Saturday's Opposite of a Gem!

Well, I dont have a "gem" to share for today, instead, I have a big fat piece of coal.

Brayden has started his "terrible two's" a bit early (as I know many kids do) and has really taken to throwing temper tantrums. Mike and I are working on discipline methods for these times of him acting out and trying to figure out what works best. His meltdowns or tantrums seem to fall anywhere between 5 and 7 pm we've noticed. Well, tonight he started throwing a tantrum during dinner, resulting in a time out and proceeded to throw tantrums after Daddy got home. We should have known better but because of me having a migraine most of the day, and Mike having Hell Day at the Academy today we decided to go out for a cheap and quick bite to eat. Thus resulting in our "Coal of the Day" moment: our first time having to leave a restaraunt because of Brayden's tantrums! Thankfully they had an outside deck they didnt use, and they let us sit out there to finish our meal. SO FRUSTRATING! But we survived and are hoping for better days in the future!

Video!

For some reason, our camera's videos wont upload to blogger; perhaps they are too large. Anyways, here is my first experiment with privately uploading to YouTube. Please let me know if you like it, if it works, so on.

I caught this video of Brayden last night after we went to Olive Garden (sorry it is so dark). You can hear Mike and one of his buddies talking in the background, sorry about that. The Academy had "Hell Day" today for all the recruits, just a physically exhausting, try to kill them all kind of day, and they were told to "carb up" so we went with one of his friend's there and saw over 10 other recruits there as well! It was nice to meet some of the people he trains with everyday. On a side note, Mike called me at his lunch and told me it was the worst and most physically demanding stuff he has ever had to do, boot camp and everything in the Navy included. He said many of the recruits were off throwing up during their lunch. I feel really bad because I know it takes a LOT for Mike to feel that horrible so I cant imagine how tough it must be!

Here's the video of Brayden gabbing it up and doing his backwards wave. He was waving at EVERYONE at Olive Garden and was a ham the entire rest of the night :)

Olive Garden!

This first picture is one of my favorite of Bray, I just love his expressions! He sure loved Olive Garden and the Breadsticks for SURE!

Presents!

My Aunt Judy and Uncle Jim sent us some early Christmas presents this week! Brad Paisley's new CD which totally ROCKS and a this awesome Baby Beatles CD which has instrumental versions of some of the Beatle's Best Songs for Brayden to listen too :)! Thanks guys!

Book Lover :)

Today's Gem

Brayden learned how to crawl up the stairs awhile ago and does so several times a day with Mommy's supervision (though he never needs my help and often tries to race me) but has yet to master going down the stairs. He usually just tries to go head first and I have to turn him around and get him going backwards so that his legs are first down the stairs. I was majorly surprised this morning when right before my eyes, Brayden crawled to the stairs to head back down, turned around and just started going down the way I have taught him! Go Bray! Very exciting :)!

Leaving...

on a Jet plane! Brayden and I will be off on our week long adventure to Virginia this coming Monday and I am SOOO excited! We will be staying for a week with my dear friend Elissa and her two sons while her husband is deployed in Iraq! It's been over 2 YEARS since I have seen Elissa, and it will be SO much fun to finally get some much needed girl time in, as well as watch our three boys play together! Can't believe it was 4 years ago when our friendship started right as Mike and I started dating, her and her husband helped set up Mike's surprise proposal to me, and they were both in our Wedding as well! It is a much overdue reunion! During Bray and I's time there, we will also get to see our good friend Casey who is expecting her first bundle of joy! Oh what a reunion the 3 of us will have! Casey and her hubby have also been our friends all the way through our relationship and were in our wedding too :)! Many fun times are to be had if Brayden and I can just make our way through 3 airports! We'll be traveling this coming Monday (the 28th) and the following Monday (the 5th), so we ask for your prayers for travel mercies for us! Should be a lot of fun and quite an adventure for the two of us! Please also keep Mike in your prayers as he and the dogs will be braving it alone without us for the week!

Just another day...

in paradise :). We dont have much to report these days as our life has been one of routine and fun family at home moments, besides the 96 hours of complete lockdown of the Kincaid house this past weekend due to a nasty strand of the stomach flu! But, here's a little gem from my day today none the less. I hope to do some of these "short but sweet" posts more often, just telling a story from our days.

One of Brayden's new favorite hobbies is opening and shutting doors. He just sits on the floor (the favorite spot is the bathroom that connects our office and his bedroom) and shuts and opens the door in a peek-a-boo fashion until he eventually decides to shut the door all the way, shutting him in the bathroom. I wait a minute until he calls for me, and then open the door for him. Well today, Brayden learned to stand up behind the shut door and lock it! What fun! Thankfully it's a Jack and Jill bathroom, so I easily walked into the hall, into his room, into the bathroom, and opened the door from the inside. We also have a "key" on top of all our doors that have locks, just in case. Something fun to look forward to in the upcoming days for sure, I guess I will have to make sure to prop one door open "just in case" the key doesnt work! :)

Laundry Boy

Brayden's taken an interest in helping Mommy do laundry, which involves him taking things out of the laundry basket, throwing them on the floor and then putting them back in. If I have clean laundry to fold, I've found throwing it all on the couch, then giving Bray a few clean rags to "do laundry" with and the basket, keeps him plenty occupied long enough for me to get stuff folded :)

I caught a cute video of it I will try to post later!

"Vocabulary"

Brayden's "vocabulary" is progressins, slowly but surely and it's a joy to our hearts when we see him do a sign or attempt a new word or sound!

So far here's our list:

DaDa = Mike

CaCa = Cookie

Doggie (doesn't have it fully down yet but its getting there!)

Bear-Bear (once again, doesn't have it down, but tries to mimic it!)

Moo

Quack

Baa (still working on this one)

"Signs" he knows (in Brayden sign language not actualy sign language)

Up = Arms Up

No = Shakes Head

High Five

Waving

Clap

YAY Brayden! It might not seem like much to some but its everything in the world to us :)! So proud! We're also happy to report Brayden is fully crawling 100% of the time now, no more army crawl for our little guy! He also learned how to drink out of a straw in the last week too, Go Bray! Everyday is a new adventure with him and he is always learning something new! I will try and post these "newbie" words, signs, and activities as they come rather than trying to remember them all at once!

Part 2

Street Rod Extravaganza

Brayden, Katie and I went to the Annual Car Show here in Chester this afternoon and had a great time looking at some great old cars! Hopefully Grandpa Kraft can make it next year!

Katie's favorite car ^

Grandpa Kraft, this one is for you. I think it is a 34 Ford, am I right? We couldnt find your truck or your car, this was the closest we could find!

This one, even though it isnt a tow truck, reminded me of Tow-Mater in the movie Cars

B.A.K

A little boy with many faces, expressions, and a personality that goes with them all. Here's just a few moments with him while we were out to lunch today with Auntie Katie (Mike's younger sister)

No Pictures...

but I promise to post some by the end of the week! My camera's battery had been dead and I keep forgetting to change it, therefore, I havent been taking pictures at all lately!

Life here is going great! Mike and I celebrated our 3rd Anniversary this past week! What an amazing God given journey these last 4 years together, 3 years married have been. Full of life experiences and wonderful memories and amazing love. I'll save you the mush and gush, but I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with this wonderful man by my side! Love you sweetie!
For our anniversary night, we just had a plain old dinner at home, with some special brownies to celebrate. We were able to go on a date this Sunday which was WONDERFUL! (Thanks Grandma and Pappy for watching Brayden!) We drove down to Chico, went to Olive Garden and then Funland, where we mini-golfed and went to the batting cages! SO much fun, a lot of laughing, and my first time doing the batting cages! I took some videos on Mike's phone I will try to get up. Then we went shopping at Walmart which I have to say, I love to do alone with Mike. It's so much fun to stop and look at stuff, even if its nothing special, without having to worry about getting in and out with a baby! Then we braved going to downtown Chico on a weekend night when college had just started back up to get some good ol' Coldstone Ice Cream, so worth it! We got to Mike's parents just after midnight to find our son taking full advantage of his Pappy! They were sitting watching Little Bear on TV all cuddled up in Pappy's recliner chair! Apparently Brayden had woken up pretty upset and just wanted to cuddle and watch TV with his Pappy, it was a sweet memory that Mike and I will treasure!

Brayden's been doing great! He is getting much more vocal and we had a lot of fun today working on words together. He is doing so well imitating me with animal noises and even though he doesnt have them down yet, you can tell he is trying to imitate me the best he can when I say moo, quack, woof, etc. He's also taken up the new adventure of opening and shutting doors (not using the handle of course) and thinks its a VERY entertaining game! Thankfully, no fingers have been hurt yet, and I am enjoying the time I get to sit in the office and get some stuff done while he is right next to me playing with the door! He's been pushing his limits with eating lately and has a very limited amount of foods he eats. Mike says I stress about it to much, which I admit, because he is getting all his food groups just fine, but I want him to expand his palate more, all of you parents to toddlers out there are laughing right now I am sure!

Mike's doing awesome in the Academy, had a Physical Training test today, something along the lines of jumping over fences fully geared up in a certain number of seconds and he of course passed with flying colors. He's more humble than I am about his success in the academy so far but I am just so proud!

A long post for what was just supposed to be a few stories! More soon!