Crazy Little Thing Called Life: November 2015

Our sweet baby turned two on Saturday, October 17th. We celebrated with lots of family and friends with a Mickey Mouse themed party. We had all types of Mickey themed foods, a Mickey show on TV, and lots of laughter. I love filling our house with the people we love. It creates such wonderful memories.

I baked the cake. I had to do one ear twice, and it still didn't set up. I have no clue why.

My amazing Sister did the "Oh Twoodles" banner and Brayden's shirt.

We got him a balance bike for his birthday. He needs about two more inches to be able to do it. One growth spurt away from fitting. :)

Trying to get a group pictures...

That's as good as it's gonna get!

Playing with friends!

Our friends left, and Bray went down for a nap. When he woke up, Mom & Dad had set out the drum set. This was given to them by their music minister's family. It's stayed at their house for a few months, but I requested it be brought to our house. He loves to drum, and I thought this might help keep him occupied while I made dinner and such. He loves it! Also, Bibi rode his bicycle with him. :)

The night did not end on a high note. We decided to go to Chili's with my parents, sister, and Nick's parents. We stopped at the airport to see a big helicopter that was there for fire fighting. Then we headed to the restaurant. While waiting for a table, Brayden threw up. We ran to the car and got him changed. We thought it was just too much sugar and not enough real food. He acted perfectly normal after this. We decided to chance staying. We should have left while we were ahead. Cue another sick while sitting at the table. We asked for the food to be boxed up, and we went home. He got sick again in the car. He got a bath once we got home. He ate some food, but not too much, then he was off to bed. Thankfully, he woke up the next morning in good spirits and no more throw up.

The month of October has been crazy busy. Full of house painting, Brayden's 2nd birthday, and Fall Fest, but some of those are for another post.

I've already written about my sweet husband taking our little one to an air show in Ranger for a weekend, so I could paint our kitchen. You can read that post here.

But before they were allowed to leave for their trip, I told Nick, "Under no circumstances are you taking our son up in an airplane. I want to be there for his first plane ride." Well, Nick didn't want to get to Ranger, have an opportunity to go up in a plane, and not be able to go. So, he arranged for our amazing friend Andrew to take us up before they left on Friday. Here are some adorable pictures from Brayden's first plane ride. It was in a Howard.

However, this child has become obsessed with planes. So much so, that when we drive past the airport in Mount Pleasant, and don't turn in, this happens. I blame his father.

This kid loves his cats and is so proud of himself when he catches them. :)

I texted Nick, or at least, I thought I did. Stacey is a friend, and I somehow accidentally sent her a message that dinner was ready. Thankful for friends with a sense of humor, and that it wasn't anything embarrassing. :)

Miss Bailey was Brayden's teacher for the first part of this year. She's moved back to Ohio, so we had to take some pictures on her last day. Brayden loved Miss Bailey, but he has two new teachers, Mrs. Felicia & Mrs. Angela, and he loves them too!

We needed to run off some energy so to the park we went. He went down this slide dozens of times by himself. Growing up!

This sweet boy woke up from nap one day and wanted to cuddle. I don't pass these moments up.

And, he's stressing me out with climbing up on stuff lately.

On Columbus Day, we went with our friends Andrew and Erin to the State Fair. Bray only got a short nap in and was a pain the whole day! But, we made the best of it, and still had a fun time!

My poor child reacts very badly when he gets bitten by a mosquito. Casey had to endure texts from me slightly panicking over these on his arm. We have no clue where he got these, but after a steroid cream and steroid oral medication, they went away. We've been trying lots of remedies to keep mosquitoes from biting him. So far, baby oil with aloe vera and vitamin E seems to be working.

Little mister's Halloween costume came in, and he was not a fan.

Like I said, he keeps climbing on things.

This was at a football game the night before Brayden's birthday. It was a super packed football game, and Bray just wanted to sit with Chi. Kelley was more than happy to let him sit with them. They were jumping around having fun, and Kassidy was scared Bray was just going to launch himself out of the bleachers. So, he held on to Brayden's belt loops the whole time. :) Love that our friends put up with our tiny human.

Brayden's second birthday was Saturday, October 17th. We celebrated with a fun party attended by lots of friends and family. I'm going to do a separate post about that. I'll link it up here.

Brayden enjoyed one of his birthday presents from Bibi & Harpo, a water spout for the bathtub. We even dyed the water for fun!

For a bit of a somber note, I've had a small health scare. I've been going to the dentist off and on for a couple months getting some work done. Every single time I've gone, they've said, "DeAnna, your blood pressure is really high." I thought it was just "white coat syndrome" as they called it. I mean, who likes going to the dentist to have a filling done?! Well, the very last appointment the Monday after Brayden's birthday, they kinda freaked me out and said, "DeAnna, your bp is a stroke level. You should really get that checked out." I ~~tried to~~ ignored them, but by Tuesday, I couldn't handle it any more. A new call to Casey, and she told me to come borrow their bp cuff. I could monitor it to see what it does. I took it when I got home, and it was 183/123. Nick texted that to Casey, and she said, "Call Blair now." Blair is our family doctor. He made an appointment for me to come in the very next morning at 8:30am. I was terrified I wasn't going to make it through the night. This is what happens when you talk to your nurse friends. But, alas, I made it. They ran tests on me, took my bp multiple times, and it turns out that I have genetically high bp. It runs in my family. There is nothing wrong with my thyroid or anything else. He put me on a mid-dose medicine, and I go back mid-November. Hopefully, I'll be able to move to a lower dosage. My bp has dropped significantly, and I feel so much better. I never even felt like my bp was high. The only reason I knew was because of the dentist visits. I no longer have near as many headaches. Thankfully, we got this taken care of. This is my chart of my bp that I've been keeping for my doctor to see next time I go in. Wowza.

Kelsey of Kelsy Adeline Photography did the kiddos school pictures again this year. I'm in love with this sweet, angelic face. They apparently had a hard time of getting him to look at the camera because there were trucks going by behind him. But the got a good one!

It rained a few weekends back. And when I say rained, I mean 12 inches in less than three days. Before the rain hit, I took Bray to the park to play. He gets crazy when cooped up in the house for days on end, so I wanted him to get at least some outside time before it hit.

Remember the bug bites earlier? Well, they struck again. This time, on his forehead! He went to sleep on a Saturday night and woke up Sunday morning with a small red dot on his forehead. After church, it had grown into a lump. Throughout the day, it got larger and larger. I finally texted Casey and asked what I needed to do. Back to the doctor we went. They gave him an antibiotic, because of how swollen it had gotten, and it eventually went back down. Bugs, leave my baby alone!

Nick has discovered some new photography apps for your phone. They take amazing photos of the sky.

The last week in October was so full! Tuesday night was the Rotary Shrimp Boil, and Nick cooked over 50 lbs of shrimp, 50 lbs of potatoes, and a whole lot of ears of corn. I made a s'mores pie. The next day, Wednesday, October 28th was my very first Fall Fest! It was a blast and a hit! I learned a lot and will be doing somethings differently next year, but I believe it was a success all the same. I had grand plans of our family doing a group costume with Brayden as Mike, Nick as Sully, and myself as Boo. One third of that happened. I ended up going as a scarecrow, and Nick went as himself. Next year, I will do better! However, one of our sweet youth was dressed as Boo, so I did get their picture taken together. We had blow ups, games, cookies, cotton candy, nachos, and a hay ride! Can't wait to do it all again next year. The very next day was our deacon's Widow's Banquet that they do every year. I ended up handling the decorations for the tables. I went with a simple fall theme. Friday, First Kids Academy had their Trunk or Treat. Nick wasn't able to make it, but I got to attend. We decided not to do one single thing on Saturday. Bray isn't old enough to care about trick or treating. So, my family came down to hang out. We stayed in jammies all day long. Literally, Brayden only changed out of one set of jammies to take a bath and put a new pari on. We had a very relaxing day, which is just what we needed!