Braden's 2nd Birthday

They're growing up too fast. My baby isn't a baby anymore. He was such a tiny little guy, and we were so excited and happy when he arrived.

He still has this same look of seriousness.

The funny thing though is he really isn't that serious of a kid. He's rambunctious and often

obnoxious. He loves to repeat everything Jackson says and ignore everything Trapper and I say...unless we accidentally say something that SHOULDN'T be repeated. He smiles and laughs all the time and says "hello" to anyone who happens to walk by. And he loves to be loud.

For his birthday dinner we had BBQ chicken pizza and then we took him bowling, but I forgot the camera's memory card in the computer, so you'll just have to imagine it. We really like to bowl. The kids have a bowling set at home and will set it up and practice their skills every now and then. Jackson's pretty good at it. He can throw his own ball and at one point, he was ahead of me!! I started to pick up my game after a bit though. I couldn't let my 3 year old son beat me. haha Braden enjoyed throwing the ball too, but as soon as he'd throw it, he'd run and jump off the step and then go running up the stairs. He didn't care what happened to his ball or how many pins he hit. He ran and jumped off steps the whole time. After this, we went to Toys'Rus. We looked at some toys and decided to buy him a drum. He really likes the Dora episode about Boots' special day and how he gets to play in the drum parade. He likes to say "Boom-ba! Boom-ba! Boom-ba!" Then we picked out a new magnetic doodle pad for him. We have another one but it's been stepped on a few times and was looking pretty shabby. We also found a Cleveland Indians' hat on sale, so we got that too. Now all the boys in the family have one.

Once we came home, we opened presents and ate chocolate cake with ice cream! Yummy.

I'd have to say his favorite presents were the drum and his hat. He opened up the drum first and he couldn't care less about the other presents. We let Jackson open up the rest. He looks kind of upset in these pictures, but he was actually really happy. Maybe he was in the middle of singing a song.

Happy Birthday, Braden. You are finally two years old, even though you've certainly acted that way since you were 18 months old. You know how to get your way and you know how to melt our hearts. We love you so much, buddy.