He's on the move

Braydon is such a little devil....he gets into everything and is always keeping us on our toes. He crawls everywhere and we let him crawl up and down the hall. We just make sure to close off the door to the kitchen and to the bathroom so he can't anywhere. He hadn't shown any interest in climbing the stairs or pulling himself up on anything so we hadn't put the gate up yet. Well he was crawling the hall and suddenly got very quite, that's when I knew something was wrong so I checked on him and low and behold he had climbed up two steps and was about to climb the third.

Now we have the gate up and he can't climb the stairs so he just bangs on the gate instead. I wish we could get a gate to keep him out of the dining room but it's too wide of an opening. I didn't get any pictures of him climbing the stairs because I was too busy getting him off the stairs. So instead I'll share some pictures of him the next day when he tried to climb them again, this time I was watching him the whole time he was in the hall.

Fresh new do's!

Look I'm doing better already two posts in two days!!! Today Braydon and I went and got our hair done, don't we look so pretty? It's actually his second time getting his haircut. I know 8 months old and a second hair cut already! He did so good he only got fussy waiting for me to finish getting my hair done. He decided to take a little nap with Daddy and then when he woke up there was another little baby that he was trying to talk to.

Resolution

My New Year's resolution is to go to the gym more, eat better, and be better at blogging. Today was Braydon's 8th month birthday. I still can't believe he is 8 months! We had a great Christmas and he enjoyed all of his gifts. We spent Christmas with some friends of ours, we had a great meal and good times, playing cards and singing karaoke. New Year's eve we celebrated at our house. Too bad Braydon didn't get to enjoy the evening with us, he went to sleep after fighting it for 20 mins. This new year is filled with lot's of things to look forward to. I have signed on to be the Ombudsman for Chris's command, Braydon will turn 1 this year and we have some trips we are trying to plan to visit Europe. 2010 should be a good year, let's just hope it doesn't go bye too fast.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone! It feels weird to be celebrating in another country and also for the fact that the weather is so great here, yesterday I had flip flops on and a short sleeve shirt while driving with the windows down. Braydon has already gotten four presents and a stocking and still has a ton to open as well as another stocking. That little boy is so spoiled but we all just love to spoil him.

Today is Christmas Eve and we are just spending it at home the three of us. I'm baking cookies and making dinner. Tonight after Braydon goes to bed Santa will put more toys under the tree for him.

Tomorrow we will be spending Christmas Day with friends. That's after we let Braydon open all of his many gifts. This will be a good Christmas but next year hopefully we will be home spending Christmas with all of our family.

Updates

Braydon is just changing every day. He now has three teeth on top and two on the bottom. He is also scooting all over the place. I can't take my eyes off of him...one second he is in front of me and the next he is on the other side of the room. We had Chris's command children's party last week and Braydon got to meet Santa for the first time. I thought he would be afraid because I hated Santa for a long time, but not this little guy. I placed him on Santa's lap and he tried to eat his beard! That child will try to put anything in his mouth. We put our tree up after Thanksgiving and Braydon wasn't very interested in it, he does like the lights but doesn't try to grab the tree or anything (which is great). However, the other morning my little scooter kept pulling himself over to the gifts and trying to open them. Every time I picked him up and placed him on the other side of the room he would find his way back. He eventually managed to open one of the presents slightly and take another out of a gift bag, good thing they were for him and not Chris or I.

This past Thursday was the command party for adults. We left Braydon with a babysitter for only the second time in his life. I was nervous about it, but figured he would be alright. Well I was wrong. The babysitter came over at 5pm and we showed her around and Braydon was smiling at her. We left at 5:15pm and she was giving him a bottle. We told her he gets dinner at 6pm and then goes to sleep at 8pm so she didn't have very long to really keep him entertained. We got home at 12pm and asked her how everything went. Well apparently he cried for over an hour after we left and nothing she did calmed him down. She finally put him in his crib around 6pm and he went to sleep and slept all night. He did wake up after she left and we where home for a while. We changed him, gave him a bottle and he went right back to sleep. I guess my guy had a little bit of separation anxiety. We will have to get him used to Mom and Dad going out once in a while or else we will really have trouble on our hands when he gets older.

That's all to report now. Chris has his birthday next week and I finish my law class so I'll be able to update more often once that's over. Enjoy the photos!

Sleep Training

Well it's happened, Braydon is finally sleeping in his own crib. I know most of you who know me are probably saying "it's about time", but I wasn't ready until now. We ordered this book "Sleeping Through The Night" to help us with the transition. That book was awesome and very helpful. We decided to try the move over this long weekend because then we all could get extra sleep if needed. Here's how the plan worked:

1st night - fell asleep downstairs on the couch at 8pm; moved to crib at 10pm; cried for 10 mins and I went in and comforted him; another 10 mins later I went back in and comforted him; when I was getting ready to go back after another 10 mins he was asleep. He slept until 8am never even waking for a bottle.

2nd night - this was Thanksgiving and he fell asleep in the car on our way home. We moved him from the car to the crib at 10pm; he was awake but never cried just fell asleep and woke at 6am.

3rd night - we gave him his bottle downstairs and then took him up after he finished the bottle. It was 8:30pm and he cried for about 3 mins and then fell asleep until 5am. We gave him a bottle at 5am and he fell back to sleep in our bed.

It looks like the sleep training is working and he is sleeping a lot better (so are Mommy and Daddy). He still takes his naps downstairs with us because he likes taking several quick little naps and that's what the couch is for. Maybe as he gets older we will transition the naps to the crib, but for now we are happy with him sleeping at night in his crib.

This is what tired looks like

Braydon spends time with his Dad in the evenings while Chris plays guitar. Last night he was so sleepy he couldn't stay awake, even though the music was playing. Chris called me upstairs to catch this. He woke up briefly while I was taking pictures, but as you can see he went right back to sleep. Children can sleep in the most uncomfortable positions.