10 months old and a year ago today...

Braden is 10 months old! We can't believe that he is almost a year old already. He is crawling all over and gets into everything, but he is so much happier and less frustrated with life that it is amazingly worth it. I can't believe how quickly he is learning new things! It just amazes me how kids grow and learn. He waves bye-bye, turns lights on and off, points to everything, crawls up stairs, signs "all done", and I could probably just keep going on and on, but I'll stop now. :) He loves crawling around with us on the floor - particularly Justin. That is the typical "daddy's home" routine - chase each other around the house and do some rough and tumble playing. Braden loves it, and Justin does too for that matter!

Justin and I went to the beach yesterday because it was so beautiful and warm we just couldn't pass it up. The water has already cooled down so much, we wore our swimsuits but decided just to put our feet in the water! Anyway, as we were walking we realized that one year ago to the day Justin was here in Virginia interviewing for medical school and we had no idea where we would be ending up, or if we'd be ending up in medical school. It's amazing how much can change in a year! We are so glad we are here. It's been a great few months and I'm sure will prove to be a great few years!

a bunch of Monkey Business!

I found this monkey a few weeks ago on clearance and I fell in love with it for Braden. He was happy about it, but I think I bought it as much for me as for him because it is just so cute and almost as big as he is. Plus it's squishy and soft and fun to cuddle with. He LOVES stuffed animals and immediately hugs them and does his little lamb-like laugh whenever you give one to him. It is so cute. Anyway, I felt the need to take some pictures of him with his little friend, the monkey. :)

giving the monkey "loves"

Monkey even gets kissesI love this picture. Justin was trying to get Braden to "show his guns" then he show Braden how you do that. I had to get a picture. Quality father and son time, eh? They are so cute together!

And some more videos! Braden has learned how to dance. I can't help but just laugh every time he starts swinging those hips back and forth. It is hilarious and very cute! Well, to me anyway. Not that I'm biased at all...ha! Oh, and the one where he's bouncing and then falls...I hope no one thinks we are cruel for laughing, but it was just so funny! He's such a tough little guy. Hopefully no one thinks we are terrible parents! We love him I promise!

Sandcastles!

Last weekend we went to the Neptune Festival at Virginia Beach and they did a huge sandcastle building contest. It was really cool to see what everyone did. They had a whole section of professional individuals and professional teams that did amazing jobs! (how would you like to say that you are a sandcastle builder by trade? Haha!) There are so many people out there with creativity that I will never even begin to understand! Click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want. It makes it a lot easier to see the details.

This is the overall first place winner (it was done by a team of professionals). I didn't get the best picture of it, but it is a mermaid kissing a...well, I don't really know what he is but what is really cool is that they were able to carve out bands of sand behind his head. I have no idea how you do that. They even made the sand around it look like ocean water.

I thought this one was quite creative. It was called "No Strings Attached" I think. It had all sorts of instruments hidden in this persons head.

A fearless knight who has won the maiden (the dragon that was slain is laying behind them)

Fire thingy.

I love the facial expressions on these guys!

Fun and creepy/scary all at the same time...

This was my personal favorite. It was called "Dancing with the Stars". The sun and the moon are dancing (you can see their hands clasped in front and it's hard to see from the picture but the sun has his hand behind the moon's back or head or whatever you'd call it). Again, they did the bands of sand around the outside of the sun. These people are amazing.

A random guy with his parrot

We stopped to let Braden crawl around on the grass. The grass was a little bit pokey though. So he just opted to stay in this cute little pose for a while.

Isn't he a handsome man? :)

A couple of Firsts

The other day, Braden discovered the joy of getting into the toilet paper! :) I have to laugh because I was in the shower and he was playing there in the bathroom with some toys. I got lost in my thoughts for a few minutes and then came back to reality and thought "hmmm...I haven't heard Braden in a little while." I stuck my head around the curtain and sure enough, there he was with a pile of toilet paper. He thought it was just great fun!
This is going to sound a little funny, but this was a really fun and somewhat momentous occasion for me. I know, you're thinking toilet paper is momentous? But when I was working with kids who had disabilities there was a particular family who I was very close to who had a little boy who had some major physical disabilities. And when he was around 2 years old that mom and I celebrated the day that he used his walker to get into the bathroom and pulled all the toilet paper down. He was finally developmentally advanced enough that he could get into mischief!
So it just makes me smile to see Braden finding a way to get into some mischief. Don't worry, we aren't going to have a toilet paper party or make a habit of pulling the whole roll of toilet paper out or anything, but it just does my heart good to see him discover things like that! :)

Braden sits in the sink and "helps" me get ready everyday. He is particularly fond of the blush brush and reaches up to brush my face with it. It is so stinking cute!

Another first around here is Braden drinking out of his little cup! I took off the lid with just a little bit of water in there and gave it to him to practice and he drank it down like a champ! I had to put more in the cup for him. He just thought he was the coolest thing ever.

And, of course, this is the end result caught in action. I'm sure the not dumping the water all over your tray will be a work in progress for a long time to come. :)A few random pics:
We finally got to wear this cute little sailor outfit (thanks Dana!) and it just looks so cute on him. He's sporting his sad little puppy dog eyes in this one. Probably because he really just wanted the camera, not me to take a picture of him with the camera.

Braden has started kneeling lately to play with things, so that he can have both hands free. And then I just really love this mid-crawl snapshot. He gets so excited to go and get things.

a Very Green and Unexpected visitor!

I came home the other night from a Relief Society activity with Braden and when I got to the door there was the cutest little frog just perched halfway up the door! I sat and looked at him and thought that was about the funnest thing I've ever had on my door. It was a tree frog - which, in my opinion, are way cuter than any other kind of frog. I'm sure he was probably excited about all the moths and bugs flying around our porch light.
Anyway, I didn't want to scare him away so I called Justin on his phone (he was inside the house) to have him come around from the back and see this cute little visitor. Unfortunately, he didn't answer his phone. So I carefully opened the door a little and hollered in for him to come quick and see this frog on our door! Apparently I shouldn't have been afraid of him jumping away, I should have been more careful about him jumping into the house! Who knew?! I really never thought he would come in! Or that if he came in it would be so hard to get him out! He really enjoyed our little linen closet for some reason.

I couldn't believe how far he could jump - at one point he did a suicide dive and jumped from the ceiling (limbs flailing) across the hallway to the floor! It didn't even seem to phase him. I guess he does jump for a living. So, I took a few pictures as he took a tour of our house - during all of this Justin was trying to catch him. As it turns out frogs are also very slippery and hard to catch. Just in case anyone wanted to know. :)

Justin finally got him inside a cup and we let Braden take a closer look at him before setting him free back into the wild. I'm sure he'll think twice before he comes into anyone's house again! Oh, and you may ask what I was doing to help the situation of catching the frog? Absolutely nothing. I sat there fascinated and kind of freaked out all at the same time. I jumped and gave a little gasp every time the frog did anything. I have no idea why! I have no fear of frogs. I actually quite enjoy them. But I just didn't know what to do with myself! Braden was fascinated with the whole thing...between his dad leap
ing all over the place chasing after this little green thing and his mom jumping with the frog, he had quite the show. Anyway, it was a pretty exciting night in the Peterson home.

More videos...

I know that the videos take a lot longer to upload, so sorry for that. But being away from family, grandparents in particular, we want to give them the latest fun stuff of Braden! So I will probably be posting a lot more videos than I have in the past. Just so you know. :)
Anyway, here are a few more...and some cute random pictures.

Braden loves this little stick horsey!

I got these pj's out the other day and realized that they fit him. They are so cute! It is the first separate piece (non-onesy) pj's he's had. He looks like such a big boy in them!

9 months old!

Braden is 9 months old! He is as busy as ever, exploring everything and crawling around everywhere. I am constantly amazed at what he can pull himself up to (like the wall - there's not even anything to hold onto there!). He is a little short for his age right now, but a solid little guy for sure. Some of Braden's favorite things: His stick horse, little soccer ball, stuffed animals, the piano, books, and his daily rough-housing time with daddy! He still eats like a little champ and loves spaghetti.

Guitar Time!
(one of Braden's favorite activities is when Justin pulls out the guitar and plays and sings to him)

Laundry Time - Braden was playing in the laundry while I was folding it the other day and loving playing peek-a-boo with me and the clothes. I was all done folding so I put everything inside our tall laundry basket. I left out the socks for him to play with and what did he do? He crawled up to the laundry basket, with a sock in his hand, pulled himself up, reached as high as he could and dropped the sock in. Then he did his excited little giggle about his new game. He's really good at pulling things out, but this was the first time I had seen him put something in! It was way too cute - and helpful at the same time! Although, he was disappointed when he realized that he had put all the socks in the basket, but could no longer reach them to pull them back out and play with them. :) So we had to pull some of the socks back out so he could take them somewhere else. He's such a fun little boy!