Trip to Washington

We had a wonderful time on our trip to Washington State to visit Ben’s grandparents and Aunt Fran. Donna, JD, Jen and cousin Cassie met us out there for Brayden’s first birthday. Brayden did great with all the traveling. He rode in a shuttle, up an escalator, in a train, down an elevator and flew high in the sky in an airplane. It was so exciting! Everyone we met thought he was SO CUTE and said, “He is such a good little traveler!”

Brayden was full of energy and hamming it up when we were there. He loved the attention and learned so many new things. He did many things for a laugh: fake cough, foot up on highchair tray, blowing spoonfuls of food all over, gave little sighs and bashful looks. Aunt Fran has a koi pond in her back yard and Brayden loved to go see the “beep” = fish. He had Auntie Jen wrapped around his finger. He would point and ask her for the “beep” every chance he got. Now that we are home, he goes around everywhere, pointing to things and asking for the “beep.”

He ate so well this week. He loves toast, strawberries, oranges, macaroni, cheese, and quasailllas. He went crazy over the apples in Grandma Great’s apple pie. He had the whole family laughing historically with his reaction to the sugar and his insistency to have more. He nearly bit Mommy’s fingers off trying to get more.

Brayden is saying so many more words than we expected for a 12 month old. He says go, baby, ball, rock, pee-u-ee, d = dance, beep = fish, and bow-wow, moo, cock-a-doddle-doo, and he can make an elephant noise with the hand and arm as a trunk and all (it is too cute). He can repeat a lot of animals from our stories: cat, turtle, rabbit, pig (his favorite to say), duck, dog and yesterday he said doctor. We think he is amazing! It seems he adds a new word to the list every day.

He waves bye-bye all the time, has found his belly button and uses it for a soothing method at story time, can go both up and down the stairs, can back off the bed, loves to blow rasberries on Mommy’s tummy, and hates to touch his feet on grass. He will pull them up as far as he can so he does not have to touch. He loves to try to use the screwdriver, as you can see in one of the pictures. So we bought him his first toolbox so he can work away. Noni and Auntie Jen found out that if anyone else tries to tell him something is “Yucky” or “Ouchy” and he needs to stop what he is doing, they get a Brayden lecture. He will forcefully babbles away like he is telling them off. It is too funny!

Fun times!!!

Brayden is 22 lbs. 1 oz (25th percentile) and 31 inches long (90th percentile)