Part 2: Halloween 2010

We had a great time on Halloween! We didn't do any trick or treating this year but we did have some great cousins over to play in their Halloween costumes!

Batman, Robin, A pirate and 2 princesses. Quite the little crowd.

Not 100% sure what these little guys are looking at!

The little kids swinging

Taking a break with a juice box!

The Little Pirate

Cute little pirate, even though he kind of looks a little drunk in this one :)

Part 1: Braden Family News

Hi Every one! I know its been a long time since I've updated the blog. We have been crazy busy doing all kind of really fun things. However my computer has been broken an I haven't been able to update the blog. I know I know you say... how dare you have only 1 computer. But we do :(

I have several pieces of fun information to share. For some reason Blogger only lets me add 5 pictures into one post (if any one knows how to fix that let me know!!!)

1. While I was slacking off on the blog posts Kase grew up and turned 18 months. At Kase's 18 month check up we talked to the doctor about big boy beds. Kase decided to almost bail from his crib. I walked in and caught him with one leg over the rail. So on his 18 months birthday we bough Kase a big boy bed. We just got his bed spread so now that its all dressed up I'll take a couple pictures and post them on the blog

2. We got a new Puppy!!! He is a beautiful German Short hair pointer named Hank!! He has been a fun and amazingly energetic addition to the family. I thought nothing could compare to the energy of a boxer puppy but GSPs rival that of the boxers. Riley doesn't really care about the puppy and pretty much just lets him do what ever he wants. Tyson is a great big brother and loves to wrestle and play. Kase thinks its all great!! I hope you enjoy some of the pictures!!!

Anniversary Weekend Part 3: Cabela's

We made the trip up to Buda to visit Cabela's. We have been there several times because Kase loves to go and look at the big fish in the aquarium and the mounted deer. They have one room that is never very crowded full of large award winning mounted bucks. He loves it and runs from animal to animal saying "wow!! Bucks!!" So cute :)

He ran around till he made himself and me very tired. So we got back in the car and made our way back to San Antonio. He gladly took a nap in the car on the way back.

Kase and a bear

Kase and Daddy testing out a cot

And nap time on the cot... maybe mommy needs to buy a cot.

Running from mommy because tents are more fun!

Anniversary Weekend Part 2: Children's Museum

As part of our long weekend we visted the children's museum in San Anotonio. It was so much fun to watch Kase run and play. I do have to say that the one in Houston is much bigger and better but we still had tons of fun!


Enjoy the pictures!






Milking the Cow!
Big nail board. Daddy made lots of fun hand prints with Kase!

They had this really cool water table that had a current. You can make a maze and block the water to watch which way the boats would go down the table. I think Daddy had more fun the Kase did.

Slide at the children's museum that sounded like water running when you slid down.

Kase loved the lightboard especially when mommy decided to write his name in it.

The event of the day... The Air plane!

Anniversary Weekend Part 1: San Antonio Zoo

I know I know, It's been forever since I've posted. I'm trying to do better :) So here is some fun stuff.

A couple weeks back for our Anniversary we decided to get a hotel room on the river walk. We had so much fun on a 4 day weekend. We went to Cabella's, walked the Riverwalk, ate at the Rain Forest Cafe, went to the zoo and children's museum.

We had an amazing day at the zoo. It was Kase's very first trip to the zoo and as far as I can remember my first trip to the San Antonio zoo. The first half of the day started out cool (well for Texas weather). We were able to see several of the bears and big cats before the day got too hot. The big hit was the new area called Africa Live. This area has an indoor view of Hippos and several other African animals. You can then walk outside through a really nice walk area to see the Giraffes, Elephants and Okapi. The hit of the day was by far the hippo. Once Kase noticed the Hippo in the water that was all he was about to talk about all day. It was so exciting.

At the Zoo they have a little kids play area complete with a little river that you can play in. Kase had tons of fun with the little rocks.

We road the little zoo train around the park. Kase loves choochoos so this was the 2nd best event of the day!

Relatives?

Look we've adopted :) lol The hippo experience is great! I love that the kids can get so up close and see the hippos face to face.

Kase having a solo moment with his favorite creature on earth. He loves to talk about hippos. At the house we have a little floating hippo. He had a hard time saying Hippo at first so it came out baaboo. Now that he has perfected the word hippo we now have a stuffed animal named Baaboo the Hippo :)

Ever Expanding Vocabulary

Kase is growing up so fast... he is now 15 months old. He has his 15 month check up next week so I'll get you his stats then! He is growing and learning every day!

We are up to quite an extensive vocabulary. Not only is he learning new words, he's learning new ways to use those words. As you know his first word was Ball.... That is still his favorite word. He loves balls and walks abound the house constantly with a ball in his hand. He makes it a point to show you and say "ball" ever second that he can. However he is learning to associate ball with alot of different things. "My Ball" has started happening. The other day we were watching Star Wars and the second the Death Star came on the TV he ran up and said... "BALL!!" Very true! That is a ball. My favorite and also most embarrassing use of Ball was yesterday in the swimming pool. Kase and I were swimming around the pull, he points down my shirt and announces to every one in the pool "BALL!!!" Kids are too funny!

Some new additions to the vocabulary are Hello... its sounds more like hiyo. He will grab the phone and put it up to his ear and say Hiyo! He also says, Juice, Dog, Shoe, Sock, more and Tickle Tickle. The newest two words that started over the weekend are Water and Bubble. Bubble actually comes out pretty clear. Water needs more work. Its more like Wa-ao. He hasn't quite mastered the T sound in the middle of words yet.

I just look forward to every day experiencing new things and watching him learn and grow. I am so proud.

Mother's Day weekend at Port A

Click here for more pictures!! (sorry for having to link, couldn't put all the pictures I wanted to up on the blog)

We decided to take a few days off of work and head to the coast. This was Kase's first trip to the beach! We had a great time at Port Aransas. We stayed at condo called the Mayan Princess. We found this place on a referral from a friend of mine at work. It was great. The condos are for sure the way to go with a baby. We were able to save some money by cooking at the condo. We did go out to dinner though.

The first night after we got checked into the condo we went to the Port A brewery which was great fun! Kase got a BIG cookie for dessert.

The second day we went to the Texas State Aquarium it was so much fun to watch Kase chase the dolphins back and forth by the big viewing window. Kase was also very fascinated by the jelly fish. I loved the sea turtles... too cute! That night we went to dinner at a place called Moby Dicks. Was a lot of fun, Kase slept through alot of it.

Saturday we hit the beach and then the pool for most of the day! We had so much fun playing! We got all cleaned up and then went to a nice dinner at Virginia's by the bay, had steaks and watched the water as we ate in the open air by the bay.

It was a wonderful mother's day weekend! I think we will plan to do this every summer.

Spring Fest

Every year our company puts on an awesome event called Spring Fest. It is great. They have different areas set up with booths for food, drinks and fun. This year the areas were by country. They had an Asian area with egg rolls, fried rice and Tai Chi demos. They had Italian area with meatball subs, sausage on a stick and also a demo on pizza dough making and tossing. Fun stuff. Kase loved the egg rolls I think that was his favorite event of the day. Next year I'm sure it will be the boucny houses. I really want to help Kase into a bouncy house and bounce a little myself.

They also had a petting zoo. They even had a petting zoo. Kase had a great time with the Zebu. Mommy decided that she needs one to go with the mini horse in the back yard. Who dosen't need a mini cow?

They also had military demos and we were able to see a Black hawk helecopter. Kase thought it was pretty cool... Chris wanted to shoot the gun :)

That was a great weekend and a wonderful event at work!

We have a walker

The last week or so Kase has been trying to walk. He would take a step or two between me and Chris, or from holding on to something to one of us. Today he was pulled up and decided to just walk all the way across the room. He is still doing most of his traveling through crawling but any day now he will just take off and start running. (Help us!!) It was a nice suprise and a much needed reward after a very trying week at work.

Easter Bunny

Happy Easter Everyone! The day care was closed on Good Friday. So Chris and I took of the day to have some family time. We woke up and headed to San Antonio and met the Easter Bunny. I don't know why parents feel it necessary to torture their children about 75% of the kids were screaming and crying but I had to do it at least once. I was looking back at pictures of me with the Easter bunny at about Kase's Age and I Loved it, even though the Easter Bunny looked truly evil (see below). Kase did really well with the Easter Bunny and even smiled and shook hands with him. However once I put him in his arms for the picture he tried to quickly escape. We almost bought the picture of him escaping but decided to go with the one were he looked slightly like he was having a good time.

After our Easter Bunny visit we went to Bravo and had a nice lunch with a couple of Friends Christina and Anu from work. Then we did a little shopping and got Kase a swimsuit and sandals for the summer. We finally headed home and Kase had a really long and much needed nap.

I wish every one a blessed Easter weekend!

Me with the REALLY SCARY Easter Bunny at 15 months of Age. (Golly mom is a miracle I'm not scared for life)

Blue Bonnets 2010

This year the bluebonnets are amazing. We have had a lot of great rain and a good freeze right before they bloomed. The wild flowers are out in force. Now that the weather is better we wanted to take some pictures while they were in major bloom. It was a little windy so in some of the pictures he looks like he has a Mohawk!

Blogger was giving me a hard time and I could only get it to post one picture. Please click the picture to see the rest of the picture! Enjoy!

A few of my favorite things!

COOKIES!!!

What cookie!! I don't see a cookie!

(Chris had made Chocolate Chip cookies today, I thought the plate was empty but apparently not. Kase had 2 cookies one in each hand chowing down.)

My new play room mommy and daddy are building me! I can't wait for it to be finished!

The Wii Nunchucks!
(Why out of all the toys we have for the boy, he goes straight for the nunchucks. He then hangs them around his neck and crawls around the house. Why?)


Blocks!
Would you like a block?

Wheel of fortune! My favorite TV show.

At 6:30 every night Kase crawls over to the TV and makes sure Wheel of Fortune is on. What an internal clock the boy has.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Playing Peek a boo with the hat!

Awww The hat finally stayed on :)


Mommy told me that if I stole this little dude's hat there would be gold in it... No gold so I put blocks in there!


Kase did wear green all day, however we had spaghetti for dinner so he had to wear the hat so that he wouldn't get pinched. He did inform me that there is green on his diapers so if daddy can get away with green boxers then he could get away with green on the diaper :)

1 year Doctors Appt

We took Kase to his 1 year doctors appointment. The dr. looked at him and said, "Yep, Still huge!" Kase is a very tall boy. He is 33 inches tall, which puts him in the 95% for height. He towers over most of his 18 month old cousins. Kase average for weight, weighing in at 24 pounds. He falls in the 75% for the Height/weight combo.

Kase is getting very good with his hand eye coordination and is a pro at catching a ball. (Looking good on some sort of pro sports career :)) He is very into the color Yellow. He is also really into putting things in things. Which is very nice when helping mommy clean up. Lets hope this continues in the future. He is a very organized kid and likes his toys in the right place.

Kase had 5 shots yesterday. Very sad. It is really hard seeing them get shots in their legs, but they he had to get one in each limb. They started giving shots in the arm. So sad. I can't believe the vaccinate against Chicken Pox now. Come on I lived through it! Oh well. I guess we have to follow instructions so he can stay in day care and eventually allow him to school.

The doctor instructed us to move Kase over to whole milk and start to get him off the bottle. Yea that sounds like fun. He is such a good eater I hope this process is not too stressful for him. His favorite food is by far bananas followed by oranges. He is just a fruit eating boy :)

We are so blessed to have a healthy little boy!

Kase's 1st Birthday Party

Click on the picture for additional party pics!

We had a big shin dig for Kase's first birthday. Kase was feeling a little under the weather so he had a very short temper. He was diagnosed with RSV a few days before the party. His fever broke on Friday so he was better but still not 100%.



He did get to have some fun on his birthday though. Some of his cousins still came even though he was sick. Most of the cousins had already had RSV when they were babies. We ended up having about 30 people at the party. The whole family came, including my mom, grandma, Colby & Ryan and Aunt Dana from Houston. Even a few of our friends Jenn and Heather showed up. It was so much fun but crazy!



Kase was a little stressed out with all the people staring at him while he was opening his presents he got a ton of toys and some really cute clothes! All was well once he got to tear into the cake. He really wasn't into the cake part but really enjoyed licking off all the icing. Mommy thinks thats the best part too!



The balloons were a big hit with the kids. Most of them flew away and a few were popped. The kids also enjoyed pulling Kase and Jackson around in the wagon that Barry and Ginny got Kase for his birthday.



Kase is such a lucky little boy to have all these people that love him! Thank you all who took part in his big day!

Kase's 1 year Pictures

We had Kase's 1 year pictures take on his birthday Friday March 5th. He was a little fussy but we got some great shots!! Click on the picture to enjoy the rest!

1st Hair Cut!

My little boy had some scraggly curls. So we decided to have his 1st hair cut on Thursday before his birthday. We went to a place called "Sharkeys cuts for kids." It was amazing. They had really cool chair like cars for the toddlers and big leather chairs with video games for the bigger kids. They had tons of toys and fun stuff to look at!

The ladies that worked there were amazing. They were so patient and quick. Kase was amused in his Lighting McQueen Car. He did so well. He only cried a little when she turned on the clippers to buzz off the back of his hair. Once we distracted him with the car he sat there like a champ!

My little boy now looks like a little man. It kind of makes me cry a little.

Rodeo

The weekend of Valentines day, my mom came for a visit. We went out to the SA Rodeo and hung out at the fair grounds. Kase really enjoyed the petting zoo! He loved all the goats and the deer. The big hit was the Alpaca. I'm trying to convince Chris that Kase needs an Alpaca. :)

Yea! Alpaca!

Kisses from an adorable Goat.



Bacon?

Aww but I still love the Alpaca

Once we got home Kase enjoyed applying everything he learned at the rodeo and did a little steer wrestling of his own.