Books and Reading

Braxton likes to read and he will sit and "read" books by himself. His very favorite books are:

1. Moo, Baa, La La La! - by Sandra Boynton
2. God Gave – by Charlotte Stowell
3. Trucks Around Town – by Tonka (Illustrated by Thomas LaPadula)
4. Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (he got this for Christmas and it quickly became a favorite)

Below are two videos of him "reading".  In the first video he is naming things in the photos (trees, house, sun, bike, butterfly, birdies, ducks, flower) and in the second video he is "reading" a novel without photos so he just says "abc's" and points to the words (this second video has a special not-so-subtle "goodbye daddy" part too because reading was interupted when Braxton heard Brock going outside).

Singing

Braxton has been singing a lot lately.  Here are two new videos featuring the hit songs:  "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Jingle Bells."

A little update

1. Yesterday Braxton's daycare teacher told me that he is doing great identifying the colors and he counted to 23 by himself.  She said, "He is a very smart kid!"
2. Then the teacher told me that Braxton was playing with puppets and was overheard saying "damn it!"  Sadly...he said it 3 times.  Oh dear.  He is smart, but he also repeats things like a parrot.   
3. If you ask Braxton "how much does it cost?"  He will say, "Eight dollars" or sometimes he says "eight dollars -- yay!" (video below).
4. Braxton has strep throat. We got him antibiotics last night.  This morning he apparently is starting to feel better because he was shouting into the bathroom mirror after his bath (video below).



Professional Photos

Today we went to JC Penny to have Braxton's official 2 year old photos taken. Here are the photos from the photo shoot.  Isn't he cute?!!!

 

Remote Control Car

Braxton's fever broke yesterday and he is feeling much better!.  Today he has been playing with the remote control car he got from Avery for his birthday.  The car is very cool with just one button to push so it is easy for him to operate.

 

Braxton & Cash

Last weekend we had brunch with my friend Liberty and her son Cash.  The boys are only 3 weeks apart and their personalities are VERY different.  Cash is very shy and Braxton is very outgoing.  Cash barely lifted his head to look up because he was being so shy.  Braxton sat in a highchair and said "hi" to every single person that walked past our table.  It was interesting to watch how different their personalities are (you can see in the photos that Cash was acting very shy and Braxton is talking like a monkey).

 

 

He's a Model!

This week Aunt Dor used Braxton as a model for her Valentine's Day 2011 border design at work.  Our little Chippendale is a real model!

But in reality Braxton has been sick the last 4 days with high fevers.  We've been taking lots of baths to keep the fever down.

....so I thought it was fitting to start teaching Braxton the song "Trouble" by Ray LaMontagne.  He's a bit quiet in this video, but normally he sings it out loud. 

The Birthday Party

Braxton's 2 year old birthday bash was a success!

The guests:  Avery (with her parents Travis and Lauren) and Ruby (with her parents Chris and Erin)

The menu: raisins, mandarin oranges, ritz crackers, grapes, goldfish crackers, and juice boxes (with pizza and chicken wings as the main dish) followed by brownies and ice cream.

The craft activities: playing with pipe cleaners and using markers to decorate tamborines.
The gift bags contained animal crackers, a juice box, lotion, and the tamborine that each girl decorated at the party (it made me happy to put these gift bags together and they looked cute with the "thanks for coming" photo of Braxton).

 

 

These are the Happy Birthday Brownies that I made (not to be confused with the 2-layer cake that I baked, decorated, and ruined earlier in the day) .  These brownies were yummy.

The birthday boy:

Ruby, Avery, and Braxton

Playing with pipe cleaners and tamborines:

The most popular food at the party = grapes!

Opening presents:

Hugs for everyone:

Two videos from the Birthday Party:

The party was a smashing success.  The biggest incident of the night came after the party was over.  Braxton was running around downstairs and tripped.  His head dented a corner of the wall and chipped off some paint.  Braxton is fine but the wall is not (photo below).  Brock sumarized by saying, "unfortunately Braxton has his mother's grace and his father's smarts." 

a birthday video

Here is a video we took on Braxton's birthday as he opened a present.

   

Birthday Night

We started off the evening with our family tradition of having chocolate milk and graham crackers (a flashback to the 12 days we spent at the hospital when Braxton was born where we were given unlimited chocolate milk and graham crackers).

Then we had dinner and Braxton opened two presents from mom and dad:  two big-boy plates with pictures on the bottom and a new hat!

We looked at the birthday cards:

We opened presents:  featured in the photos are a new leather coat, a stuffed Turtle, a stuffed Elmo, and a frog bath towel (he received many presents of love from his aunts).  

Then I dressed him up in the leather coat and hat and took some photos with Elmo and Turtle! 

Then just before bedtime Turtle and Elmo were introduced to Grover and the Grinch.  Making one big happy stuffed family!

 

TWO YEARS OLD

Today is Braxton's second birthday!

FAVORITE THINGS: Braxton loves brushing his teeth.  He loves to sing.  He loves jumping off of things. He loves running, yelling, and playing outside!

FAVORITE FOODS:  Ketchup, pizza, mandarin oranges, bananas, grapes, goldfish crackers, popcorn, chips, ramen noodles, juice.  He will nibble an occasional baby carrot but still eats mostly pureed vegetables.  Sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash are his favorite veggies.

TALKING:  He counts to 20 and says his ABC's.  He is starting to correctly name a few letters and numbers and he can identify colors correctly about 70% of the time.   The first color that he could identify was "black". If he doesn't know what color something is he always guesses "GREEN".  He loves to be a helper and he asks "Braxton helping?" when he wants to help you cut a sandwich or wash his highchair. Some of the newest phrases that he says these days are: “I’m sorry about that”, “Yay, I did it!” and “Thank you SO MUCH”. He’s also becoming quite a negotiator and says things like, “No nap? Okay, no nap!”

QUIRKY:  It is football season now and Brock likes to yell during touchdowns in a good football game.  Braxton doesn't understand football and used to get scared at the seemingly random cheering.  Brock has had to adjust his football viewing a bit.  Now whenever there is a touchdown Brock claps his hands and says "yay, happy clapping" and then Braxton claps his hands over and over and says "happy clapping, happy clapping".  Then Brock says, "yay touchdown!" and Braxton repeats "yay touchdown!" With these minor adjustments Braxton now enjoys a good football game (but his favorite part of football is sitting with Brock and eating popcorn).

CUTE:  Braxton likes animals and likes practicing what different things say (recent stumper questions: what does a giraffe say?  what does a turtle say?).  Last night his conversation went like this:                
                  What does a horse say?  Nay.
                  What does a donkey say?  Eee aww.  Eee aww.
                  What does a pig say?  Oinky.
                  What does a monkey say?  Oo, oo, ee, ee
                  What does daddy say?  I love you.
                  What does mommy say?  I love you.
                  What does Braxton say?  I love you.

2 year old check-up

Braxton visited the doctor today for his two year old doctor appointment.   Braxton weighs 27 pounds 1 ounce (62% of the kids his age are heavier than him) and is 34.5 inches tall (46% of the kids his age are taller than him).  He had three shots today (we gave Brax the MMR shot on a "delayed schedule" so he got that shot today).  One other item to note...Brax grinds his teeth in his sleep so within the next year he will have a dentist check-up.

At age two there is a formula to predict how tall Braxton will be as an adult.  For all you math geeks here is the formula (for the rest of you--just skip down to the underlined part!):  Take the 2 year old height (34.5 inches) x 2 = 69. Average this number with adult height of mom (67 inches) and adult height of dad (74 inches) add 5 for a boy or subtract 3 for a girl and round to the nearest inch (72 inches).  The calculation tells us that Braxton will be exactly 6 feet tall.  

And - I leave you with a cute photo from bath time today!

Photo Shoot

Braxton's birthday is next week - so today we had a photo shoot.