July

I have a cousin on my mom's side, Melanie, who owns a small horse stable. She has started giving riding/horse care lessons to young kids. She just has ponies, some small and some larger. It is a nice place and she is great with the kids. My mom arranged for us to go there while Alex was visiting. She signed Kagen up for an hour lesson and then Alex was supposed to get to get a little ride on the horse. Kagen LOVED every bit of it and even held Braden and let him take a short ride, but Alex would have nothing to do with the horses. There was however a little goat that Alex made friends with. He was scared at all of the aggressive goat, but was terrified of the gentle ponies. So funny!
















One Saturday Tammie, Payten, Papa, and Carol came to Stamford to visit for the day. Kagen was so happy to see them of course, especially Payten. They played and played while Zach cooked two great meals for us all.

Papa and Braden taking a little snooze

Papa reading "Corduroy" to Kagen


One of Zach's good friends from Lockney (an administrator in Floydada), bought a little lake house at Lake Stamford. One weekend when he was in town, we took the boys out to see him and went out on the lake with him while the men fished and checked their jugs. It was such a peaceful night on the lake and the sunset was beautiful. Braden got real sick of his life jacket, so we took it off and let him crawl around and play in the bottom of the boat. Kagen just wanted the boat to go fast all of the time. Poor kid, we haven't taken our boat out all summer.




While we were waiting at the marina for Mac to come pick us up, I tried to get a few pictures of Braden while Kagen played on the playground. Everytime I got set to take a picture, he would start eating rocks!


Kagen, Braden, and Tristan (a friend's daughter) at VBS

Braden and Kagen with Carol and Norma (VBS teachers)

Braden turned 9 months old this month. His check up went great! He is still much smaller than his brother was by 2 lbs and 1". He weighed 19 lbs 4 oz and was 28.5" long. He loves his brother so much and tries to do everything he does. Braden doesn't want to play in his own room with his baby toys. Instead, he is always in Kagen's room playing cars and trucks, or following him around the house. Kagen is so happy that Braden tries to play with him now.

We are still feeding Braden the same that we were at 8 months, but he gets table food after his baby food at each meal. Here is a picture of him eating a waffle one morning! We've hardly found anything he won't eat.

Kagen pushing Braden around in the car. Fun game!