Braden is 13 Months!

Well, if it's alright with you (and even if it isn't!) I'm still going to do monthly pictures and updates on Braden. I won't weigh/measure him every month, I'll cut down to every 3 months now, but it doesn't take much to take a picture of him on the 28th every month :)

Notice how he will NOT sit still! hehe!

So unfortunately when I took him to ER we had to weigh him so he's gained over a pound, which surprises me because he is SO active...but he's also eating like a horse! So here's our new Braden things:

• officially stopped nursing him before we went to Las Vegas, we were down to just bedtime nursing and even then, he wasn't always that interested and he'd look up at me and sign and say "done!" Too cute! I am very proud of myself that I breastfed him for over 12.5 months :)
• can take 5-6 steps on his own and his balance is WAY better
• he'll let go of furniture or a toy and can stand on his own and will get brave and take a step or two to something close by
• like I said, balance is much improved and he can walk without much support holding just one of our hands
• his appetite has greatly improved again and he eats the most at breakfast. He loves cream of wheat now, especially if I shred an apple and add some cinnamon and maple syrup - yum yum! He'll also then mooch off of me and/or Jay when he's done his breakfast
• he is getting better and better at signing and he doesn't need as much prompting, the cutest thing ever is you ask him "do you want to go night night?" when he's ready for a nap and he'll grab his walker, literally run down the hall to his bedroom, and sign "please" awwww!!!
• he's getting close with some words, for Gus he can say "guh" or "ssssss" for Gus but can't put the sounds together yet. He has said "papa" but more often than not it sounds like "bopbop"
• he had another trip to the ER, but did very well and is recovering from his infection. For those interested he was diagnosed with balanitis and it is just a "thing" that can happen to little boys for no apparent reason :( Poor Braden. He's too young to have his "little guy" cleaned properly, you can't do that until they're 4, so we just hope that this never happens again to him
• he is in swimming lessons again and is the 2nd youngest in his class and loves it still
• bath time is the BEST! He gets so excited every night, and part of his treatment for his balanitis is to have extra baths/warm soaks so he loves his extra AM bath now! He'll sometimes stop at the bathroom door on the way to a nap and bang on it and get quite upset if he's overtired and I won't let him in
• toying with the idea of cutting down to 1 nap a day. Some days it works, others not so much. He's usually been sleeping 14 hours at night, up for 2 hours and then has a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. From what I've read they usually extend their wake time in the AM to cut out their morning nap, but since he's sleeping in, he's more so taking his AM nap later and then just extending it to the afternoon
• doing really well in church, if we bring lots of snacks and water he's happy as a clam to sit with us, snack and then make googly eyes and flirt with whoever's around us. It REALLY helps us out if family is there to help distract
• we're pretty much ready for hair cut #4 too! 
• he's learned how to hug and it's SO CUTE!!
• learning to put away his toys, especially in the bath, and he's so proud of himself!

That's about all I can think of. Thanks for following!