So Much Stuff

Once again I fail to blog on a regular basis and I am very sorry! When I have a few minutes to sit down and actually blog I really can't think of anything to write. It is like my brain takes mini vacations in the evening. Well, since the last time I blogged a lot has happened....

First my sweet, handsome man Travis had his 31st birthday! We really didn't get a chance to do anything on his birthday because I was at work until 10:00 pm. I did
have a chance to get him a little something for his birthday. I bought him a pair of thinning shears that are supposed to last FOREVER and they better for as much as they cost.

The day after Travis's birthday the three of us took a little trip to the zoo. It was a beautiful day for a stroll through the zoo. We actually made it through the whole zoo without any major issues. Many of you may remember the last zoo trip ended with Braeden throwing up while we were in the cat house. Braeden LOVES to check out the monkeys while we are there but I think that this time the polar bears were his favorite. We just happened to be walking by them when it was feeding time. It was pretty cool. We got some pretty sweet pictures of them tearing into whatever it was they were eating.

Braeden and Travis chillin in the shade.

How cool is this picture of Braeden and the polar bears?

Braeden the turtle!

Mommy and Braeden going for a little stroll past the waterfall.


Since the zoo not much has happened other than Braeden getting sick once again. I bet you could never guess what is wrong. It's an ear infection. This time it is in his left ear rather than his right. We went in to see the doctor last week because Braeden had a runny nose and had been throwing up with almost every meal. When we came out it seems that seasonal allergies were causing the runny nose, he is back on Pepcid for reflux and he had an ear infection. It seems like every time we go in we come out with an ear infection. I did ask the doc. what the likelihood is that Braeden may need tubes since my brother had them when he was small. He told me that if Braeden has one more ear infection before January or two before July that we would need to see an EENT. Oh wait that is not all....One week after this appointment the daycare called to let me know that Braeden was running a fever of 101.5 and it was rising. GREAT....what now? My doc.'s office was booked so I took him in to urgent care. That doc told me that Braeden has blisters all over the back of his throat that are caused by some virus and that his ear infection does not seem to be getting any better. She decided to change the antibiotic that he was on to something stronger and let me know that there was nothing to be done about the blisters, they would just go away in a few days. That would pretty much bring us to today.....

What is today? It is Braeden's birthday! He is 2 today. When I woke him up this morning I told him Happy Birthday and he told me NO! I guess he doesn't really get how great it is to be a little kid on your birthday. We had planned to go to Young's Dairy Farm for his birthday with the family but since it has been raining non-stop for two days we decided to switch the location to Chuck-E-Cheese. We had a good time after everyone finally got there and Braeden stopped freaking out and saying he wanted to go bye bye. He really got into the games and by the end of the night he wasn't totally freaked out by the robots on stage. His favorite game tonight was probably skeeball. He thought it was cool that he could walk up and toss the balls into the holes. I think he could have played it all night long. He came up to me at the end of the night saying "More money mommy." Crazy huh? Here are a few pics and a video of our night.


Here is our birthday boy and his "pantakes" (cupcakes).

Braeden, Uncle John and Travis cheesin it up.

Gavin playing with balloons.

Hurray a Diego toy!

That's one happy mommy.


Finally I thought I would just throw in a few pictures of my two men working together to build a bookcase.

Touch a truck

I know that in my last post I said that I would be better about posting on here, but I am a super slacker. I have been so busy with work and Braeden that I haven't had time to sit down and gather my thoughts. Who would have thought having a baby means that you have like NO time for yourself? Now that I have a minute I will let you in on what has been going on.
Last weekend was Touch a Truck Day at the park so Tara, Mom and I took the kids down to check it out. There was a variety of vehicles down there to climb around on and all the kids had a good time. I would have had more fun if it had been a little bit cooler outside. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids touching the trucks.

James, Mackenzie, Braeden and Bethannie chillin' on the front of a fire engine.

That's my boy on a Harley.

Check Braeden out on the John Deere tractor.

Does anyone need my help mowing the grass?

Braeden and Mackenzie look so small standing in the bucket of the front end loader.

Braeden now wants to join the SWAT team so he can drive this thing everyday.

Sorry

I am soooo sorry it has been so long since I have posted last but I have been super busy lately. SO here is what has been happening the last month or so.... First Braeden and I went to Kentucky over Labor Day weekend for a family reunion in the mountains. We had a pretty good time while we were down there. Braeden loved playing in the creek although due to a lack of rain it wasn't much of a creek. He did find the one little spot where there was enough water to make a mud puddle and had a great time getting dirty. Here are a couple of the pictures from that trip.

Splashing in the mud.


That's right he sat in it.

Other than that I have been working all week and Braeden goes to daycare for most of the day. Last Monday Braeden had a fever of 101 while at daycare and had to go to see the doctor before he could go back. That evening Pappy took him to see our pediatrician who told him to give Braeden an antibiotic that I had thrown away a week ago. So the next morning before I went to work I called the doctor's office. I spoke with the nurse and let her know what had happened the night before. She spoke with the doctor and they decided to have us bring Braeden back in for a strep test. Travis didn't have to work that day so he took Braeden up there for the testing which came back neg. After they finished at the doc. office they went to Charleston Falls to walk around. It seems like they had a pretty good time out there even though the falls are more of a drip right now since we have had NO rain. Here are some of the pictures from their day out.

Braeden chillin' on a bench.


Braeden and Travis cheesin' at the falls.


And that is what I call a waterfall.

Now that just about does it for us. Braeden and I have little colds but nothing serious. I am sure as soon as the weather decides what the heck it is doing we will be ok. I will write more later and I promise it won't take me a month to do it.

Cutie

Here is a video of Braeden and I singing "If you're happy and you know it..." He is so cute.

New Job

For all those who may be wondering how the job search is going I wanted to let you know that starting Sept. 4 I will start at GE Money. I will be working in a call center as a customer service representative for credit cards. The interview process took like three weeks....the first week was a phone interview, then a skills assessment, and finally a one on one interview with management. After all that they finally gave me a job. While in the final interview they told me which card company I would be working for and you will never guess which one it is. Wait for it.....Wal-Mart/ Sam's Club! Just when I thought I had escaped the evil grasp of Wal-Mart Inc they pull me right back in. Geez! I am excited about starting because I will be making a lot more money there, the benefits are awesome and they start on day one! How sweet is that? Other than that not a lot has been happening here. Braeden has had a little cold and so we have been just chillin in the house. I also got his big boy bed set up and we are working on getting him used to sleeping in it. It took me an hour to get him to lay down and sleep in it the first night. I think he may have fallen out of the bed at some point during the night because he started crying and when I went in there he was laying on the floor. He was ok and it wasn't like it was a long fall to the floor. Oh well, we will keep working at it and hopefully by the time I start working it won't be such an issue.

Big boy

Oh the wonderful world of potty training! We have just begun this great journey and let me tell ya we are having fun! Braeden is doing well with sitting on the potty he just won't go while he is sitting there. This weekend we went ahead and put his big boy underwear on for a test drive. I would take him to the bathroom about every 20 minutes or so to see if he would go but nothing ever happened. He wasn't going in the underwear or on the toilet so I figured that sooner or later he had to go. Finally he went but not on the potty, in his underwear. He really didn't like having wet underwear on and told me he wanted to put on his diaper. I explained that he was a big boy now and he got to wear big boy underpants. We put another pair of underwear on and didn't have another accident until later that evening. It seems that he has figured out that he could hold it until I took him off the potty and about five minutes later he would just let loose. We went through the three pair of underpants that I had with no pee pee in the potty but we will keep on trying until he gets it.


Here is a little video of Braeden playing in the kitchen in just his big boy underwear.


That is not all folks...this week we got Braeden's first school pictures. I couldn't believe that they do school pictures at daycare! They turned out kinda cute so here they are...




Oh one more thing...Braeden got a new haircut. Check it out!

Hate

I HATE NFL football. I have been dying to watch Big Brother 8 all night and this stupid football game is causing me to wait until 11 to see who gets evicted. Why couldn't they show this stupid football game on a channel that no one cares about? Geez!