First Day at the Lake This Summer!

Well, it seemed to take awhile, but summer finally got here and we're having some great days in the forecast too. So we finally rounded up the troops and headed to Sheerness Lake for the day. Joy dropped Danika off and Craig was at work up north, but everyone else was there and we had a wonderful time!

This is the beautiful drive to the lake through the Drumheller badlands

Good thing Braden had an awesome nap on the way to the lake!

And it's a good thing that he did have that nap because he did not stop running/walking/moving the whole time, unless he was on the boat or the 10 minutes he stopped to eat a lot of supper! That's not even an exaggeration, just ask anyone that was there!

He would have loved to just "drive" the boat all day!

Look at my big boy going down the slide all by himself!



Laura, whether she likes it or not, turned 25 yesterday!

Mmmm! Grandma made a yummy cake that everyone loved! EVERYONE!




After one last, late boat ride and wakeboard for Jay we finally headed home at 8:30PM which is at least 1.5 hours past Braden's bedtime. The lake sure tires you out...

It took him about 20 minutes to fall asleep in the truck, we got home, he woke up, had some giggles and cuddles and fell right back asleep. What a great kid!....and a great day!

Hot Hot Heat

I don't get it. Braden LOVES the water. He's always loved his bath (ever since his umbilical stump fell off), he loves swimming, he loves the faucet, he loves water fountains...even splashing in toilet water! BUT he doesn't like a spray park or even the little kiddie pool I have on our deck for him!

If set free in the spray, he literally runs to the gate. Jay ran around with him for maybe 5 minutes, he did enjoy it when Jay helped him run around, but other than that. No interest. Zip. Zero. Zilch. I think he just gets very overwhelmed with the crowd, noise, and excitement that he'd just rather do his own thing. That's what's been hard about this summer with him. It's not even hard, hence the italics....it's just that all he wants to do is walk/run and explore things on his own. I guess we'll have to wait until next summer to do the water parks, spray parks, Calaway Park, etc. And that's okay!

It's been really hot here lately. It was 33 degrees but "felt like" 38 with the humidity yesterday. It felt like God put the blow dryer on! I sure couldn't live in a climate like this all the time, but it's nice to have the hot weather too. Braden's just been hanging out in his diaper in this weather (unless we leave the house!)

One good thing about the heat is that it usually keeps the husky at bay! We dropped her off at the farm and she had her tongue hanging out as far as I'd ever seen it and she could barely walk back to the truck when we came to pick her up. We could tell that she had been running through the canola (yellow) with Taz though...

I went for a jog/run/walk this morning with Braden and I went WAY too late in the morning. It had already gotten too hot, it was a bad idea! Lesson learned....but at least I'm trying! Well, off to catch up on house work before it gets too hot to even think about it!

Braden Stuff

Braden has been changing so much lately. He is growing like a weed and I'm assuming that's why he's been sleeping so much again and is getting back into a whiny/fussy stage. He still has only 2 teeth on the bottom, 6 on the top but his bottom gums are really swollen so hopefully he will get a bunch more teeth and just get it over with! Yesterday he had a 4 hour nap, I thought for sure it would be a 1 nap day....but then he needed another 1+ hr nap before supper too!

He is really wanting to climb on everything now and can almost make it up on our couch now and is even closer to getting on Grandma's couch. He is like a little Luke all over again. I remember thinking to myself when Luke was this age and running, running, running everywhere and SO busy "oh my godness! How does Laura keep up with him everyday!?" And now it's me! Speaking of Luke and Braden here's a pic from last weekend:

Then mom came for the weekend so I could work ALL weekend (yay!) and she came bearing bubble gifts!

Making "brrrrrrm! vrrrrooooom!" sounds:

One of the hardest things of having a busy little 15.5 month old is going out. I'm almost to the point of wanting to never leave my house. He never used to be one of those kids that fell asleep instantly in his car seat or loved his car seat rides, but he was always just content to be there. BUT, then he started running and it's like he doesn't want to be "stuck" in his car seat anymore. He can't even stand the ride to Strathmore anymore, he fusses off and on for most of the ride there.

So I reached out to my Facebook friends for suggestions and almost everyone, the "younger" moms said "portable DVD player". At first I thought - sure! Why not? I'll try anything. But I don't have the TV on for him at home, he doesn't have the attention span for TV shows/cartoons at home, and I think he would get really ticked off that he couldn't have/play with the DVD player if it was in the vehicle for him. I'm all for safety and have intentions of keeping him rear-facing in his car seat, but I even flipped it forward to give him a trial to see if that helped, but it seemed to make it worse. I will try a few more trips with him forward, but if it's the same I might as well keep him rear-facing.

Of course I won't stay in my house, but with the advice of the "older" moms (including my own) was essentially just to tough it out, don't give in, and "train" him to put up with his car seat. I sleep trained hm, so I figure I can car seat train him too. Eating out is very difficult right now too, he can tolerate the high chair for maybe 15-20 minutes and then he wants to get out and run. I'm hoping that this is just a phase and he'll just learn that car seat rides and high chair time is just part of life and he can't get out and run! :) I've had a lot of people say to me "oh the terrible twos are starting early!". I really don't appreciate that. Braden is not acting terribly, he's just frustrated because he still can't communicate everything or even most things that he wants. Signing helps, but he still doesn't have enough vocabulary to tell us what he wants. I think this is probably a normal thing for the age he's at. If you have any positive words of encouragement, I'd love to hear them! :)

Braden & Luke

Laura has been kind enough to babysit Braden so I can work a few shifts while Jay's busy working himself. Braden is getting old enough now to really start playing with Luke, and they really have a blast together! Braden loves to run and chase Luke, and I think Luke quite likes being chased! Luke has always been so gentle with Braden and really watches out for him. Mom got Braden this Little Tikes castle swing/slide set used off Kijiji and I set it up the other day. They LOVED it! (don't they look cute in their matching Old Navy vest/jackets?)

Braden can climb up it all by himself!

Then we ate a yummy BBQ pork chop supper and then the boys had a bath

Braden's lucky to have such an awesome auntie and cousin to spend time with!

Enjoying Play Time Outside

We finally got some long, overdue nice weather to enjoy outside! I think it got over +10 once or twice this week, but honestly...anything above 0 is a welcome pleasure around here! Braden's new obsession is this:

In and out...in and out...and then he occasionally walks around our deck, which is conveniently and safely locked in or is like a big "play pen" or even a "prison" as people have commented :)

This is probably the closest he's ever gotten to Miles!

Could you not just squeeze him??

Looking off the deck by our bathroom to the northeast, here is Kihei on one of the dirt piles (which is now a gopher hill)...another "to do" list for this spring/summer to level them off.

And along with all the nice weather comes the melting of all the snow...

That's 1 mile south of our house, looking up to Zak's farm and our house on the hill...there's not supposed to be a mini lake there! And here is the corner south of the farm:

So we enjoyed a week or so of spring and the meltdown....and then we woke up to this today:

So here we go again! I'm not surprised at all...I just think we've had more than our fair share of the white stuff this year. And this probably isn't the last of it!