Braxton is 7!

{August 28th}

I can't believe my baby is 7 years old!

He is the coolest kid!!

He really is the best big brother.

Him and Everett are really close and play so well together most of the time.

Of course they push each others buttons and drive each other crazy too, but they really are the best little friends and it makes my mama heart so happy!

They play together with the other neighborhood friends and such good little buddies.

Braxton is also close with Grayson and is such a good helper when I need him to be!

He always does what I ask when I need help entertaining, distracting or helping Grayson with something.

He usually drives Grayson crazy because he is always trying to hug, snuggle and love on him.

He loves all sports any anything active.

He's tried soccer, baseball, basketball and skiing.  And of course did so great swimming this summer too.

He passed the swim test and loved the freedom to do whatever he wanted in the big pool.

He also loves to ride his bike and scooter around the neighborhood with friends and got pegs for his bike for his birthday.

Brian came up with it and the boys thought it was the coolest thing ever.

He is so dang smart!

Of course we knew that... but now his teachers are confirming it and we are so proud of him!

He had the best year last year in kinder and he tested at a really high reading level at the end of the year.

His first grade teacher did not believe his score/level and said she doesn't even test that high at the end of first grade.  She did her own independent reading testing the first couple of weeks of school and we just got a note home that she also tested him at the middle of second grade levels (like he tested in Kinder)

He is starting to love reading now that we are getting some more fun/interesting books.

He just got the Magic Tree House series from my parents for his birthday and he's loving them so far!

He is friends with everyone and has the kindest heart.

We really emphasize the importance of being kind of everyone at school and including someone if they dont have any other friends. 

Coming off last year, he loved all the girls in his class but had such a fun little group of best buds with all the boys.

We had a swimming party for his birthday again this year and he wanted to invite all the boys from his class, plus Caden and Caleb.

He also loves to play games!

We feel bad that we never get a chance to play with him very often because Grayson totally ruins anything we start to play.  We have to wait until he's napping or in bed, which doesn't give us a very big window.

He loves checkers, Monopoly (he is in it until the end!), Uno, Qwirkle, Sorry, Guess Who and we've just started to teach him to play Yahtzee.

He loves to be comfortable and chooses basketball/athletic shorts and a t-shirt any day he gets to pick. (or his new Rockies jersey)

He's good about wearing what I pick out when its my day and he's very hung up on the scheduled days we have assigned. 

He also has been wearing through his tennis shoes at an alarming rate!  He's almost busted through the toe of his new Nike's I got him a month ago!

He's been loving 1st grade so far and we are so happy with his new school and his teacher.

He lucked out and has his best bud, Parker, in his class which has helped a lot.

But he loves to come home and tell us about everything their doing in PE, Music, Recess, etc.

He loves riding the school bus and begs to ride more than just once a week.

(we'll see how it is when we move into our new school in a few weeks)

He also loves to buy hot lunch.

He is our early riser and a morning person!

He pops out of bed on his own around 6:30 most days and even if we have to wake him up, he is quick to wake and almost always in a good mood in the mornings.

He has started to get an appetite!

Our boys have almost always ate like birds until now and now he's definitely eating a lot more.

He'll eat a bowl of cereal and 3 Eggs waffles for breakfast, no problem in the morning.

He's not as into cartoon or animated movies anymore and really loves movies with real people in them now.  I feel like there aren't really many good ones that are recent so we've been showing him all of the movies from our childhood.  A few favorites are The Sandlot, Angels in the Outfield, and Little Giants.

For his actual birthday, we celebrated with donuts in the morning.

Donuts for his treat at school.

And a fun dinner out with Papa to Mt Fuji to try Hibachi for the first time.

He is our most adventurous eater and of course loved the whole experience.

He is still our most sensitive one and really eats up one on one attention.
We're working hard on getting more of that in this year with all of the boys now that Grayson is a little older.  He bursts into tears if we yell at him and our biggest problem with misbehaving is basically just not listening.  He is such a good boy.

I don't think he'll ever know how obsessed we are with him.
We are so dang proud of you, Nug Bug!!