Braxton :: 6 1/2 years

{February 28th}

I feel like Braxton has moved into the 'big kid' stage and out of the little kid stage and it makes me so sad that it happened so quick.  I also feel like we've had to spend so much energy and attention on Everett and and Grayson the last year that we blinked and we missed it.

He is such a smarty pants and is doing so awesome in school!

His kindergarten teachers really are so amazing and his experience this year will probably never be topped.

After Christmas, they've basically been doing a 1st grade curriculum and his teacher has already warned us that he will be bored to tears next year when he is actually in 1st grade.

He is reading and writing and doing additional and subtraction math problems in his head.

Besides the incredible detail and time spent on academics, his class does so much extra stuff that is so dang fun.  

They put on a 'Parisian Coffee House' for their spring Readers Theater where they decorated a legit coffee shop to look like Paris, had all the kids wear all black and then all they each got up and read a book in front of all the parents.  They made a huge Chinese dragon and put on a parade around the school for Chinese New Year and then had a Chinese feast with chopsticks and tons of fun traditional Chinese foods.  They've put on incredible performances for Veterans Day and their Turkey Trot, 100 days of Kindergarten, a Grinch week and of course the Christmas program.  It's just been such an amazing year for him and its gonna be hard for all of of when its over.  

He is such a morning person... probably the only one in the family, ha!

He isn't a light sleeper but is so sensitive in the morning if he thinks Brian is leaving for work or hears him upstairs and pops out of bed.

He almost always wakes up on his own before 7 am and will usually get completely dressed before he even comes upstairs.  

We take turns picking out clothes because of course he wants to wear t-shirts, shorts and hoodies every day.  And if we didn't alternate, he wouldn't wear most of the things in his closet.

He is such a good boy most of the time and our only real hiccup is when he doesn't listen very well to us.

He uses manners and almost always helps with his little brothers.

He is just easy and agreeable almost all of the time.

The only time he has breakdowns is when he's just exhausted.  And we'll see it sometimes at the end of the week/weekend when we've been busy.

He doesn't really throw fits, but just gets emotional and the most random thing can put him in tears.

He's lost 3 teeth so far.
His front 2 on bottom and 1 of his top front teeth.
The other one front one on top is a little wiggly.

I think he's been going through a growth spurt because he's had such a big appetite lately.

He isn't very picky about foods and will usually eat anything we make for dinner.

But he's starting to eat a lot!

He'll put down 3 Eggos and a bowl of cereal for breakfast no problem.

He's still not really into any veggies and only a select few fruits, but he'll usually try or eat them if we ask him to.

He is a rule follower and a people pleaser.

And it puts him in tears if we even yell at him.

He is a good friend and can play with anyone and everyone. 

He isn't shy to go up and meet new people and has become such a leader.

A few weeks ago he told me he has a girlfriend at school now... Emma.

That they were dating now.

When I asked him what it meant to date, he said just that they were gonna get married.

Of course Emma is the sweetest little thing, but I think it has more to do with several of his friends having 'girlfriends' and not that he really cares about girls in any way, ha.

He played basketball this winter and improved so much from the first couple of weeks.

He hasn't shown to have the natural competitive sports instinct yet.

But he got really into practicing and definitely got better each week.  

He loves to play everything so we'll just see how it goes as he gets older.

We're doing spring soccer again with his usual team and we also just signed him up for a baseball league this summer.

We just had his first soccer game and can tell he's a lot more engaged and involved than he's been before so maybe its just taken him a little while to get going.

He also still loves riding bikes ands scooters and swimming and playing a pickup game of just about anything in the front yard with neighbor friends.

He's also been in ski lessons again this year and has been rocking those as well.

He's only gone up twice, but was cruising down greens and blues his second lesson.

We've got 1 more lesson and then Brian is going to try and take him for for just a ski day with him.

He's been loving it and we literally have to tear him away from the hill at the end of the day when its starting to close down.

He has started to get bored with cartoon movies and loves to watch movies with real people in them now.

I feel like they don't make good family friendly movies like they did when we were young so we've been showing him some from our childhood.

He's seen Richie Rich, the Sandlot, Home Alone, the Little Giants and Little Rascals and has loved them all.

Sandlot and Little Giants are his favorites so far.

The Sandlot is really his only exposure to baseball so far and the other day he went to change to play baseball out back.  He came up in jeans, a t-shirt, a short sleeve button up shirt (unbuttoned) and his baseball hat because that is what Benny wears to play baseball.

He's been working so hard at memorizing his bible versus for Awanas and just finished the first book.

I really think he is just good at memorizing.

But he got so into it and was super proud when he finished.

He did really well with the books of the New Testament on his own but then Nana taught him little song and that is all we listened to for about 3 weeks.