Brayden’s been walking for awhile now, but it’s news since the last post! The weekend before Memorial Day weekend, he started walking from the porch to the living room couch and back again- almost like he was practicing. It was so funny to watch him weeble wobble around and try to keep his balance. Now he’s almost running but still takes a few tumbles when his feet get going too fast. I forget how much work it is to run after a toddler all the time!

We then headed to Fargo for the weekend to see Erin and Joe’s relay team run in the Fargo marathon. It was quite an accomplishment for Erin to run after her recovery from Guillain-Barré syndrome last fall. We had fun cheering on the runners and celebrating with the Keck crew over the weekend.

We also enjoyed a long Memorial Day weekend at the lake and had some great weather up there, which is a little unusual for this time of year. It’s so fun to watch Annie and Lauren together now that they are more interested in each other. The girls had fun fishing off the dock- I think they caught a fish almost every time they dropped their line!

Lauren seems to have passed another milestone over the last few weeks. Regardless of whether you are a friend, family or a complete stranger, she’ll be more than happy to drop her pants to show off her new princess underwear she is now wearing full time. There was a lot of talk in the house about #2 over the past 3 weeks and it wasn’t in reference to the new baby. After a few lucky breaks for Mommy & Daddy, she appears to be on her way to earning the title “potty trained” (knock-on-wood).

In the meantime, as you can see in the video, Lauren and Koda have slowly started becoming good buddies. Lauren is finding new ways to play with him every day and Koda is slowly realizing that she does more than just drop food on the floor. I’ve also started taking Lauren skating on Saturdays because, well let’s face it, we only have 4 more years until the next winter Olympics. After the first trip, I left thinking perhaps we’re still a little young. However after our third time out, she really seems to be getting the hang of it and seems to really enjoy it. Especially when she knows there is a hot chocolate waiting for her at the end.

We had some fun carving pumpkins and making Halloween cupcakes with Lauren last weekend.

This past month has been pretty quiet and uneventful so we’ve been tucked in at home staying warm!  The weather was really nice over the weekend, but Lauren has a terrible cold/cough so unfortunately we weren’t outside enjoying it.  Grandma Mary has been down a couple times and Lauren always loves her visits- and hates to say goodbye!

Lauren is becoming more independent every day and we can see her little mind working to process all the new things she learns.  She loves to read out loud to herself and can sing along to a few songs.  We still have frequent communication breakdowns as she just can’t get the words out that she needs to say.  And where she used to say “yeah!” to everything we asked her, Lauren now runs around repeating “no, no, no, no!”.  Our patience and parenting skills are definitely being challenged several times a day!

The poem I wrote to her on her Valentine for daycare follows:

Your smile is contagious; you’re smart and funny, too.
You may throw a lot of tantrums, but we always love you!

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!

And here are a couple others from the lake…