Trip to Yellowstone

In July we went to Yellowstone National Park - a place Brandon hasn't been to yet. We drove to Old Faithful and the Fountain Paint Pot geysers, and Brandon thought they were really cool. It felt good to walk through some of the steam, as the day was a little cool. We stayed at West Yellowstone, where we had a pool, hot tub, and a playground for Brandon to be entertained on.

We had to keep a close eye on Brandon, since he wanted to go off the walkway to where the guysers were bubbling up.

We stopped for a couple animal crossings - this elk was much bigger than the photo shows...

When Old Faithful blew, Brandon wasn't too impressed - maybe he was distracted with the Twizzler he was munching on.

His buddy Isaac showed up, and life was just great!

We had some fun afternoons in the pool, where he got to try out some of his new toys.

We also took a trip to the Bear and Wolf Discover center, and they had this huge stuffed bear inside the gift shop, we had to take a picture.

Brandon is 3!

It's hard to believe, but Brandon is now 3 years old! I remember when he was just a few months old, trying to crawl. Now he's able to run around and get into almost anything. We took some pictures of his party and it's evident he enjoyed his cake:

Here's the cake... blow out the candles,


How wonderful, it's ready to eat!

Ummm... so good!

Brandon's Growing Up

My bad for not posting in several months. In the meantime, Brandon has been continuing to grow and showing us his personality. On of the most pronounced traits lately has been him changing the subject if he doesn't like what you're talking about - typically he starts talking about cookies if confronted with unpleasant topics like aplogizing or having to go to bed. We're currently working on him not pushing or hitting other people - I don't think he understands that it hurts other kids (or parents) when he's physically overbearing. He's also very passionate about something he wants to do, whether it's playing with cars, being outside, or going somewhere. He really likes going places, anywhere to be exact. He's also really good about sharing his toys with other kids when they come over to play. And in the last several months, he's really taken to heart manners, even saying excuse me when his mommy burps at the table. I'm so glad he's growing up to be a good kid - even if he tests us sometimes. It's a reminder to us that we have to be consistent when teaching him.

Hmmm... M&Ms

For Christmas, he got some die-cast cars from the movie "Cars" - he was pretty happy and content for a while.

Brandon's being silly here with my toothbrush and toothpaste. Typically he screams when we brush his teeth at night. I have to admit though, he's getting better at letting me brush his teeth (as opposed to Zenna doing it all the time)