Belated Blogging

Yeah, so I have gotten a little behind in my blogging! I have oh so many trips and activities to tell you about and post pictures of and only so much time. Here's a brief overview of the past month:

Little Bear found his nose.

Little Bear, Mama Bear, and Grandma Bear traveled to Louisiana to visit GREAT GREAT Aunt Lucie and her family.

Our family traveled to a wedding in Denver where Daddy Bear and Mama Bear played/sang music and Daddy Bear was also honored as a groomsman.

Oh, too cute!!

From Denver we drove all day to Kansas City and stayed the night, drove the next morning to Iowa and stayed the night, drove the next afternoon back to Kansas City where we feasted on turkey, ham, and Thanksgiving favorites, and stayed a few nights. Needless to say, we buckled and bought a DVD player for the car. Little Bear did fantastic with all the traveling, but even we were getting tired of the car so we knew that he was. Of course we had such a great time with all of the great company that it made it all worth it!!

We visited Grandma M. at the Care Center with LB's favorite uncles and aunt and G. Bear:

And then, LB got to play with GUS,

GAN,
and GJ.
Finally, we finished the wonderful 10 day vacation with professional photos of the fam for Grandma Bear's birthday, ...

...and then we all headed our own directions.

What a blessing family is!

Hopefully my next post will not be a month away! And if we don't talk before, may God bless you and yours this Christmas and in the New Year! I love you all!

To the Wichitas!

Elk Mountain in the Fall

Daddy and Shaddie Bear--a little too close to the edge!!

Mama and Little Bear at the top of Elk Mountain

We hadn't been back to the Wichita Mountains in southern Oklahoma since Little Bear was much younger so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather and take a day trip down there. We could not have picked a more beautiful day for a hike! The fall colors were gorgeous, the sun was shining with an ideal amount of cloud cover, there was little to no wind, and the temperatures were in the lower 70s. P-E-R-F-E-C-T! And Little Bear was able to enjoy the hike much more than the last time. While he still "hiked" up Elk Mountain in the backpack, he did get to walk around at the top and bottom, see prairie dogs and longhorns, talk to us about animal sounds while we hiked, and enjoy the bubbling stream at the base of the mountain. We couldn't have had a better time!

Shaddie Bear had a pretty great time too!

16 months going on 16 years!!

How grown up is he????

Our Little Bear is growing up so fast we can hardly keep up. Everyday he is doing more big boy things and saying (or trying to say) more words. He says "Yes" really well, but only shakes his head for "no." Pretty good I guess since most kids learn "no" far sooner! His other favorite word right now is "Owwwwww." It is so stinkin' cute and that is probably why he loves the word so much...because he knows Mama Bear thinks he's adorable when he says it. He'll intentionally hurt himself (or me) just so that he can say, "Owwwwwww." Then, tonight he was playing with his Precious Moments doll that says the nighttime prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep..." and at the end he said, "Ah-men." Now, as any mother of a one-and-something year old I realized that the word he said sounded very appropriate for the moment. However, I knew that often he will say something that sounds like the right word but when I try to get him to say it again he cannot. Well, this time I said, "Did you say "Amen"? Can you say "Amen"? And what did he say???? "Ah-men." Of course I had him say it a few more times just to make sure and had Daddy Bear listen so that I had a witness and sure enough, "Ah-men."

Our little angel...

He has also learned a few new animal sounds and other words (mostly sound effects), and has recently learned to say "shhhhh." (He actually blows on his finger more than making the "sh" sound, but he definitely knows what he's doing).

We helped Grandma Bear out with a big garage sale last weekend. After about 20 years of life-changing, soul-winning youth ministry she is looking at a career change. Because of this, Grandma Bear decided that she had a lot of things that she would no longer be using. One example: the amazing wig below. So before it was sold, Little Bear decided to ham it up!

Little Bear is still crazy about his pal, Shaddie Bear, and is more comfortable than ever getting into his dog crate with him, despite my valiant efforts to keep him out of there. He also LOVES his dog bed and was caught relaxing on the hair-covered pillow with the remote and bottle of baby shampoo just yesterday morning. I couldn't help but crack up at the sight! It does look might relaxing, doesn't it?

I look at him sometimes in awe at what we've been through with him and at what a miracle he really is! (All children are, really. Right?) Just to see him grow from a helpless little creature out of the womb and after surgery to this usually independent, sometimes helpful, most often joyful, occasionally cranky, always fun-loving and knowledge-seeking, adorable little boy! Praise God that we were chosen as parents for Little Bear Braun! What a precious job!!!!

To Stillwater...and back

I guess I realized this past Wednesday how few pictures I have taken of Little Bear (forgot to use our fun names in the last blog...oops!) lately. So on Wednesday we traveled to Stillwater, Oklahoma for a short visit with our dear friends who live there (both Daddy Bear and the father of the household we were visiting had the weekday off of work, yay!!). We were a bit sad to have to enter the land of the ORANGE, but got over that once we were inside of their cozy home and away from any hues of the morbid color. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the kids playing together because Little Bear doesn't really "play" with other kids much yet. He used self-defense once and hit his "cousin" in the face with a play axe. He's at that fun age, AND he hasn't had a ton of experience playing with others before this summer when we were okayed to get out around more people. So he's still learning. But what a good friend to learn with as this friend is not afraid to throw a baseball in Little Bear's face or a mixer to the noggin. I am sure that eventually they'll be good buddies but Little Bear seemed to get along much better with the sweet, gentle, 2 1/2 year old girl who was visiting that day. That better not last either, though! :) He did have a lot of fun playing with his "cousin" Ella's sunglasses.

After arriving home that afternoon, I decided to try out Little Bear's new winter gear as our house was a little chilly inside. He seemed to enjoy his winter hat much more than he enjoyed last year's, but it is already a little small despite the "18 month-3T" label so we may be shopping for another.

After the winter fun, we were cooking in the kitchen as a family where Little Bear decided to pull my aprons out of the drawer. I took advantage of the situation and had a little fun with it. I asked, "Do you want to put on one of Mommy's aprons?" His adorable smile and "Yesh" followed. So...he wore my half apron around the house for a bit (until it begin to fall to his ankles) and he even took a rag out of the drawer and cleaned the chair and the window sill.

Should I be pushing a little less of this and a little more sports, cars, trucks, planes, and rough-toughness??? :) Kidding! He has plenty of opportunities to observe and experience "manliness" in his day. He is just Mommy Bear's big helper as well!

Well, two posts in one day are enough, I think. Little Bear is more than stirring at this point so shall go rescue him from his bed and fix us both some breakfast. Have I mentioned how much I love the 10 hours of sleep I got last night and being a Stay-At-Home-Mom??? It is such a delight! Auf Wiedersehen!

Dad visits from Germany

September turned out to be an ridiculously busy and eventful month so it looks like I only got one post up on the blog. Sorry I'm not living up to my original goal of once a week. I'm going to try to catch up a little bit today and post twice, so here goes...

Tony's father came in for a visit back in September. We had a lot planned for the weekend before we knew he was coming so he kind of got drug around to a lot of different things but we really enjoyed his company! He lives in Germany with Tony's mom and Grandmother ("Mutti" and "Omi") so it is always a real treat to see them when they are able to get away for a visit!

Benjamin wasn't sure what to think of a visitor staying in our house at first but he warmed up quickly and was even giving kisses out by the end of his Grandpa's short stay.

We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

So since Daddy Bear left us for 10 days last Tuesday, Little Bear, Shaddie Bear, and I decided to take a road trip to Kansas and Iowa to visit family. We left last Wednesday for Olathe, Kansas and stayed with Little Bear's GREAT Grandma and got to eat dinner with his GREAT Aunt and Uncle two nights in a row!

The entire trip was fun but one of the neatest things we did was visit

Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead. Little Bear got to feed chickens, pet cows, see goats and ponies, feed the ducks and fish in the pond, and experience a farm for the first time! He seemed to really enjoy himself and got mad at GREAT Grandma and I when we made him get back in the stroller to walk to the next area of the farm. Mr. Independent!

After staying in Kansas for a couple of days we continued on I-35 north to Iowa where we got to see 4 cousins, one GREAT GREAT aunt, another GREAT aunt, and a GREAT Grandma all in the less than 24 hour period we were there for. While there we visited the other GREAT Grandma in the care center and even helped her escape for the morning on Saturday. We got to take her to see the restoration process of the breathtakingly beautiful Byzantine-style Catholic church (where I was baptized) that was set on fire several years ago by a "hate-filled arsonist." They are making remarkable progress! We also went by her house and ate lunch at a restaurant that was probably there when my parents were dating in high school. Aw, so sweet!

Little Bear had a great time visiting all of his relatives, but he was tired of riding in the car by the end of the trip and was so thankful to be home (as were Mama Bear and Shaddie Bear!). Now we are waiting in excitement for Daddy Bear to come home tomorrow!!!

Baby Signs 101

Since Little Bear was about 6 months old I have been teaching him some simple sign language. Professionals and experienced parents say that it is a great aid to communication, especially before babies are able to verbalize all of their needs and wants to their parents or caretakers. Studies have also shown that it doesn't slow language development but in a lot of cases speeds the process. We haven't necessarily seen that it has sped the process of him speaking, as he only says a handful of words, but it has been a wonderful way for him to communicate with us and vice versa while he is learning to speak.

I started simple with the signs for "more" and "all done." These were most often used at mealtime but I would also use them if they were pertinent in other areas of life, like when I finished changing his diaper or clothes we might say, "All done!" I would do the sign for those words every time I said them and, eventually, when he was responding more to them I helped him do the signs. He picked up on them very quickly. At first, "more" was simply the hands coming together in a clapping motion but he soon caught on to what my fingers were doing and now does the sign for "more" very precisely.

I would say one of the most interesting things that has come from this is that he started making up his own sign language. In the video you will see him do a sign for "hot"--I don't even know the official sign language for the word and I doubt my son is so intuitive that he discovered the actual sign for it but it is his very own. The funny thing is, it started with food. If I was blowing on food and telling him it was hot he would take his hand to his mouth and say, "Ha." After I realized what he was doing I started doing the sign with him. One day we were getting in the car and he touched the outside of the car and said, "Ha," and brought his hand to his mouth. Crazy right? The sign for "drink" that he demonstrates in the below video is also his original. The real sign for "drink" is similar in that you bring your hand to your mouth in a drinking motion, but he added the little lip thing.

"Would you recommend this to others, Mama Bear?" you ask. "Absolutely!" is my response. Although it might seem silly at first you will surely enjoy the benefits after sticking with it for a few months. Today, Little Bear will see something he wants and make the sign for "please" over and over until you acknowledge that he is asking for something. He can also ask for "help" if he is trying to do something he needs assistance with.

I hope you enjoy his demonstration in the video, "Baby Signs 101." :)