The Update of all Updates!

Okay, so here I am on a beautiful Sunday morning sitting in Dad's man-chair watching my sweet baby boy babble "dadadadadada" in his excersaucer in between chewing on a blue toy and spinning this cylinder full of beads and also spitting with his tongue out and blowing bubbles! Busy boy! I had a wonderful sleep last night...Braden was only up once, as seems to be the norm lately, very late in the morning then he'll go back down for an hour or two...or even three! For some reason, "SleepEasy" isn't really working for us anymore. I do my checks when he starts to fuss and now that he's older he gets more and more and more worked up and eventually is wide awake. So I can deal with him waking up 8-10 hours into his sleep, eating quickly and going back down without a fuss. The best thing to come out of his sleep training was that he can put himself down for a nap and bedtime without a fuss 9.5/10 times. That 0.5 times that he doesn't...I just pop in, plop the soother back in his mouth, give him his taggie blanket and off he goes to sleep. But I will take that over up every hour ANY day! I am not getting obsessed with him sleeping through the night or not anymore, up only once and back down quickly is just fine by me! PLUS, there's always going to be sleep disturbances like teething, tummy aches, growth spurts...! Anywho, here's some new pics of the little man...

 Braden bonded so much with and loves his Uncle Ben!

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Still absolutely LOVES his Jolly Jumper!

Token baby with a beer picture....I was handing Jay a cold one, Braden was in his lap and he HAD to have it to suck on!

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Solids have been going great! We started meats this week (first being beef, of course!) and if I mix it with a veggie he just gobbles it up! I have also started giving him big hunks of meat, like pork in this picture, and he gnaws and sucks on it!

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This is probably my new favorite pic of him. He will do almost ANYTHING to get to our remote! I'm pretty sure I'll get him crawling by putting it in front of him!

He loves to stand now, his legs are so strong...note the remote again!

Also...we are SITTING NOW!!! Yay for Braden! This piano toy was a great thing getting him to want to sit for longer periods of time. He also loves pulling at his socks, probably trying to get his toes free as he loves to suck on them! Took him for his 6 months shots last week and low and behold, they changed the vaccination schedule and he only had to have 1 shot - yay! BUT, this means a potential of 4 shots for his 12 month appointment unless they add the varicella vaccine to the DPTP shot like they have in the States. He now weighs 15 lbs 3.5 oz but he's still on his growth curve, so that's all I could ask for. He's in the 25%ile for his weight and height combination. The nurse told me once he started on meat and got all that protein he'll start gaining weight, so I'll be interested to see what 2 weeks of meat does to his weight!

Our flooring is done and it's FABULOUS! It only took them 2.5 days and I am so thrilled. The hardwood looks great, I don't think we could've picked better stuff!

Braden's room has carpet! The only thing left is his closet....time to decorate!

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Hardwood in the great room...now it is completely done.

So remember our to do list on the house I had? It was from July 18...let's update that...

• walk through with our cabinet guy to make sure we are happy with everything, then he will do the finishing
• sign our granite/countertop quote this week, then within 2 days they will come and do templates and in 14-16 days do installs!
• Jay and Gerry will do the tongue and groove on the great room ceiling together
• Gerry will finish drywalling/taping/mudding the staircase
• finish painting the great room
• our tile guy came on Saturday to take a look, he's started the prep for our shower, and will begin tiling this week
• we are STILL waiting on our damn front DOOR from JayWest, that was supposed to come with the house GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Why do they ALWAYS manage to hold us up? The tile can't be done in the entry until the door is in as the temporary door leaks.
• the siding STILL isn't done from JayWest, but we really don't care, all the essential work is done and the faster they finish, the faster we have to pay them!
• then there's all the finishing....the window jams/trim have to be done in the great room while we have the scaffolding, before our hardwood can be installed...Ben is coming to help us the weekend of August 6th, so that is VERY much appreciated by his big sister!
• flooring is to be installed 1 week later than I originally booked, which will be not this Monday, but next. They can do all the carpet in the bedrooms and the hardwood in the living room/dining room....and hopefully will be able to get to the great room while they're there if all the aforementioned stuff gets done!

 Not too bad, eh? The north side of the garage and the front of the house need to be sided, finishing stuff like doors, closets, crown, and the rest of the baseboards...countertop installation and then the plumbing hookups and the last of the electrical! We're going to start moving in though. I can set up Braden's room and we can get our mattress over there, and we're waiting on delivery for our bedroom set, couch, and 2 chairs. Phew....that's a lot, isn't it!