A boy and his pup

There is nothing quite like the relationship and love between a boy and his dog....Okay so maybe the love in this relationship is pretty one sided right now but we know that once Brayden stops terrorizing Mia so much and learns how to throw her ball that she will adore him right back!  The first thing Brayden does every morning after waking up is look for and point at Mia.  He spends his days trying to get his hands on her, and enticing her to play with him by teasing her with her bone and toys.  He really loves to lay his head on her (or any dog for that matter) which is terribly sweet because he is just trying to get a little cuddle!  99% of the time Mia will not sit still for Brayden to cuddle her unless it is storming and Mia is scared-for some reason she will let him do whatever, it blows us away!

Mia and Brayden are great at sharing...

Mia's bone

Mia's bed

Balls

They even share the same water bowl!

Here are some of my recent favorites of these two buddies!

 These next few are a hilarious sequence, I wish I had a video of this one!  Brayden and Mia love to play with this dog that looks just like Mia, they both think it is theirs!  Major tug-of-war!!!

Brayden-0 Mia-1 !!!

We just know that these two are going to be best friends!  We are so lucky to have such a patient and loving pup!

Brayden at 15 months...AKA crazy man!!!

My oh my, this child is a crazy person!!!  I know I say this every month but Brian and I both agree that this is our favorite age yet.  Brayden is such an energetic, funny, and loving little boy and we absolutely adore him!  Here is what little B is up to these days:

*Buddy loves to climb!  He climbs on anything that he can reach and we are just waiting (dreading) for the day that he climbs out of his crib!

Brayden would run around naked all day if we let him!

*And yes, all this climbing results in ALOT of bumps, bruises, and scratches.  Just a few days ago, Brayden got his first busted lip!  Of course to me it seemed like a lot of blood coming from his mouth but after about 1 minute of crying he was just fine!

Of course as I am freaking out, Brian takes the photo op!  He's like "ya, that's my boy!"

*Brayden is a walking/running fool!  He is practically running and just wanders throughout the house picking up things, playing with them for a short minute, throwing them and then on the the next!  Within 10 minutes our perfectly clean house looks like a hurricane came through!

He especially likes things on a stick, his golf clubs, baseball bat, and of course the swifter, duster, and our broom which he has broken since this photo was taken!

*He does this cheesy laugh that is hilarious and contagious!  We are not sure if he is genuinely laughing or not but if he hears us laughing he will do it and it just makes everyone laugh more which makes him continue doing it on and on-adorable!
*Mommy's sweet baby is a lover!  When he is in his highchair he often grabs my hand and puts it on his face so that my hand is cupping his cheek.  He will continue eating this way and if I try to move my hand he usually grabs it and puts it back...so so sweet!
*Brayden has recently learned how to throw things, makin his daddy real proud when he actually picks up a ball and throw it!
*After dinner, and before bath/bedtime Brayden gets rowdy!  He just runs all over the place screaming and yelling and is real playful-Brian and I just look at each other and laugh he is so much fun!
*Brayden loves going to the park, the pool, the gym, to friends houses, and playing with family-  I am always trying to think of things to do to get Brayden out of the house to burn off some energy!

Loves the kids club at the gym, so many kids and toys to play with!!!

Brayden with one of his girlfriends-sweet baby Hannah :)

LOVES getting pushed on this thing but MAN it is a workout!

 Just a few more randoms from the month, and yes I know this baby is rarely wearing both pants and a shirt at the same time!  We are lucky to get just his diaper on trust me!

He was extremely fascinated with the rain the other day

Still the absolute sweetest thing in the world to me is this sleeping baby!

Loves to swing!!!


 

Who knew?!

So we have been living in our current house for almost three years.  In that time, we have ran, walked, or driven all over the whole neighborhood.  We are so surprised we never knew there was a great big pond with huge fish and turtles inside just a walk up the street from us!  Of course after hearing about it from a neighbor we decided to take Brayden the animal lover right away!  We brought some old tortillas to feed the fish and they scarfed them right down.  From the looks of these ginormous carps, there have been a lot of neighbor kiddos feeding them lately.  Brayden was excited at first and kept pointing at the fish, however he was so excited to see them that he spent a lot of the time trying to actually climb in swim along with them!  Here are some pics:

"dat dat dat" :)

The nice thing about this area is there are tons of trees so lots of shade which we definitely need this hot summer!  Looking forward to bringing Brayden back to explore some more!

Brayden at 14 months

Brian and I had our 5 year anniversary this past weekend and we talked a lot about how much our lives have changed since sweet Brayden was born.  He is such a blessing and we are so glad that we are his parents and get to see his funny smiling face every day :)  Here is what Brayden is up to at 14 months

*Brayden is a great sleeper!  The first 9 months of his life we didn't get much sleep around here but now he is a professional!  He goes down around 7:30 each night and we don't hear a thing out of him until between 7-8 the next morning.  He is also still doing great with his one nap a day which usually averages about 3 hours, yesterday he slept for four!!!

*Brayden is just such an easy baby!  He is also still a great eater!  He will eat just about anything you put in front of him but of course his favorites are still sweeter things so we usually put his meat and veggies down first and then put his fruit down when he is almost finished.  His favorites these days seem to be bananas (still!  He ate a whole one yesterday!) mangoes, strawberries, cherries, grapes, and cheerios!

*He LOVES to be chased and tickled.  It is seriously the cutest sound in the world to hear him shriek with joy as he tries to get away from us
*He is almost running!  He can get around REALLY fast, he sometimes ends up going to fast though and ends up flat on his face!
*This baby is still lovin the water.  We spend a lot of time in the evenings in our backyard letting him play in and drink water from his baby pool and sometimes playing in the dirt...  He also enjoys going to our neighborhood pool and the pool at our gym is great for kids as well

*Brayden really seems to enjoy playing on the playground.  We take him down to our neighborhood playground in his wagon or his car and let him climb, slide, and walk all over the place.  It is just getting so hot that we can't stay out there for too long these days because his little face gets so hot and red!
*He loves to climb on things!  His favorite place to hang out these days is on the edge of the second stair, it looks really scary and freaks us out!  He also likes climbing up the stairs, tries to climb up on the couch, on the fireplace (which he gets so upset because every time we have to tell him NO over and over again) Anyway, Brayden will climb up on just about anything he can reach!

*Brayden really loves dogs, especially his dog Mia which he spends quite a bit of time each day trying to get his hands on.  He really likes his Barron grandparents dog Peaches because the poor thing is very old and half blind so he definitely has the advantage over her since she doesn't see him coming!  He loves his Aunt Christi's dog too and loves trying to get a handful of Nash's puffy white hair.  When he is in his highchair and hears the dogs next door barking he will get really excited and his eyes widen and he says "PUP PUP"!  It is so cute :)  One source of endless free entertainment has been petco, he loves to look at all of the animals there but especially the dogs in the "Doggy day care" that they have there.  He just looks at them through the glass and gets so excited.  Needless to say I think we will have an animal lover on our hands
*Brayden seems to be extremely observant.  We live somewhat near the airport and daily lots of planes fly right over our house.  Whenever Brayden hears one he tries to look for it, whether we are inside or outside.  When we are outside and he sees one he will watch it until it disappears from the sky.  He also looks for birds when he hears them and sometimes still tries to make a bird noise as well.  We are just so surprised at how much he seems to understand.  He follows very simple instructions and seems to recognize a lot of words and gestures that we say and do.
*Brayden has started pointing at everything over the past couple of weeks, he will usually point at things and say "dat, dat" over and over again

*Brayden has 11 teeth right now and his gums are bulging in a couple of places where it looks like more are coming

*Buddy got his second haircut after once again I was told in HEB how beautiful my daughter was, to which of course I just said "thank you so much :)" (he was even wearing a onesie with a tie on it, people are crazy!!)  He did much better this time but as you can see, he is still not a huge fan of haircuts! 

*This guy is into EVERYTHING!  He loves opening doors, cabinets, and drawers and emptying out ALL of the contents.  We will find him walking around the house with a brush, toothbrush, blender lid etc. and he looks like he has found a treasure!

He shook this container until it opened and then him and Mia shared a snack!

*By far, Brayden's favorite toy is his golf clubs.  We are amazed that he can actually hit the ball, he then chases it and hits it over and over again.  He has even watched us enough times that he knows to use the club to help him get balls out from underneath the couch.  Lets just say that Brian is beyond thrilled that Brayden has taken to his favorite hobby :)

Sweet boy is just so much fun, we are so looking forward to continuing watching him grow and change!

And... once again his CHEESE face!  Crazy boy!

Brayden's first trip to the beach!

Brayden absolutely LOVES playing in any type of body of water, puddles, pools, baths, toilets, etc.  So we just figured that he would have a blast playing at the beach...  Here is a video of his first venture into the ocean:

Sweet boy was so excited but after that face full of salt water he was scared of the water the rest of the time.  He did however enjoy playing in the sand and watching the dogs and birds.  Here are a few pics from Brayden's first beach trip:

I am sure that Brayden will get many more chances this summer to enjoy the beach!