Happy Birthday Braeden

My baby boy turned 5 on the 26th!! He's been very excited for his birthday since Carsen had his back in August. Here are some pictures to reminisce and to remember what Braeden looked like on each of his birthdays.

I remember his actual birth day very well. Since he was actually due on Thanksgiving day, Jason and I decided to do our "Thanksgiving" a few days early, in order to trick him into coming . . . in our crazy minds we thought, "Well, if we have turkey, he might think that TODAY is Thanksgiving and come a little early." Either he just decided to come when he did, or it worked! The next day, I went into labor. Twenty-four hours later, we had our first beautiful baby boy.

This year, Braeden's big gift from us was a new bike. There's a whole story that goes with it that I normally wouldn't tell, but I'm trying to use this as my "family journal" hoping that someday I'll be able to print all this mess out.

I bought his bike online. When it arrived, some of the staples had popped open, so Jason was saying that he needed to look at it to make sure all the parts were there. Life has been a little crazy with the new dog, sick kids, sick Mommy and Daddy and Thanksgiving, and Jason and I completely forgot to put his bike together Tuesday night in order for him to have it on Wednesday. During the day on Wednesday, I thought I would be brave and open up the box and start putting it together while the boys were watching a movie and Gav was down for a nap.

Upon opening the box, I immediately noticed it was missing a pedal, the training wheels, and the seat . . . some important parts if you ask me! I was trying to figure out what to do without becoming too stressed! How was I going to get it back to the store AND get a new one without Braeden knowing what it was? Somehow I managed, thanks to the help of a wonderful employee who disguised the box for me!! Not without 20 questions from the birthday boy about what was in the big box. We had guesses ranging from chickens, soccer balls, and ice cream cones, to a bike (oops, had to lie a little on that one), a bed and a car! Gotta love little guys!

Here he is, seeing his bike for the first time:

"Give me your biggest cheese grin, Braeden."

Braeden is such a big boy now. His newest accomplishment is starting to sound out words. We didn't start with something like C-A-T or D-O-G, we started with P-A-S-S-E-N-G-E-R . . . go figure it would have something to do with trains!

Happy Birthday to our BaaBoo!!