Vacation in Georgia!

This last week, we met up with my family in Georgia and stayed in a condo by the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was so beautiful there. There was nothing but trees with winding roads which made feel sick after awhile. There were 2 outdoor swimming pools and one of them was connected to a lake where you could go rock sliding, canoeing, and paddle boating. You could also just enjoy the sandy beach (the water was really gross so I don't know why anyone would want to). The name of the town that our condo was in is called Big Canoe.

Here is a turtle we found on the side of the road.

It hissed at me when I picked it up.

The swimming pool by the lake:

Group photo.

Little Brayden loved the water.

This was the other swimming pool and even

though you can't tell, the boys are in the kiddie

pool that had fountains and buckets-we should

have taken a picture of it.

We didn't have Brayden out in the water or the

sun for very long so my dad enjoyed holding him

and occasionally napping with him.

On our hike to find the waterfalls.

Kaitlyn and Brayden.

We found them!

These are the Lower Falls. It was very beautiful.

Now we are at the Upper Falls.

Bryan and Brayden playing in the water.

Bryan was carrying Brayden in his arms

instead of in the carrier. He was walking

back down and slipped and was sliding down

the waterfall. I saw the end of it right before

Bryan caught himself. I'm pretty sure my heart

skipped at least 2 or 3 beats.

Later on, my mom had pulled out sheets out

of the drier and were nice and warm. Here is

Brayden with those sheets.

The day before we left, we went to another

waterfall. This one was in the state park vs

condo grounds. (It's similar to Mesa Falls

where there's a board walk and a lot more

steps. It's also a lot bigger waterfall).

Brayden does not have any clothes on because

on our way up he decided that he was going

to poop out of his diaper. It got everywhere

and since it was going to be a short visit, we

didn't bring wipes so we had to use a beach towel!

His business got everywhere.

Here we are at the pool again.

The shallow end had a beach entry. Brayden loved

to kick and splash the water.

Here I am going down the rock slide.

On this paddle boat venture, we saw a huge

turtle. We think it was a snapping turtle.

Kaitlyn and Brayden.

Family photo (without my dad (he's taking the

picture) or my brother (doing an internship)).

When we got home, we celebrated Bryan's birthday

(on Sunday).

It was funfetti cake with homemade frosting.

Brayden kept grabbing at the candles.

Here is Brayden babbling while we were eating

Bryan's birthday dinner.

Here is Brayden's 6 mo picture.

He misses all the attention he got

so he wasn't cooperating very well.

Here is a video of Brayden crawling

to Bryan for some birthday cake.

(Bryan is going to try and put it on youtube

so you can watch it in HD).

At first, he was using just his arms-army

crawling. As of yesterday he started using his

right foot.

Brayden is 6 months old!

Our little baby boy is now half a year old. It's hard to believe but at the same time it isn't. The last time he was weighed (a couple weeks ago), he was 14 lbs and I think 27 inches (the doc gave us measurements in cm so I can't remember exactly). So he has been gaining weight which is good although 6 month pants won't stay on him very well.

Here is our little boy all grown up!

He's got muscles and he grew quite a bit!

So maybe he's taller than 27 inches...

He's just in Bryan's clothes with Bryan.

It's a good thing moms and dads are

different from each other, otherwise we

wouldn't have such fun pictures as these.

We have been without a dresser for Bray

for a very long time and we finally found

one (for free). It was painted light blue

with dark blue and had clouds and stuff

on it. We stripped the paint, sanded it,

and put finish on it.

Here's what it looked like before.

We had already started stripping it

when we realized we hadn't gotten

any "before" pictures so this will

have to do.

Here it is after stripping and sanding.

Here it is with Bryan putting the finish on.

(We still haven't shown what our house looks

like so when we do that (hopefully soon) you'll

see it in Bray's room).

Here is little mister eating his solids.

He likes it.

He's trying so hard to get it.

Bryan and Brayden just hanging out.

(Another difference between moms and dads).

Brayden fell asleep while feeding himself a

bottle. His eyes are half open, his mouth is

open and his diaper is almost full.

Here is another big difference between moms

and dads. Dad thought it would be hilarious to

draw on Brayden with a sharpie the day before

his Dr. appt. Bryan was laughing pretty hard and

Bray liked watching him laugh. (It came off with

wipes and rubbing alcohol).

Brayden playing with the diaper bag. He did

have his head in there but I didn't get the camera

fast enough.

We were watching CJ for some friends and here

are the two boys playing with a musical caterpillar.

(CJ is 2).

Here is Brayden sleeping with his hands behind

his head.

The End.

Family Visit!

For the 4th of July my parents came to visit as well as my sisters and brother Jamie, Kaitlyn, and Chase. It was their first time seeing their grandson and nephew and boy did they love him! Everyone wanted to help take care of him-I couldn't have been more glad. My 7 year old brother Chase would give Brayden Eskimo kisses and Brayden loved that. Chase would go around saying, "I like Brayden." He loved holding him and feeding him a bottle-well everyone loved that which was really nice for me. My parents and Jamie have more pictures of their visit here and we forgot to download their cameras on our computer so these are the pictures we have for now.

Also while they were here, some of us were able to see the President take off in Air Force One. It was fun to see the kind of security you have to go through to see him and when you're standing outside waiting, there are at least 2 guards watching you watch for him. The base commander was there also and while we were inside the Pax Terminal, he recognized Bryan and started talking to him and Bryan introduced him to my parents. After the President left, he came straight towards us to talk to us again. It was really cool that he knew who Bryan was and that he made the effort to come and talk with us.

Grandma and G-daddy Ferguson with Brayden.

Jamie, Chase, and Brayden sleeping after a long

day.

Kaitlyn, Chase, and Brayden.

Here they are again with the family dog. Look

at Brayden's big eyes.

Brayden loved looking at and watching Moqui.

He liked "petting" her too.

Ignore the conversation. I ran out of memory

to keep recording so it's really short. Sorry.

Here's another one.

Well since it has been awhile since we've posted,

here are some pictures of things that have been

going on for the past couple of weeks.

Brayden's first swim!

Here he is in his new swim trunks,

which has a built in swim diaper.

Here's Bryan and Brayden in the kiddie pool.

The pool here on base is free and they do

free swim lessons. If Brayden was old enough

we'd have him do it.

Our troll baby.

It's bath time for the boys!

It's hard to get clear pictures of a wiggly baby.

Here he is standing in the tub!

Peek-a-boo! Playing with dad while he sleeps.

Mandatory BBQ

Nothing really exciting has gone on which is why there haven't been any new posts. Although, last week, Bryan's squadron had a BBQ which counted as a work day. It lasted from 11-4. We had a really fun time. There were LOTS of GOOD food (we got leftovers!), fun activities/games, and I got to know some of the people Bryan works with. Brayden had just had his shots and he was actually good! He loves being outside so that might have been part of it because when we got home he was fussy. Everyone took turns holding him and they took lots of pictures of him too. He liked the attention. Here are some pictures:

Bryan had to put a nasty concoction from one

container to another using a straw. Bryan won

because he was the one who put the most in.

He/we got movie tickets!

Brayden was not at all camera shy.

As I said before, Brayden had his Dr. appointment

(finally) and he is 25 inches long and weighs only

12 lbs 10 point something ounces. At 2 months he weighed about 11 lbs. He gained

weight and lost it. He has not been sleeping through

the night at all because he has been so hungry. I'm drying up

or at least not producing enough for him so we got

approved for WIC and got some formula. He doesn't

like it a whole lot but he'll eat it after I nurse him.

The other night he only got up twice (within a half

an hour of each other) and I finally felt like I got a

decent amount of sleep. I think it'll take awhile to

get in the swing of things but hopefully we're headed

in the direction of sleeping through the night like

he's supposed to.

Brayden is 4 months old!

Brayden turned 4 months old on Memorial Day which means he's about 4.5 months old now. We don't know how much he weighs or how long he is because he hasn't had a Dr. appointment yet. I tried getting him in a month ahead of time and they told me that I couldn't do it so far ahead and I kept calling and asking anyways and then he turned 4 months and I called and guess what? His appointment wasn't for 3.5 more weeks! Argh! They just told me I couldn't schedule that far ahead and then when I can finally make an appointment I have to wait that long anyways. So stupid! Anyways we'll know his size next week.

We haven't had much going on these past 2 weeks. I've been sick this week so no new events. Last week Bryan got a new commander for his squadron because the previous one has moved on to a new assignment. He met with his new commander and made a good impression with him. He told him of his plans to turn in his officer package and he is willing to do what he can to help out.

Last week I attended a thing called Bundles for Babies. It was a little seminar about babies-how much money they'll cost, how to take care of them-how to prevent SIDS and other things, how to save money, car seat safety... They gave us some name brand stuff to compare to target or walmart brand stuff (like desitin, diapers, wipes...) to see which one we liked better. At the end they gave us a bundle of free stuff like onesies, crib sheets (which can be used for bassinet or cradle as well), bath towels, some pj's, burp cloths, bibs, and socks. It was fun.

Here is Bray's 4 mo picture.

He is so cute! I just love him to pieces- even

though I almost gave him to the neighbors

the other night.

Brayden loves to play with paper. If you take

something he's playing with away from him,

he'll cry. He loves rice cereal and sometimes

I can't feed it to him fast enough. He loves sitting

on dad's shoulders and playing with his hair (dad

loves it too). He has to be held all the time or he's

not happy-we have to let him cry sometimes. He

loves going for walks and being outside. He gets

a lot of attention at church-he has a lot of lady

friends. And he's really grumpy right now.

Here are some flowers we have growing in our

backyard. We had some beautiful Irises too but

when I went to take a picture of them, they had

died-I guess they don't last long. It's been raining

and it's really humid so it's not like there's not

enough water.

We've had a few really good stormy days with

lightning and thunder and huge rain drops. There

have been some tornadoes that have touched the

ground in surrounding areas. We had the sirens

on base go off (although we didn't know why) and

there was a flash flood warning the other night.

Today it is 80, very sunny and very humid.

There you have it.

Uncle Trevor comes to visit!

For Memorial Day and the following week, my brother Trevor came to visit. He was here for an orientation of an internship he will be doing next summer. He was staying in Silver Spring which is about 30 min away (with no traffic). We picked him up Sunday night and he stayed with us until Monday evening and then did internship/orientation stuff during the day Tues-Fri. He learned how to use the metro (which I'm still trying to figure out) so we wouldn't have to drive during traffic on the beltway to pick him up and drop him off and waste our time driving instead of hanging out. He had Monday (Memorial Day) free so we toured a little bit of DC. Some of our friends watched Brayden for us so we wouldn't have to worry about feeding him, changing diapers... which was nice not having to worry about that.

Here we are in front of the White House. It's

not as big as I pictured but still cool. You could

see snipers standing on the roof which was cool

too.

Here we are at the Natural History Museum.

This place was wicked awesome. We could have

spent all day here all week long. There were

dinosaur bones, whale and other ocean animal

bones, replicas and stuff of almost everything,

there were different time periods, and who knows

what else because we didn't get to see even a pinch

of what they have. It's a huge building with 4 floors!

We needed to head home for Brayden purposes but

we wanted to see Sacagawea and were trying to find

her but there were so many things to look at. We kept

saying that we needed to go and we'd find one more

thing we wanted to look at and then we'd say that

we needed to go and then we'd find one more thing

that we wanted to look at... and we never did find her.

When the rest of my family comes, we're going to spend

the whole day at this place.

Some other friends were smoking pork all day

and invited us over for some. I should have taken

a picture of it because it was so good! Here's Trevor

and Brayden.

Here's a picture of Brayden-Uncle Trevor

is holding him.

Here they are just relaxing.

Uncle Trevor was feeding Brayden some rice

cereal.

Uncle Trevor and Brayden playing. Trevor

loved playing with Brayden. It was so cute.

Here are some random pictures of other things

going on.

I did laundry the day before and one

of Bryan's dress shirts came out

really wrinkly. Bryan came into

the living room with the iron and

the ironing board. I thought he was

going to iron his shirt. Nope! I was

wrong! My hubby always makes me

smile!

I was working in the kitchen after

putting Brayden in his swing and I

turned around and he was like this!