Babysitter Or Day Care

This week I got a call from Braeden's Grandparents letting me know that for one reason or another they will not be able to watch Braeden any longer. They did give me about a week and a half to find someone else to take care of Braeden while I work.So now the question is do I go with a local daycare center or do I look for an individual to watch him? I am leaning towards daycare for him however it seems to be pretty pricey around here. Since I work at Wal-Mart they do give a discount at the KinderKare of 10% however it still costs like $175 a week. It is just crazy how much daycare costs when for 17 months I have not had to pay a dime. So I have no idea what I am going to do with Braeden but luckily I only work the weekend the first week that they say that they can't watch Braeden. That gives me a little more time to figure things out. If you have any ideas feel free to leave a little comment.

Diet.....

Well as some of you may know Braeden has been put on a special diet because he has allergies to cow's milk as well as beef. Since we have found out about these allergies the poor boy has not been able to have a lot of his most favorite foods. He eats a lot of chicken and he doesn't get any mac and cheese or pizza. Well tonight we decided to order pizza and just pull the cheese off so he can have some also. Let me tell you this crazy little boy LOVES pizza! Here are a couple pictures of him tearing into his piece tonight.


Mmmmmmm...Pizza!


I just can't get enough of this stuff!


Do I have pizza on my face?


I said give me more pizza!!!!

Oh my heck!

Today started out just like every other day with Braeden up early and then a few hours later down for a quick nap. I decided that before I went to work I would go and spend a couple of hours with Travis since he didn't have school this morning. I was only there for about a half an hour when we heard police sirens that seemed to be really close. Travis got up to check it out only to find that his neighbor's home across the street was on fire. That's right I said FIRE! This is the first time I have ever really seen a fire taking over a house. The fire department hadn't arrived yet so Travis went out to try and find out if anyone was in the house. The police officer told him that they did not believe anyone was in the home. It was a few minutes before the fire department got there and you could see the flames through the front window and smoke pouring out of the exhaust fan on the roof. It was CRAZY! Braeden was excited to see the firetruck as it pulled up but it didn't keep his attention too long. Shortly he was down running all around the house while Travis and I were glued to the upstairs window trying to get the best view of what was happening. After the fire was out the fire department stayed for a long time going through the house checking to make sure that the fire was completely out. I ended up having to call into work and let them know that I was not going to be in today because the driveway was blocked by the fire engine. I am sure that is the first time they got a call off saying "I can't get into work because there was a fire across the street and the fire department has me trapped." Well here are a couple of pictures from today to tide ya over until my next post.

Warming Up!

In the last week the weather here in Ohio has totally turned around! We went from freezing rain to super sunny days and highs of 75 degrees. It is GREAT to finally be free to go out without 20 layers of clothes on. Since the weather report said that it was going to be super nice on Monday I decided that perhaps a trip to the zoo would be an excellent idea. I was scheduled to work on Monday but since I don't go in until 4:30 in the afternoon a quick trip was going to be no sweat (or so I thought). Braeden got up at about 8:30 and by 10:00 we were out the door and on our way to pick up Travis. We ended up not getting to the zoo until noon-ish because we had to get gas, cash and such.



While I was busy purchasing season passes Braeden and Travis strolled around the entrance to the zoo where they saw a giant peacock. Braeden loved it!!! When I finished with the passes we started our journey through the zoo. We stopped for a minute to check out the bears and let Braeden give them a quick wave, then hurried off to see the lions. The white lions were probably Travis's favorite animal of the day. One lioness seemed to be very interested in Travis. I say this because she was staring him down and would move towards him. It was super freaky! Right after the lions we went to check out the manatees which were pretty sweet. Braeden would stand right at the glass and when the manatee would swim past he would take off running. It was really funny to watch him do it over and over again. Up to this point Braeden was really good. That wouldn't last very long.



Braeden has become very independent lately and will not let you carry him ANYWHERE! He will tell you a couple of times that he wants to walk. If you do not listen then he begins to head-butt you to let you know he was serious when he said "WALK". He does listen and walk beside you for the most part, but let something catch his eye and he is off. Another issue we were having was that when we wanted to stop and look at animals he wanted to keep walking. Travis said that we could have just gone to the park and Braeden would not have known the difference (it also would have cost much less). Braeden did seem to enjoy a lot of the animals but he wanted to move on quickly. By the time we got around to the elephants which I thought he would LOVE he seemed to be too tired to really care. After the elephants we went to check out the lone giraffe (which Braeden thought was cool) and penguins then it was back to Dayton so that I could rush into work.



The sun was out in full force which caused Travis and I to look like ghosts in this picture. Our whiteness is almost blinding.



Needless to say I was exhausted from all the running around and I didn't get my daily nap. Braeden was also wiped out after the long day at the zoo and was asleep before we got back on I-75. After all is said and done I would do it all over again but next time I think we will be going down on a day when I don't have to work that afternoon.

Day Out

Today Travis and I decided that we would take Braeden to the Air Force Museum. I knew that it wouldn't be a long trip because Braeden can't/won't sit still for very long and I didn't want to run through the entire museum. And as you can see we did end up doing a little bit of running after the little man.



Braeden did seem to like the cockpit of the F-4 Phantom but not for the reasons that you may think a normal child would. He wanted to play on the stairs going up to the cockpit. I did get him down in the seat for about two seconds but as you can see he was eager to climb out of there. Travis tried to get him to sit with him in the cockpit but there was no luck there either. He just wanted those stupid stairs. He has also began to display some very tantrum related behavior. When we tried to get him to leave the stairs he threw himself on the floor and started crying. I was under the impression that this is a behavior that I would not encounter until he was about 2 years old. Boy was I WRONG! He has been doing it ALL the time but this was his first time to do it in public.



Braeden also had a good time going through some of the airplanes with Travis. Here is a cute little picture of the boys enjoying their time at the Air Force Museum.



Tantrums aside we all had a pretty good time and we will be going back sometime to see another small portion of the museum.

Jump Around

Braeden has been working on his jumping skills. Here is a cute clip of him trying his best.

Lots of stuff!

I am going to start off by saying I hate dial up internet services! I am terribly sorry that I have been unable to update this lately but I am not about to spend three hours just to get two lines posted. This is what would happen if I tried to do anything at my house because of our lovely dial up connection. Grrrr Anyways, Braeden had his scope early this week that went pretty well. He was not at all excited about being there but by the end of the night he was back to himself, bouncing off the walls. We got the results on Wednesday and found out that he does have allergies but no idea what exactly he is allergic to. Geez! I am so tired of going to 50 million doctors to figure out what is wrong with my poor little man and each of them thinks that they need to stick him with a needle. We were supposed to see the allergist on Friday however I spent the night in and out of bed sick. Now our appointment is for next Friday to find out what may be making him sick.



Here is a picture of my sweet little boy just after he came back from having his scope done.