A preview...

of the cutest elephant and ballerina ever!

17 months

Braden is 17-months old now. He's definitely getting to be a big boy! Of course I've loved every bit of his growing up, but I have to say his 16th month was so much fun. Such a time of growth and discovery. So awesome to see his little mind at work. We're excited for trick or treating with friends later today!

Helping Daddy put together his new chair. He loves helping Daddy!


We made another visit to the Zoo. No more mall playground and library for us for awhile! :-)






My maiden name's family crest has an otter as part of it, so we've always had an affinity for otters (Utterback). I'm glad Braden does, too!

Funny story and my new favorite word.

Toby watched Braden today. She told me that they came in from playing in the backyard and she said to Braden "Oh, we've gotten foot prints all over the floor. I wish I had a mop to clean it up." He then walked to the laundry room all the way in the kitchen and got the "mop" that we use on our hardwood floors and gave it to Toby! I told Anthony the story and neither of us think we've ever used the word mop with him. It's amazing what kids understand! He amazes me on a daily basis.

I have a new favorite word.

Another week.

I really can't believe October is almost over! It's crazy how fast time seems to pass these days. We had a great week with Daddy home. Here are some pics.

The only dog we'll ever have! :-)


Kyndal came over and played for awhile. They got some more hugs in and we put them back-to-back to compare their height. Kyndal is 5-weeks older than Braden. It's good that she's a nice, petite little girl and he's the big one of the pair!

We went to Boo at the Zoo today after we took Anthony to the airport. It was a lot of fun and Braden tried out a few new things (like pumpkin bowling). I really recommend a Zoo membership for those of you who live in Phx!

I thought Uncle Matt would like to know how much Braden loved the John Deere tractor.

Pumpkin bowling (he knocked more down with his butt then the pumpkin!)

Yes, he is "milking" a cow. But it's a plastic cow and water came out.

He literally tried to get the peacocks.

More tractor fun. He knows his Utterback roots from the farm!

Can this count for the obligatory pumpkin picture that every kid seems to need to have in the Fall?

Hummmm... I thought I ate turkey.

His first tattoo.

We went to Chipotle for dinner and Braden loved his taco. He's still a good eater and loves tuna noodle casserole, sweet potatoes, edamame (especially squeezing them out of the shell!), cheese, milk... He usually has oatmeal with flax meal every morning and doesn't seem to get sick of it. I wish I ate as healthily as I feed him!

He also says every word that you ask him to say. It might not sound exactly the same, but he gives it his best effort. A few of his favorites these days are bubbles (he loves bubble baths!), ball (actually football and he loves the big red balls outside of Target), choo-choo and, as you'll see below, blackberries! I truly love this stage of his development... he's so much fun!

Daddy!

Daddy has definitely been the word of the day this weekend! Things that have other names have suddenly become "daddy" and of course, the real thing is the best! Braden was very glad to see Anthony at the airport yesterday and Mommy was, too! 3-weeks is a long time and it makes me appreciate even more the sacrifice that our military families make going away for such long periods of time. Anthony will be leaving more now that he'll be flying regularly again, but nothing should compare to 3-weeks away! Although he has already warned me about a trip to Fiji as I'm sure he'll have to stay when he goes there. That's the bad thing about his new plane... it's got a lot farther range and I think the owners plan to take advantage of that! I'm just hoping I get to go along every once in awhile!

Braden and I had a good week together. We've found a great woman named Toby who comes to the house to watch Braden. She's awesome and I feel so comfortable with her. She's like a surrogate grandma! She'll cover until the real grandmas (and Poppa) come the first week of November and will be here, for the most part, through February! What a blessing!

On Friday Braden got to go to an event with me. I'm on the Board for an organization called Operation Sharehouse Phoenix. It's a program that brings together volunteers to package high-protein meals that are sent to school feeding programs and emergency situations around the world. The kick-off event was Friday (World Food Day) and 100,000 meals were packaged! It was cool to be a part of and Braden had fun "helping," too. If you want to learn more about Operation Sharehouse, here's a website for the lead organization - www.stophungernow.org. It's just getting launched in Phoenix and we hope to package millions of meals to help end hunger around the world.


We made sure Braden didn't get shipped to Haiti with the rest of the meals.


He and Amare Stoudemaire's son had fun playing with his truck.

The Zoo is literally less than 10-minutes from our house. Now that the weather has gotten beautiful (with the exception of this hot weekend!) we got our membership and plan to go there regularly. We've gone the past 2 mornings. I love the thought of Braden growing up seeing cool animals on a regular basis!


The tiger was having fun playing with a keg.


Braden loved the window where he could keep his eye on the tiger.

I love the giraffes and they have a great spot at the Zoo.

We watched the brown bear taking a nap by the little waterfall.

Braden gets to stop and smell all the pretty flowers, one of his favorite things to do.

Don't worry, it's just the otter exhibit he's getting so close to.

And they were sleeping peacefully in their little logs.

The zebras get to eat right near the viewing wall. It felt like we were back in Tanzania!

The morning paper

Braden read me a few of the headlines out of the Business section this morning... he preferred it to Sports.

Tock, tick.

When Mimi was here she taught Braden what clocks say. To him they say "tock, tick, tock, tick." Makes sense to me! When we were reading Goodnight Moon tonight before bed (his new favorite bedtime story - so long Very Hungry Caterpillar!) he pointed to the clock on one page, took out his paci and started going "tock, tick, tock, tick." Pretty good connection if you ask me!

Braden's latest trick with crayons - standing them up.

Hugs and trains.

Braden and Kyndal got a chance to hang out tonight. They hadn't seen each other for awhile, so it was good to catch-up (for the kids and the Moms!). They were glad to see each other and fit together quite nicely for hugs!


Oh the things you forget about during the summer here... including the Train Park! Braden and I went today for Train Fest and got to check out a bunch of model trains and also go for a ride on the "big" train. He thought it was all pretty cool!

Playing, shopping and climbing

We were sad to take Mimi to the airport today but very thankful that she was here! Braden had such a great time! Knowing the Mimi and Poppa will be back in 3-weeks made it a little easier to say goodbye. Anthony will be home in a week and we're counting the days!


Braden even likes pink airplanes!



Mimi got him this cool easel and now he has even more places to do his chalk art.

Peeking through the giraffe tunnel.

Braden loves rocks and he loves to run. Part of the reason he falls down a lot is that he tries to get places too fast!

Wheelbarrow fun.

Braden had fun picking out and trying on shoes at Dillard's!

Forget the sale items!

The pillows didn't serve as a deterrent long. He likes climbing into the chair and turning on the light.

Bedtime shenanigans

Braden gets his belly laugh going quite often and I finally caught it on video while he was playing this fun game with Mimi before bed. There is nothing I love to hear more than the sound of my little boy's laughter. Thankfully he can be going like this one minute and be fast asleep for the night 10-minutes later!

Yellow!

One of Braden's favorite words right now is yellow. He seems to have a preference for multi-syllable words, actually. He also loves playing with the blocks he's playing with in the video. We get him to try and guess the color and it usually takes him awhile to come up with the correct one. He keeps his blocks in a basket and doesn't like anything else to go in the "block basket." Dumping the basket, stacking blocks and then knocking them down is a fun part of Braden's day. He's gotten to the point where he'll even put some of them away!

We had a neighborhood BBQ at a park down the street this weekend. It was a good chance to catch-up with some neighbors now that we no longer have to hibernate! Braden and Evan had fun playing with the bike racks. A fire truck made a visit and they both got a hat. The last picture shows them waving bye to the truck as the fun, flashing red lights are reflecting off of them!

Outside again.

Mimi, Braden and I have had a busy week. We took a trip to Safford and stayed overnight, went to swim lessons and open swim, went on a walk and to the playground and ran some errands. We've all been waiting for the nice weather and when we were at the park today my Mom mentioned that it was like everyone was out celebrating! We even played outside in the middle of the afternoon today and it didn't involve swimming!

Braden is truly loving having his Mimi here. They have great fun and lots of laughs. We definitely misses Daddy but we get to see him on Skype sometimes and know that he's learning important stuff at school. Braden went to his first day of daycare on Friday. His note home said he was fussy but that he did great and better than many other first timers. Still pretty hard on Mommy!

I let Braden eat his oatmeal with his hands one day this week. As you can see, he enjoyed it!


Braden thinks it's pretty cool to get his own kart when we go to Trader Joe's. He gets a little distracted at times, but does pretty well putting the items we need in the cart!


The rest of the pictures and the video are from the park this morning. Note that Braden even has on long pants!

Sippy cups are much easier than drinking fountains!