Making Cookies

While eating dinner at Cafe Rio last week, I must have been feeling pretty adventurous because I decided that I'd make cookies when we got home and let Brayden help me. Of course I made Brian help too! We had a good time making the "Best Oatmeal Cookies Ever" but I think next time I'll go back to using my KitchenAid when I make cookies!





They turned out pretty well for being stirred by a 16 month old!
We got him cleaned up and in his pjs but he didn't forget about the cookies! I looked over in the kitchen to see this!
"Mom! I can't believe you won't let me stir anymore!"
Okay, so in the end he was happy once he had a mouthful of cookie and chocolate everywhere! But then we cleaned him up again and he was off to bed!

Pineapple & Fun with Daddy

Brayden and I just enjoyed having Brian home for 8 whole days before he left for Washington DC today until next Monday! We had fun going to the Utah County fair with the Burton family, swimming with Uncle Shane, going to a mini Sendai Japan mission reunion, watching fireworks, going to the Cedar Hills parade, shopping at the Nordstrom Anniversary sale, taking walks, and car shopping! (Just to name a few!) But these are some of my favorite recent pictures of Brayden and Brian together playing and enjoying pineapple together! (The three of us often put away an entire pineapple in one sitting!) Brayden really loves his Daddy and it just melted my heart when the first thing he did this morning after waking up was to sign "Daddy please."




(Lately Brayden has been insisting on feeding himself with a fork so we stopped at Ikea and found this cute children's utensils set! They aren't too sharp and they're dishwasher safe! Perfect!)

Bubble Bath

Brayden has always loved his baths and a few nights ago, after getting particularly dirty playing outside, I decided I'd try and get some good pictures of him enjoying his bath. I think they turned out pretty good. (I'm thinking I want a nice digital SLR camera for Christmas, so I can get even better shots of my little man. Hint! Hint! )

Lawnmower

Uncle Logan has a lawn mowing business and Brayden has been taking a interest in watching him lately. We were thinking maybe he could help Logan out by riding with him like this while he works? What do you think?

Okay, so maybe not but Brayden enjoyed riding around like this on the driveway with Uncle Logan the other night.

Ping Pong Anyone?

My family has had their ping pong table out lately and Brayden can hardly contain himself when someone is playing. He just thinks he HAS to play too! Dad and Logan were good sports and let him play with them the other day. I am looking forward to Kellen's farewell this weekend because they'll be putting the table back up and I won't have to hold him down on my lap while people play anymore!

Kiddie Kandids

Today while we shopped at the mall, we were approached by a Kiddie Kandids employee who wanted to "practice" (aka have us spend lots of money buying pictures we couldn't live without!) on Brayden since they were "slow." Brian was hesitant but I was all for a FREE 8x10! And we ONLY walked out of there with the free 8x10! Brian was proud! We must say we were surprised at how they DID NOT try to sell us...it was completely no pressure. (I love Kiddie Kandids!) We chose to get the cowboy picture as our free one....but we thought they were all pretty cute of Brayden!

A Summer Favorite

One of our favorite things about summer is all the corn on the cob we get to eat! (Our favorite is the corn from the stands you can find all around Utah Valley!) So last week while Brayden's Great Grandma & Grandpa Leavitt were in town, Brayden got to try corn on the cob for the first time. Great Grandma thought he just HAD to have it and he's loved it every time since!

Brayden's Latest Tricks

I can't say I am proud of these latest tricks but I felt they were worthy of sharing with all of you. These just reaffirm my feeling that my baby is now a little boy...something I've been sad about lately. I bought some digital scrapbook software (Memory Mixer) on our latest Apple store visit (Brian got to play with an iphone), and seeing pictures of Brayden when he was first born make me realize how BIG he is now! (And just to put everyone's minds at rest, we're not planning on adding to our family just yet....much to my Mom's dismay!)


This is mostly Brian's doing but Brayden thinks it's hilarious to walk around the house with his shirt like that!

He has learned to put his crocs on all my himself! Even more impressive is that only once have they been on the wrong feet! He loves to have them on all the time, and this night, after getting his pjs on, he felt he needed his shoes too! (Just to complete the outfit, right?)

He has learned to make such a mess of his food! This was one day when I gave him a piece of licorice and set him on the coffee table. (That's where I put him so that he'll stay put!)

This is the one I was the most upset by! He has learned to climb out of his exersaucer! I guess he'll do anything for cheerios! Because of this I now have no way to confine him long enough to take a shower! So now it's either waiting for him to take a nap, trying to wake up before he does, or just bring him in with me! (Has anyone else experienced this? I was shocked!)

He's now into trying to take his clothes off by himself...maybe this is just the start of the "doing it by myself" phase?

This is some of the gear Brian travels with and he happened to leave his laptop bag open one day and we found Brayden like this! He was so proud of himself until he couldn't get out!

So besides putting his own shoes on, we often find him wearing OUR shoes around the house!

A Fort with Dad

On one of Brian's recent days home, we were doing some laundry and Brian decided to make a fort with Brayden. At first he wasn't so interested but he ended up warming up to the idea. Maybe one day he'll get more into it and actually participate in the building of the fort rather than just trying to tear it down.

Yellowstone Wildlife

Here's just a few of the pictures of some of the wildlife we saw during our trip!