An afternoon at the zoo.

After looking at the weather forecast last night I had decided that today would be the perfect day for Braedon’s first trip to the zoo.  It was 65 degrees and sunny, a perfect day!  Braedon had so much fun and loved watching all of the animals.  I would say that his favorite animals to see were the goats, penguins, and the monkeys. 

We started off looking at the elephants.  This was the first time Braedon has ever seen an elephant and I’m not quite sure what he thought.

The goats were also one of the first animals we saw.

Family picture.

Braedon wanted to give a lot of the animals hugs.  Luckily there was always a huge fence or glass wall separating them.  I don’t think the bears and lions really would have wanted a hug.

Giving the bear a hug.

Giving the lion a hug.  Personally, I think the lion was just thinking, “lunch.”

We spent a lot of time with the penguins.  Braedon absolutely loved watching them swim around and would get so excited he would jump and scream.  He got a lot of weird looks from all the other little kids.

Waiting patiently for them to swim by again.  Who’s man calves are those in the reflection?  Oh wait, there mine.

Oh look, another hug.

He was telling us that he bumped his nose on the wall while hugging the penguins.

He was able to feel some tiger fur…

and sit on the tiger.  He then proceeded to walk around the tiger pointing out all of his feet, his nose, mouth, and tail.  I don’t think the kids waiting in line to get their picture taken appreciated the anatomy lesson.

MONKEYS!!!  I think these are my favorite.  They just do the funniest things.

And a kid on a leash.  We saw a lot of these too.

We all had so much fun at the zoo and were so lucky that all of the animals seemed to cooperate and we were able to see mostly all of them.  We couldn’t have asked for better weather either!

2 year check up

Braedon turns two next Friday and today was his two year check up.  I wanted to get his stats written down before I forget them.

Weight: 26 pounds and 10 ounces

Height: 35 inches

The doctor said he is tall and skinny with his height to weight percentile at about 10%.  He also said to keep him on whole milk for a few more months because he definitely doesn’t have any weight issues going on and it wouldn’t be bad for him to chunk up a little more.

Derek came along with us this time and I am sure glad he did.  Braedon had to get blood drawn, which was not a fun experience.  The nurse missed the vein the first time and had to poke him twice to get blood.  The whole thing took a lot longer then it should have and I could tell Braedon was crying out of real pain.  I almost lost it seeing him so upset and in such pain!  He also got a couple shots which aren’t nearly as bad and the good news is he is done with shots until he starts school!

The doctor said that Braedon seems to be doing very well and even though he isn’t talking as much as he probably should, which would be two word phrases, he is talking a lot more each day and he doesn’t seem to be worried about it.  I honestly can’t believe how much more Braedon is talking and voluntarily saying words on his own just in the last couple of weeks.  He probably says a new word or two each day.  I am definitely not worried about his fine motor skills and things like that.  This kid surprises me every day with what he can do.  I can’t believe my baby is just about two!!!

We love you Braedon!

He has risen!

Happy Easter!  I hope everyone enjoyed their day.

The Easter bunny was pretty nice to Braedon this year, especially if you ask him.

Braedon is obsessed with the movie Cars and has most of the characters from the movie.  However, he had lost Lightening McQueen when we were at my mom’s house and didn’t have Mac (the big truck you see in the picture) yet, so those were the new additions.  The Easter bunny may have had a little fun last night setting up the scene and making Mac and Lightening feel welcome.  Braedon thought it was pretty cool too.  He was so excited this morning when he walked into the living room and saw this set up!  I have to say holidays are getting a lot more fun since Braedon has started to get excited about things. 

 

He also had another Easter egg hunt this morning and found all the eggs.  This time he randomly started saying where the eggs were hidden and busted out with about four new words this morning.  So the kid can talk.  All it takes is hiding Easter eggs and chocolate, and he did have his fair share of chocolate before 8 am.

It was pretty funny to watch because he was so excited about his new Car’s toys but he was also excited about finding Easter eggs that he ended up going back and forth from finding an egg to playing.  He has pretty much played with Mac and Lightening all day today.  He went down for his nap saying, “Mac” and woke up saying it as well.  I also might add that his nap was rather short.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Yesterday, Braedon also “helped” me decorate Easter eggs.  After he tried to take a bite out of one and break one over the table, he finally got the idea and helped put stickers on them.  Even though it was pretty eventful and messy at times, it was nice having my little guy there to help me with this fun tradition. 

No surprises here! It’s a girl!

I have been telling people for months that Lacie is pregnant with a girl.  Today the doctor confirmed that baby Peterson is a girl so people can stop questioning it.

Below are a few ultrasound shots:

Did you notice the guns in the fourth picture?  She takes after her mom for sure!

On top of finding out that baby p is in fact a girl, we also found out that we have are done searching for a house!  We found a place that is less than two miles from my office and has everything that we want!

How can I be upset?

Braedon is an incredible little kid.  He likes to help all of the time in any way that he can.  This morning he put his pajamas away without me asking and a leg of the pajamas was hanging out of the drawer which he quickly corrected by reopening the drawer and putting them all of the way in (most teenagers don’t even do this).  He often times will find garbage laying around and throw it away for us.  He will randomly bring us our water bottles or other random things of ours that he thinks we may want.

This morning he found the Cars DVD on top of the entertainment stand (I was too lazy to put it away last night when I put a different DVD in as I knew that Cars would go back in this morning).  As soon as he picked it up Lacie asked him to put it back down so that it didn’t get ruined which he didn’t do.  Instead he found the Cars DVD case and put the DVD in there correctly.  The only problem was that the DVD was kind of gross and was skipping requiring me to clean it before the next use.  How can I be upset?

Later this morning he was at the YMCA day care while Lacie and I sweated our butts off doing boring cardio.  When I went to get him I asked him to come to me to put on his jacket so that we could go.  He ignored me and cleaned up all of the toys that he had been playing with…then he came to me for his jacket and said “go”.  So he was stalling but it was for clean up.  How can I be upset?

I am continually impressed with him and am don’t know what we did to deserve such a great little guy!

Halfway there!

I can’t believe I am already 20 weeks pregnant.  This pregnancy is going by way too fast and I kind of want it to slow down because I am not ready for another baby quite yet!  We find out what we are having on Friday so we will keep everyone posted!

On a side note, I asked Braedon to put all his toys in his toy box the other morning. 

And he did.

Easter fun!

When I got home from the gym this morning I found this on our back patio door.

This was also rolled up and tied with a bow.

What a cute idea and so much fun!  Before I move on all I have to say is Peyton isn’t a very good guard dog since the people who did this (and I think we know who…cough…Joe and Ashley…cough cough!!) were out in our back yard hiding Easter eggs with Peyton, Derek, and Braedon home and completely oblivious.

Braedon had so much fun hunting for Easter eggs!!  He got especially excited when he found out that inside each egg there was a little treat.  He started shoveling the chocolate into his mouth so fast, foil and all.

He kept walking around the back yard holding his little bucket saying, “eggs, eggs.”  He was pretty serious about finding them all too!

I spy two eggs….isn’t our yard lovely?  Haha…I can’t wait to have real grass so Braedon can actually go out and play.  That is what an Ithaca winter can do to a yard that is already struggling.

I had been debating the last couple of days whether or not Braedon would care to do an Easter egg hunt on Easter morning, but after today I have decided that we will be for sure!  Derek ended up re hiding them in the house shortly after so he could find the eggs again.  I am also going to dye some eggs this year, but that will mostly be for my enjoyment!

We’re back!

Braedon and I have been in Seattle the last two weeks while Derek has been playing bachelor here in Ithaca.  We had a lot of fun seeing family and friends but I am NEVER flying across the country, by myself, with an almost 2 year old again.  Actually, I am never flying with an almost 2 year old again.  Period.  So, if anyone wants to see us again in the next 8 years or so, we will be in San Jose, CA or driving distance from San Jose, CA.

Let’s just forget about the travel and I’ll share some fun stuff from our trip!  It rained quite a bit while we were there, but it wasn’t cold, so that was a plus!  We were able to keep ourselves plenty busy though and had lots of fun hanging out with the family.  Braedon just loves his grandma, grandpa, and Aunt Jenny.  It was so cute to see him get so excited whenever Jenny came into the room or when grandpa got home from work each night.  He would literally squeal and run around the house in excitement. 

Looking at motorcycles with grandpa.  Braedon pronounces it, “Papa.”

These two have so much in common, it is scary.  Braedon had started wanting to sit on his potty while we were back visiting but the poor thing is a little confused and would ask AFTER he had already gone potty.  It’s okay buddy, it’s definitely a start!  However, he can’t sit on the potty unless he has a motorcycle magazine in his hand.  Just like his grandpa!

Braedon is also very into the movie Cars and boy did grandma spoil him with new toy cars while we were there.  He loves them and I have never seen him play so hard with certain toys before.

Kayla served as the parking lot every once in awhile.

We had a few sunny days and took advantage of one of them by going to the park.

He LOVED the slide and feeding the ducks!

If you’re wondering what Braedon is doing in this picture, he is quacking.

See?  Quacking.  He was having full on conversations with the ducks.  I think they understand him better than I can.

I also got an idea from a friend of mine back in Ithaca and decided to let Braedon “paint” in colored pudding.

And by “paint” I mean eat.

We also went to the Tot Spot Cafe one morning, which is my favorite cafe ever and should really start one in San Jose if they don’t have such a thing.  It is a cafe with really good coffee, lunch stuff for the little ones, and good, healthy stuff for the parents.  What makes this place different is that it is also a play place with tons of toys and things for the little kids to play with.  They have couches and tables for the moms and the kids can just play.  Awesome!

Braedon’s favorite is the big fire truck.

This last weekend my high school Spokane friends came to visit so I was able to get away for a couple days and catch up with my old friends.  We all had a great time!  I love how we have been out of high school for almost 10 years and are still so close.  Whenever we get together it is like nothing has even changed!

Me, Jenny, Malia

Shelley and Tasha

Mmmm!!! Cupcakes from a cute little cupcake shop.

Dinner at The Rock because whenever they come in to town we have to go to The Rock.

Such a fun trip but it is nice to have our family together again!  Two weeks is a long time to be separated!