San Antonio Trip

Jared and I decided we would try to take a vacation without Brayden before the new baby arrived. We had many thoughts of spots we wanted to go, and after much deliberation we decided on San Antonio, Texas. I have never been to Texas and thought San Antonio would be a good trip of relaxation with not too many attractions to wear me out. We left Brayden with my sister Hailey and it was harder for me to leave him than I thought. We arrived in San Antonio in the late evening so we headed to the hotel to get some sleep. The next morning we woke up and headed to Sea World. Sea World is a favorite of mine; we saw all the shows, feed the dolphins and went back and saw Shamu one more time before leaving.
It was a lot of fun, but very hot. Several times we both mentioned how much fun Brayden would have had.
After Sea World we drove around and finally got a bite to eat. The next morning we slept in; which was wonderful and then headed to a street market just down from our hotel so we walked. After looking around for a little bit we decided we were ready for lunch. We ate an amazing Mexican restaurant; it was delicious. From there we were ambitious and decided to walk to The Alamo. It was quite a walk and Jared was really understanding of me going so slow. We finally got to The Alamo and spent about 2hours listening to the audio tour. We were both wiped out after that. It was so hot so we decided to get a shaved ice. As we were paying for our shaved iced it started to rain. We sat under a gazebo for about 20 minutes until the rain let up. We walked around and made our way down to the Riverwalk. We had a great time taking the boat and seeing all the sites along the river. We got out and took our time walking back to our hotel. In true fashion we weren't able to decide on what to eat for dinner. We weren't that hungry and wanted something light. Finally, at about 9pm we ventured out to find somewhere to eat. After about 30 minutes in the car we settled on Denny's. We both loved our meal, it really hit the spot. We had a great time and thought it would be nice if we could do it again soon, but I don't see that happening.

Grandma & Libby's May visit

Brayden and Kira enjoyed Grandma's visit. They also were excited that Libby also was able to come visit. These two are really the best of friends. They really try hard to share, but sometimes it is hard. Brayden loves the sandbox and can play out there for long periods of time; which I love. I do not love the sand that ends up all over...and I mean all over. We almost always have to have a shower after playing in the sandbox.

We had a lot of fun taking the kids to the zoo. I really appreciate when my family is in town and I have help on these types of outings. We had a lot of fun watching the gorillas, even though the kids still call them monkeys.
Brayden likes to sit in his stroller; which amazes me. The kids doesn't still to save his life, but yet at the zoo he enjoys it for a little while, but I will take all I can get. As we were leaving one of the areas we came across these drums. The kids loved them. They would just run from each drum pounding on them over and over. I know Brayden thought it was pretty cool he could make so much noise and not have someone telling him to be quiet. He attempted leaving the drums several times before we were actually able to leave.
We packed a lunch and were able to eat on some benches. The kids thought it was fun to climb up and down the steps. This is Brayden's "cheese" smile for pictures. You can see Kira doesn't know quite what to think of it.
We had another great day at the zoo!We spent Friday morning at the Erie Rec center swimming. The kids seemed to enjoy it, but Brayden wasn't too interesting in showing off his swimming skills. I hope he hasn't forgotten them. On Saturday we all headed up to Brainard Lake to take a little hike. When we got up there we realized it was a little to early in the season; the road was still closed due to snow. We were able to get out and hike up to the first lake; Red Rock Lake. It was so pretty with the white snow and the blue lake. I felt like it took me forever to hike to the lake the extra baby weight was very noticeable. Brayden loved the hike and wanted to walk on the snow even if the road was bare. He would walk off the road so he could walk in the snow. He had so much fun "hiking".
Once we got to the lake Brayden thought it was so fun to throw rocks into the lake. He would walk back to the path fill his pockets and hands with rocks and then walk over the snow to the side of the lake and beginning throwing them in. He was really sad when it was time to leave. He kept saying, "throw them in one more time".
We had a little picnic when we returned to the car. Brayden dropped a grape on the street and a bird came and ate, so then many grapes ended up on the ground. We had a great time with our guests. It is crazy to me that the next time my mom is here I will be getting ready to have a baby. It is getting closer and closer.

Brayden's 2nd birthday party

We celebrated Brayden's birthday a week late so Grandma Chris could join us. It was a tractor themed event; which Brayden loved. His friends Kira, Max, and Crosby all came to his party. Brayden was a little overwhelmed with all the kids at our house. He was running all over in excitement. After Brayden finished eating I showed him is cake, he was in awe. I put him down and all we heard was dump it dirt and he grabbed the closest person; which was Uncle Cale and he made him show him the cake again. Cale would try to set him down and he would hold on so tight so he could stay with Cale and see his cake. He was very overwhelmed by the cake and when I sat it down in front of him, he didn’t know if we wanted to blow out the candle or grab the dump truck and start dumping. After 20 blows on the candle he finally blew it out. Then I left him grab a bit of the cake. The next 5 or 10 minutes are kind of a blur. As I tried to help Brayden eat his cake all I heard was “more dump it” and “dump dirt”, he wanted so badly to dump the dirt that was on his cake. Finally, I gave up just let him get down and get his other tractor and play with them.
Brayden has so much fun with all his friends. He especially liked his bike.

He also had a really fun time after the party when he got to chase bubbles with Kira. He would chase them all the way to the neighbors yard. Uncle Cale was a big hit for making the bubbles.
Earlier that morning Jared took Brayden to the opening of the Colorado National Golf Course and they took a picture of Jared and Brayden looking at Ralphie; it was in our local paper the next week. Brayden had a pretty busy birthday.

Swim lessons

We finally signed up for swim lessons. We were able to sign up last minute with Kira and Crosby. The lessons were 4 weeks long twice a week. The lessons were about 25 minutes which was about the perfect length of time. It was fun to see how much Brayden learned in those few weeks. Brayden is really good at blowing bubbles, kicking, rowing his arms, and jumping in off the side. He can get in and out of the pool on his own too. His favorite part of swim lessons was the water spout. They used a watering can as they sang Itzy Bitzy Spider and as we would walk in a circle the kids could put their heads under the water. After the first week the water spout was what he wanted to play with the entire lesson. It was some what difficult to distract him from the water spout. Here is Kira, Crosby, and Brayden getting ready for a lesson.
One of Brayden's favorite parts of swim lessons was the shower we took after the lesson. All three kids would play in the shower. They loved letting the warm water run over their bodies. Brayden is doing this funny thing when we shower, he backs up in front of me and just stands there; I call it the penguin because for some reason that is what it reminds me of. He did that a lot in the shower after swim lessons.

Easter

This was our first official Easter celebration, Brayden had the flu last year. We attempted dying eggs. This was a very busy event, but was enjoyed by Brayden and he had the dye stained on his face the next day to prove it. This was before he realized he could throw the egg into the dye. I don't know why, but there was something about the eggs that he just had to drop them or crush them in his hands. One day while I was watching Kira, I hid some eggs to show them how the whole Easter egg hunt works. I put a few treats in the hidden egg and as soon as they realized there were treats they were hooked. By the time the real hunt camp along Brayden was a skill finder. On Saturday we went to Cale's facility and had a fun Easter egg hunt. Brayden didn't understand why he wasn't allowed to pick up the eggs, but once he got the okay to start he filled his basket quickly. He was very content to sit and see what each egg contained and ate the treats about as fast as he could open the eggs. Saturday night we had our family egg hunt, and he showed his dad he was a pro. Sometimes the egg wouldn't make it back to the basket, he had to have a little treat to get him through the rest of the hunt.He was pretty excited by the treats he found, and the sand box toys and coloring book he got.

Wrestling

About a month ago Jared and Brayden started wrestling. It has become a nightly ridiculous when Jared gets home from work. Brayden gets so excited and says "wessoul"; which you can confuse with "we sue", which means cereal. Recently Jared has started teaching him some moves. I hope I get all the names right, I guess I should ask Brayden because he usually calls them out as his is performing them. Here is the karate chops.The but crusher; which does cause some pain for Jared because he usually has just eaten.

This is the bull dog; which is one of Brayden's favorite moves.

The back breaker. See how much fun he has inflicting pain...that might not be a good thing.

And the famous fish hook; Brayden thinks this is hilarious.

Spring break

We had original planned to stay around for spring break. With the baby coming and spring ball starting there was a lot that needed to be done around that house. However, plans changed when Jared's mom wasn't doing very good and we felt we should spend some time with Jared's family. We spent most of the week in Colorado and were a little worried when they predicted a severe snow storm to hit Colorado the day before we were scheduled to fly out. Sure enough the day before we left we got hit with over a foot of snow. It took Jared almost 2 hours to shovel the driveway; which he had to do if we wanted to get our car out in the morning. Most of the flights had been cancelled and we were worried if we would be able to fly out. We woke up really early on Friday, and got to the airport about 2 hours before our flight left. I was amazed that we didn't have any trouble and we arrived safely in Utah. We spent the afternoon hanging out with family. About 3 or so I started not feeling very good. I was having some cramping and abdominal pain. I was worried that something was wrong with the baby and told Jared something wasn't right. We had plans that evening so we headed out anyway. I stayed in the car while Jared took Brayden to watch Chase ride his bike and when they returned we headed over to his sisters for dinner. I never made it to his sisters house, about block from the park I had to have Jared pull over and out I went leaving my mark on the side of the road. I found out later it was actually behind the church were Jared and I held our wedding open house. I spent the rest of the evening sick. The next day I tried to be a trooper and join everyone for Frisbee golf, I didn't make it out of the car, but saw the pictures and it looked like a great time.It took Jared awhile to complete the course because Brayden was distracted by the river and the train that passed. Brayden got to take a ride on Logan's long board; which you can tell he liked.

He also spotted Grandpa's tractor in the garage on day, he sat in there for about 2o minutes before we had to drag him out for dinner. He is obsessed with tractors.
While we were there we had a early birthday party for Brayden. Amy threw a cake together made of cookies, it was pretty cute, and Brayden didn't grab for the candle this year, at least not yet!

He also got another tractor!

Brayden got to watch the girls play the Wii, and had a great time on our visit to Utah.