, crawl to Dad's guitar in the office and scoot that around on the ground while pounding on it, try and throw all the DVDs around the room, figure out how to open the DVD player and take the DVDs out of there, grab the TV remote and chomp on that, try and climb into Monty's toy basket, then use Monty as a stepping stool to climb up onto the ottoman...

10-11:30am - NAP, YAY! Mom gets a moment of free time to clean up his mess :)

11:30-3pm - Repeat all the things done from 9-10am, walk laps around the ottoman using it as support, pull Monty's tail and ears, open toy basket and empty out toys, try and crawl in the fridge when Mom opens it to make lunch, unravel the toilet paper roll in downstairs bathroom, etc.

3-4:30pm - NAP, Hooray!

5-6pm - Repeat the fun and try and figure out something new to get into

6pm - eat dinner in highchair, sneak Monty some food

7pm - Bath time! He loves baths! He'll splash around and eat his foam letters.

8pm - Daddy reads him a book, gives him a bottle and battles him to sleep for the night

Braydon walking

Brady took several steps on his own this morning! He's been walking around furniture and pushing chairs while walking for a while now and he's even taken one or two steps on his own and fallen on his bum. But this morning he WALKED, he was holding Monty's toy basket for support (which he loves to do while trying to dig through his toys) and I went in the pantry to get some cheerios (which he LOVES), he turned and looked at me, let go of the toy basket and walked towards me very slowly. He took around 7 steps and stareted walking on his book so that's what stopped him but he never fell! He still just stood there staring at me with his cheerios. He will be 10 months old in a few days.

Visiting Baltimore

We flew out to Baltimore to visit cousin Dylan and Auntie Wee Wee and Chad. Braydon made our 5 1/2 hour flight very interesting :) He was very hyper on the way out, only sleeping a half hour. He loved to have Daddy walk him up and down the aisle and play with his toys. He was a huge hit on the plane. We had a great time in Baltimore! Dylan is 4 months old now and much more animated. She is super smiley. Braydon was very curious about her and would grab her chubby thighs and hit her head with his hand. She would get pretty irritated with him because he would be loud and she doesn't like loud noises. The two of them are funny together. While in Baltimore we walked around the harbor and got yummy crab at Phillips, went to Wegmans and ate crab at Nicks and went to the Ravens home opener. We also toured the Ravens facility, Braydon loved it there! It was a really fun trip!