For those of you who have facebook, you can watch Braddock grow there. And for those who love the videos, just check www.vimeo.com and there should be new videos of him weekly. Just search for my first and last name there and the videos should pop up.

And since I didn’t have time to do a ‘Birthday post’ for Braddock, you can check out the pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.666758943098.2145905.52708599&l=d475e93d5d&type=1

Well, that’s all folks! Hope you enjoyed all the stories, updates, and pictures…

Thanks for following our family blog! I’m off to follow this busy boy around!

You’ll see the size of this playground. Yes, it’s a preschool playground… but Braddock is barely 13 months old and ran up this thing like it was for babies. He ran up to this slide and was ready to go down without hesitation!

Oh and btw – the other boy in the video is Braddock’s buddy… he is exactly 1 yr older than Braddock and they had lots of fun playing together and, well, just being boys (they both have lots of girl-friends). However, I think Braddock may have scared him off from the slide because of the gusto at which he tackled it. He didn’t want to touch it after seeing Braddock practically run and fall down it so many times.

And I won’t share the couple videos of him falling, face planting, etc. because I’m sure some random person would see it and find me unfit as a parent. But… you just got to know Braddock… he’s tough as nails. No skinned knees, bruises, or bumps will stop him (and that he definitely got from his daddy – and not me!).

I try to slow him down and keep him safe – but I don’t want to stifle his adventurous spirit either. Part of me wonders if that is how he learns so fast (as you’ll see in the next video).

But I do know I’ve got to find a balance in letting him be “free” and knowing when to hold him back. I have a feeling that will be a parenting/mothering challenge I’ll be facing for quite some time…

He really hasn’t been a “baby” for a couple months now. He is growing so fast and learning new things everyday that it’s nearly impossible to keep up. I would have to write multiple posts just to cover all the “new developments” of the past couple months. Since I’m not going to do that… I’ll just simply include some highlights here.

He had his 12 month check up the day after his birthday and he’s still healthy and growing steadily. He is drinking whole milk now without any problems, so he successfully grew out of his milk allergy. We feel so fortunate that he has not really been sick yet. He’s still on his target for growth and actually slowed down on his height [20 lbs,14 oz (23rd percentile) and 30.25 in (67th percentile)].

I tried to condense some pictures from the past month into one collage.

Below you’ll see:

• how we’ve kept him cool this summer. That’s been a challenge with no air conditioning and no free pools. Luckily, we live within 5 minutes of 2 really popular water fountains in downtown Colorado Springs.
• visits from family for his birthday. He and uncle Aus got to bond more and are becoming good buddies. He got extended time with his NeNe and Poppy too as they babysat overnight for us!
• Braddock helping do yard work… he LOVES to feel like he is working and helping us.
• and Braddock learning to share toys and play “nice” with his friend Brynna. Hopefully Brynna’s mother and I can switch off one day a week for a few hours with the kids, letting them have 2 play dates a week and leaving us with a few free hours. I’m excited about this because Braddock could really use the socialization… he began “drumming” her head after this picture was taken! He has yet to learn “gentle”.

The best way for me to summarize all the new developments Braddock has acquired over the past couple months is to share about his budding personality… Braddock is very:

independent. This is a quality about Braddock that we knew he possessed from the beginning and have tried to encourage. Much to my surprise (because I obsess over these things more than Braddock does) – he does very well in new situations, people, big crowds, places, etc. He does not seem shy, timid, or scared easily. As soon as he began walking (about 10 months) he quickly stopped letting me hold his hand! He will lean on me for support with stairs, but for the most part, wants to do most things on his own. I have to admit that I get a bit sad about his strong sense of independence though. I wouldn’t mind for him to need me just a little bit.

adventurous. Going along with his independent spirit, we have found that he is just as adventurous. He LOVES tackling anything new and seems to really enjoy a challenge. I can give countless examples of things he does, that I never knew a “baby” could do because he enjoys conquering some new challenge. Wow, so much like his daddy its scary!

intellectual. Again, going off his last characteristics – although he is independent and adventurous, he is very smart about it. He seems to think about what he is doing and how he’s doing it. He is not careless. He may run to the edge of the steps, but then he will stop, survey his surroundings, and cautiously help himself down. He seems to understand what his limitations are, but is determined to find how he can overcome those limitations. He is also very interested in how things work (hence the picture of him inspecting beneath our frig). He will often spend long periods of time trying to figure out how something works. Ex: What holds the table together (studying the bolts), what makes this toy move (studying the wheels and how they move), how does a door work (figuring out what the knob turns inside the door… how does the latch work). He also seems to understand a lot of what we say to him. Just today he surprised me when I asked him if he wanted to read a book and he walked across the room, grabbed a book and gave it to me to read to him.

curious. I think this quality is evident in what I mentioned before. For his birthday, his NeNe and Poppy got him several Curious George items… one of them being a big stuffed animal (pictured above). George is like a monkey version of the “My Buddy” when we were kids (remember those… and Kid Sister?). He carries him around like a friend and will put him on his chair, push him around on his riding toy train, and cuddle him (as pictured). It is really sweet. This has got to be his favorite “toy” by far right now. He LOVES his “Geor” (as he calls him). He and Curious George have lots in common so it makes perfect sense that they are already such good buds.

fun and funny. This lil boy loves to make us laugh, hence the videos in the last post. Sometimes he will make us laugh by doing something odd and accidentally… he will continue to do it over and over as long as he is making us laugh and smile. And he loves playing games with us. Games he enjoys: hide-n-seek, peek-a-boo, tag, and chase. He LOVES to be chased. He squeals and will take off as fast he can running away from us. It is really cute. He also enjoys moving and rearranging furniture… yep, that’s right.

loving. We don’t get cuddles out of him much, but when we do, it’s precious. He has been “kissing” his Nana’s (my mom) picture for months now and exclaiming “Nana!” when he sees her picture. He will also kiss and hug George and his beloved Tiger security blanket. And he finally just started giving me “kisses”. He will stand at my feet and hug my leg occasionally when he wants some extra lovin’ or to be held (which I LOVE). And from time to time, he will cuddle with me in the mornings and we fall back asleep for a couple hours. So sweet… he melts my heart.

communicative. His means of communication is growing daily. He can say: cracker “craka” (he surprised me with that one!), all done “al da”, diaper “diapa”, juice “jus”, mama, nana, dada (to which he says at least 1 million times a day). He’s attempting to say cup, shoe, banana, and many more I can’t remember. He can sign (and use in context): milk, eat/food, more, bye bye, all done, please… and sleep. “Sleep” is his favorite sign. He tells us sleep when he wants his nap – I lay him down… and waa-la, he goes right to sleep. Now, how long and often he sleeps is another issue.

energetic. He’s like the energizer bunny that keeps going sometimes. He is sleeping well through the night now from about 7ish pm-7ish am. He cut out his second nap a couple months ago. And I’m lucky if he sleeps for 1-1.5hrs. But he seems happy and content, so I guess he’s getting enough sleep. He apparently has plenty of energy to get him through his day contently. He does know when he needs to slow down and have some down time though. He will sign “sleep” later in the day when he wants “alone time” in his crib. He will voluntarily play quietly in his crib anywhere from 30min to 1hr (giving us both a much needed break!).

go-with-the-flow. Now, he got this from me! We have a very loose schedule and he doesn’t seem to notice or care if we change it up… unless of course if he’s tired and signing “sleep” so much that he’s slapping his face. He can be adamant about when he wants to sleep (which is tricky because it changes every day!).

I am surprised every single day with the new things he does or seems to understand over night. It’s really quiet impressive. I am amazed by babies and young children in general. They truly are a sponge!! But I have to say that I am super impressed with Braddock and all the things he has learned or is learning to do. I can’t take much credit because this boy seems to do a lot of this stuff on his own!

And I also have to say that I am so blessed and thankful that I get to stay home and watch all these new developments unfold. It truly is marvelous and I feel like I have the best “job” in the world!

And one last picture…. since I won’t be doing his monthly pictures anymore, I thought I’d at least do one for each year to show how he’s grown:

I love the look on his face when I ask him to say “momma”. He says momma and dadda all the time (granted he says dadda more) – but I guess he really didn’t want to say “momma”  in this instance… almost like I was asking him to say a bad word or something. Anyways – the look on his face is priceless:

Now here are 2 of the cutest videos ever…

He knows what I’m doing when I get the camera out because I will always show him the picture or video after I take it. He just kept doing this out of the blue – like he was performing for the camera. Little boy’s personality is starting to emerge more and more!

And yes, he is in fact eating a lemon (thanks MeeMee!). We would have never known that his favorite food was lemon (and that all his fave foods would need to be high in flavor) had his MeeMee not given him one to try when he was 9 months old. Now, he will suck one dry – he loves them! He is a high flavor kid, enjoying any food that it spicy or has lots of flavor.

And one more video for fun:

Oh yeah – did I mention that today is Braddock’s 1st BIRTHDAY!!!? We’re having our small group and Ryan’s parents and brother (they flew in just for the occasion!) over to celebrate this evening! BDay pics to follow eventually!

You Are My I Love You

You Are the Trip I Did Not Take

(click the title to read them)

I could go on and on about how beautiful I think these words are (and the pictures), but I won’t – I’ll just let them speak for themselves.

The last poem there reminded me of this article (another shared by my sweet friend Lacy):

Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank)

This is worth the read too… very convicting! I’m convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that children are the most precious and valuable gifts this world has to offer and it is critical that they are raised/parented like their lives matter.

I apologize ahead of time for the length of the video – I’m not so good at taking short 30 second videos – I keep thinking I’m going to miss something as soon as I cut it off. In the beginning of this next video, you’ll get to see Braddock tilting his head back and smiling in acknowledgement of the camera. He does this sometimes when he notices the camera is on him. Lil stinker is too cute and he knows it!

I love how he picks it up to maneuver it in the direction he wants it to go!

Let me know if any of you have any playback problems. For some reason, when I watch them on vimeo, it is choppy – let me know if that’s happening to you too!

I have so many videos of this boy it’s ridiculous. Do any of you have any good ways of storing/backing up your short videos?

Braddock apparently thinks it very funny when we drop something. In this video I was about to ice his knees and needed to break up the frozen peas (hence the dropping). He found it very funny:

And in case you were wondering – I was icing his knees because there was a few days where he was crawling so much and playing so hard that his lil knees where glowing red and  he started to do a funny looking bear crawl to give his knees a rest. Despite the fact that he can walk, some days he just decides to crawl more and he is so fast that he tends to injure himself.

A few more videos of him laughing at me dropping something…

You’ll have to turn your volume up and focus on hearing him laugh (hysterically, mind you) because it is really hard to hear:

I was so upset that for some reason the sound was not working properly when we took this video. As you can tell from watching, Braddock was laughing so hard. Probably the hardest he’s ever laughed – and you can’t hear it! EH! You can hear him in the next video but he’s not laughing near as hard:

I have many more videos to share. I think I’ve taken over 30 for the month of July so far! I won’t share all those, but there are some cute ones that I need to upload soon.

How can this adorable face not make you smile everyday?

He just started this new thing where he poses for pictures now. As he saw me getting the camera, he crawled very excitedly to me while giving me his best smile. And for some reason, kept closing his eyes as if that was what he was supposed to do. Haha.

Ah – I just love him.

And he was definitely trying to strike a pose for the camera in the following 2 pics. I caught him at awkward moments, but still had to share because his attempt to pose was too cute!

Almost looks likes he’s trying to say “cheese” there.

Braddock’s favorite game was ‘empty the _____’. Fill that blank in with whatever: his toy chest, the dvd rack, the laundry basket, the cabinets, etc. It was his favorite game until we taught him how to put things up. Now he will empty something just to put it up. And I’m so impressed that he really does know where the laundry goes. He will see his dirty clothes on the floor and carry it over to our big basket.

Another favorite game:

As you’ll see in the video, Braddock has a habit of head-butting when he is tired. He can do it pretty hard too. It also seems to be a way he communicates affection as well.

Ryan is committed to teaching Braddock a series of very useful things like this:

We just saw this Messianic-Jewish reggae rapper (yep – you read that right) in concert and his beat-boxing skills were pretty impressive. Ryan is determined to teach Braddock this skill as you can see. I love how Braddock drums along with the tune.

And I’m throwing in some of my favorite pictures of Ryan teaching Braddock some baseball skills. I love how Braddock was so concentrated and determined to figure this out!

I really am in awe every day because of how fast he is learning and picking up new things. Babies really are a sponge! Which makes me even more aware of what I am teaching him and what I’m not.

On a side-note here: I have soooo much respect for any mother of multiple children. Just trying to keep our home in some kind of order or just semi-clean is a HUGE task (not to mention the other million things that need to be done!). Ryan and I are thinking that Braddock just might be enough “kids” for us. Seriously though, we are realizing all the sacrifices that are required in order to add to our family. You really can’t be selfish when you are trying to parent, manage, and discipline multiple kids.

Anyways, with all this busy-ness, I don’t have much time to keep up with posts on Braddock. So – here’s our facebook “Summa Time” album for those of you who don’t have facebook and would still like to see pics of Braddock. Hopefully this link works: