Look Who Is Figuring Out This Walking Thing!

Sorry, the video will turn sideways halfway through... I learned not to rotate the camera while taking video! It won't be long until he's walking all the time!

Can't Touch This

Kevin got a musical card for his birthday, and B thinks it's the best thing ever.

It's a boy!

We are having another boy! And yes, we are sure this time :) If I didn't feel weird about posting the "it's a boy" ultrasound picture, you would be sure too!

We had our 20 week ultrasound on Thursday and all looks great. He is positioned very low, is breech, and is folded in half - literally. His hands and feet were in front of his face pretty much the whole time. Sound familiar? It should. He is EXACTLY like Braden was when I was pregnant with him. I was sure it was a boy once the ultrasound started because the two were so similar. The only difference so far is that Braden was very mellow when I was pregnant and this baby is the opposite of mellow. He was moving all over the place. Maybe having them behave opposite when I'm pregnant means they will have opposite behavior after they are born? The funny thing is that I really don't feel much of his movements which they say is due to how he is positioned.

We are excited to be having another boy. It would have been nice to have a girl, but having two boys so close in age will be awesome. I know it is going to be pure chaos with two little boys, but I can't imagine it any other way. And hey, maybe we will have a girl someday!

Anyway, I didn't put all of the ultrasound photos up here. He was so active that they had a hard time getting pictures of his face. We have a lot of photos they take for measurement purposes, but I don't remember what some of them are of!

Braden's First NCAA Bracket Picks!

Yep, that's right. Braden selected teams in his first NCAA bracket. We wrote down the team names on strips of paper and folded them up. We then shook them up and put each game in front of him and let him choose which piece of paper he wanted.

At first, he was only picking the paper on the right side, but then he switched to the left, and then it was back and forth!

He had some interesting picks... He has UNLV winning it all. Won't we all be surprised if that actually happens?

9 Months Old!

Braden is nine months old, and he continues to grow so fast! He is all over the place and into everything.

His new stats:

• Weight: 17 pounds 10 ounces (10th percentile)
• Height: 28.5 inches (58th percentile)
• Head circumference: 44.5cm (26th percentile)

Here are his new discoveries:

• The curtains - he LOVES to play in them. He hides behind them and then pops out and laughs hysterically.
• Henry - up until recently he has only paid attention to our dog, Rocco. He has now discovered one of our cats, Henry. He thinks Henry is SO funny. Henry also enjoys playing with Braden's toys in the basement, so Braden thinks Henry is playing with him.
• Door stoppers - he found these awhile ago, but I'm not sure I ever posted about it. He loves flicking the door stoppers. He actually pulled one out of the wall the other day, but it turns out that they just screw right back in. Who knew?
• Socks - he pull his socks off now and just puts them in his mouth. Yuck. Luckily it's warming, so socks will be worn must less frequently.
• Drawers - he has figured out that to open drawers, all you have to do is pull. Ugh.

His new accomplishments include:

• Constant babbling... he started with "baba" and then quickly learned "gaga", "dada", and "mama". His newest is "yaya". He isn't saying "dada" or "mama" in reference to either of us yet, so we don't consider any of those his first words.
• First tooth: he got his first tooth this past month. It's so cute!
• Climbing stairs: Oh yes, he just crawls right up them. We didn't even teach him that. One day he was just crawling and got up to the stairs, so of course we were right behind him, and then he just proceeded to crawl all the way up the stairs.
• The fist bump: This might be my favorite thing so far. He hold his fist out for you to bump! He will also try to fist bump himself in the mirror :)

Eating patters:

• He has finally outgrown the milk intolerance! Hooray for him, and double hooray for our bank account! He is now on Enfamil Gentlease. I can buy two 22 ounce containers for the price of one 19.5 ounce container of the old stuff. And, I can often find it on clearance because stores have an excess supply. Score!
• He drinks 18-24 ounces of formula each day. Once when he gets up each morning, one before each nap, and one before bed.
• We are slowly moving on to finger foods. Of course, he loves puffs. He also likes these rice wafer things call Baby Mum-Mum (strange name, I know). Gerber also makes these things that look like Cheetos... he likes those too, but makes a GIGANTIC mess when he eats them. Holy moly. We try to feed him a bit of what we eat, but he's not too sure about everything yet. Though he had made it perfectly clear that he would eat pancakes for every meal if we let him. Pancakes and cream of wheat, strawberries and cream flavor. Not plain flavor - he spit that right back out!
• He still has baby food three times a day because he doesn't eat enough finger food to fill him up. His new favorites are: (1) strawberry, apple, banana combo and (2) squash mixed with applesauce and a bit of cinnamon. Don't ask how we figured that out... but cinnamon is good for you!

Sleeping Patterns:

• He is FINALLY sleeping through the night! YAY!!!!
• Daylight savings time is our new best friend. Instead of going to bed at 6:30pm, he is now going down between 7:30 and 8:00 and then wakes up around 6:30am. Sometimes he has his bottle and then goes back to sleep for another hour or so. Sometimes he doesn't!
• He is finally on a nap schedule - two naps a day! One around 11am and one around 2 or 3pm. We usually get one long nap and one shorter nap for a total of 3 to 3.5 hours a day.
• He sleeps on his stomach and then ends up sleeping on his knees because he pulls his legs up underneath him.
• We have to put like four pacifiers in his crib with him because he ends of throwing most of them out of the crib at some point. We go in to get him in the morning and there are pacifiers all over the floor!

We are loving every minute with him! We are so glad that the weather is getting warmer because he loves to be outside. He loves walks and just playing with his toys outside. We ate dinner outside one night this week and he thought that was the greatest thing ever. For awhile, we were getting frustrated because we wanted to be able to go out to eat, but going to dinner with Braden just was not working out very well. He was just cranky because it was getting near bedtime. One day we went out to lunch instead - Best. Idea. Ever. He is perfect around lunch time if we put him in the highchair and give him puffs or something. We are very happy that we are able to go out to eat again! Though I feel bad for the people that have to clean up our mess when we leave... puffs end up everywhere.

18 Weeks

This past Sunday marked 18 weeks down and 22 to go. Still feeling great! I was able to feel the baby kick this week, finally! I've been waiting for it :) If I had to guess, this baby is transverse (sideways) with his/her feet to the left and head to the right. Braden started out transverse too, but his head was to the left and feet to the right. Nothing else to report! Things are great!

Updates

We cannot wait for the Spring and Summer. This crazy winter weather this year has really caused a problem for Braden. He has had one cold after another. He was then sick with some kind of stomach bug. He recovered from that and the came down with another cold last Saturday. He was so snotty and had this horrible cough. On top of that he is getting his first tooth. So the poor kiddo was just plain miserable! Finally, today the nose is better, but that cough is still lingering. Although, according to this photo, he had his moments of happiness - if you look at his eyes, you can tell they were all red and puffy :(

He is actually sleeping like a champ, so lets hope it keeps up! He goes to bed somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00pm. Lately, he hasn't been waking up until 5:30am for a bottle. He then goes back to sleep until somewhere between 6:45 and 8:00am. I really like the long stretches of sleep that we are getting, but 5:30am is a weird time to get up to feed him. On days that I have to work, it's pointless to try to go back to bed after that - mostly because I can't fall back asleep and then I have to get up by 6:30 anyway. So, I'm just up that early...

Naps are a different story... he has been fighting them to no end recently. He will stand up in his crib and cry because he doesn't want to sleep. Eventually he will get so frustrated that he throws his pacifiers all over the room - we put every paci he has in the crib with him! Eventually he will give it up and go to sleep, but his naps are typically 45 - 90 minutes. Maybe.

On another note, our house is still on the market and we hope it sells soon! Mostly the reason people don't like it is because it backs up to 146th Street. We knew that was going to be a problem going into this, but really, we don't even notice the traffic noise! I see these houses online that I really like, but obviously we can't go buy one until our house sells. I think that God might be trying to teach me patience... something I'm not very good at!

And, Rocco chewed a hole in our couch. He has never done anything like that before. Ever. I came home to a big hole in the back cushion of the couch with stuffing everywhere. I guess that will be the couch we get rid of when we move!

Here are some photo updates of Braden, and a video too!

He went to Target with Mom and it was the first time riding in the cart like a big boy! He enjoyed it and I'm SO thankful that I don't have to drag in the car seat all the time anymore! That is quite the pain.

He was pretty excited here (in case you can't tell from his arm waving up and down like crazy)!

After months of having zero interest in the floor mat, he has rediscovered it.

Braden is really picky about when he laughs. He wants to make sure it's something really worth laughing at! I guess this was it! Now, you can show him the video - he watches it and then laughs at himself laughing. It's pretty darn cute!