Happy Birthday Braden!

Braden's birthday always catches me off guard.  It sneaks up on me and I don't feel like I've recovered from Christmas before it hits me that I've got to do some shopping for him.  I can't believe he's 5!  Where has the time gone?  Unfortunately, we were still recovering from a bout of sickness and he was a still a little under the weather on his birthday so we just stayed home and played games and watched some movies.  But we had a lot of fun.

What a sweet heart he is.  I love him to pieces.

Every year I make pancakes for them on their birthdays.  This year was no exception.  Braden loves to blow out candles so he loves it when I stick one in his pancake.  It always starts the birthday morning off right and gets them excited. 

I have also made cakes for my kids in the past and they remember.  This year Braden wanted a Darth Vader cake for a long time, then the day before his birthday he changed his mind to a Mario cake, which quickly turned into a Mario and Luigi cake.  No big deal mom, just whip something up.  I'm not the most creative person in the world, so I'm always impressed with the way the cakes turn out. At least for me it's good and my kids love it. Dalin helped me with Braden's name.

What could his present possibly be?  He has been begging for a new bike ever since last summer.  He has a bike that works perfectly fine, but since Dalin had outgrown his old bike Grandma Anne got him a much needed new one.  Braden then took the smaller one to learn to ride without training wheels.  He mastered that on his own.  He just willed himself to do it because he doesn't really understand that he's younger than Dalin and has to try to keep up.  So once he mastered the art of bike riding he wanted a new bike just like Dalin's.  I kept telling him his bike would work for at least another year but he insisted it wasn't big enough.  He is all about the bigger the better.  He would even jump on Dalin's bike while he was at school just to show me that he could ride it and to prove that he needed a bigger one.  So we broke down and got him one for his birthday.  Now, I guess we'll put the training wheels back on the little bike for Landon.

Happy birthday.

Opening some other gifts.  Thanks to all the grandparents who sent such great gifts (or money for such great gifts)! 

He was so happy about his bike, but unfortunately when your birthday's in January you don't get to ride it because there's two feet of snow on the ground.

When I asked him which part of the cake he wanted to eat he said Luigi, so I started cutting, thinking I would give him the head.  "No!  I need all of him."  So, I figured what the heck and gave him all of Luigi. 

This worked for Dalin, who then requested all of Mario.

Landon just wanted to eat cake.

Loves his new bike!  He said over and over, "mom I love you for getting my new bike"  I had to remind him it wasn't just from me :)

Here's my baby boy!  He's growing up so fast, but he'll always be my baby boy.

Some things about Braden:

1. He loves to bug people and to be bugged by people.  Namely, poking, tickling, getting in your face, sticking a finger in your ear, etc. I have to make sure and bug him at least twice a day.  He sometimes gets on Dalin's nerves with the amount of bugging.

2. He has the sweetest smile.

3. He loves to be Landon's little daddy, and makes sure he doesn't get into any mischief.

4.  His favorite food of all time is spaghetti.

5. He loves to give hugs.

6. He is very active and loves sports (especially basketball), riding bikes, riding scooters, and anything else active he can find.

7.  He's very good at basketball and can shoot a small ball and make it into a hoop at normal height.  He can also dribble the ball exceptionally well for a 5 year old. 

8.  He loves his grandmas and talks about them daily.