Day with the Brays: Birthday Bash part one

From now till the end of my life this will be a crazy time of the year for our family. Not only is it time to get the garden and yard planted and ready, but it is the celebration of birth/life for all three of our wonderful children. We definitely didn't plan to have 3 birthdays in 19 days (Paxton and Mason's are only 5 days apart), but we are getting used to crazy.

First we celebrated A's birthday on April 24th. It was an emotional day for me. We had envisioned her being home before her first birthday before all the craziness happened over there. It was tough knowing she was on the other side of the world probably unaware of what a special day it was. It made it worse that we still have no idea when she will be able to come home. The boys were at MDO for the morning so I cleaned the house and ran some errands. On the way to pick up the boys I got some stuff to make her cake as well as balloons. The balloons were in the car when it was time to get the boys. I should have made sure they were tied down better since it was a really windy day because the fancy silver one blew out Mason's door while he was getting in. He was devastated and took off running across the field trying to catch it, but the wind was blowing to hard and fast that day. I was so emotional that we both ended up crying over that balloon! Luckily Zac went and got another one on his way home.

Some of my sweet friends here had a beautiful flower bouquet delivered which was so thoughtful. On a positive note we found out Friday that our judge has FINALLY set our final court date! By the end of May she will officially be a Bray! She still won't be able to come home yet, but we are excited about some much needed progress.

Next up was Paxton's birthday. I can't believe he is 2! He has definitely started testing the boundaries and getting a mind/will of his own, but he is still my sweet baby. A few things about him....
He likes to take toys in bed. It often varies, but I'd say his favorite outside of stuffed animals is a yellow bus, ball, or Nerf gun.

Since A isn't here we still have Paxton sleeping in toddler bed instead of the bunk beds with Mason. Had I known she still wouldn't be home I would have waited longer to make the room all girly. Now that it's done I can't get myself to put it all away.

P has always been great about staying asleep in his bed, but last night we found him asleep like this at 10. Looks like he grabbed the nose sucker from the table and took it to bed with him.

He loves to say a prayer before every bedtime and meal. He has recently started saying them himself. His first independent prayer was "God, mommy, daddy, eesh (mason), Jesus, amen". He sleeps with a paci at night and for some weird reason he prefers the blue one.

The crazy thing is the blue one is really rough on the outside - either he or the dog chewed up part of it - but maybe that's why he loves it so much more than the others. He still loves sucking his fingers and twirling his hair (especially in his car seat or when he's being held). Another funny thing about Paxton is he just grew out of was knocking on his bedroom door. He's known how to open doors for a long time, but when he would wake up from nap or bedtime he would knock on the door until you opened it. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago that it dawned on him to open the door himself.
The past couple weeks he's finally started stringing words together. I feel like he was a little more delayed at speaking, but I know he understands what we are saying. Often Zac and I will be talking, and he will add in a word or two that relates to what we are saying. Up until last weekend (beginning of may), he still said "Lo" for water. I knew he could say water if I would have corrected him a long time ago, but I didn't because I thought it was cute. I wonder how long he will say "Eesh" before he figures out...I'm not going to say anything to him yet. A few more tidbits - he is great at puzzles, his favorite thing to watch is Frozen or Lilo and stitch, his favorite books are Napping House and Freight Train, and he loves to play in the dirt...actually both boys love to play in the dirt.

I haven't been as diligent about working with him on his numbers, letters, shapes, and colors like I was with Mason. He knows most of his colors and basic shapes, but he still gets mixed up counting to 10 and we've just barely touched on letters. I've got to be more intentional about including these things in our conversation. He is great at throwing and kicking balls, but somehow seems to trip a lot. My parent's put me in gymnastics for a year in elementary school because I was so clumsy...we may need to do that for Paxton. Mason seems to have the opposite problem. Other breaking news is that Paxton has pooped and peed in the potty all on his own this weekend! I haven't even tried potty training partly because he didn't seem at all interested in it and because I knew it was going to be a lot of work. I have been dreading spending all my time and energy tied to a potty and cleaning up accidents. Yesterday morning he said poo-poo twice, and both times I checked his diaper nothing was there. So I asked do you want to poop on the potty and he said yes. I ran to the attic to get the baby potty. (we have put him on the big potty several times before, but he doesn't really like it...I think it's hard for him to relax on it enough to do anything). I plopped the potty in the living room with the tv on. After a minute or two I went back into my room for something while he stayed there with my mom. Next thing I know I hear my mom cheering. Sure enough there was a huge poo in the little potty! We were gone much of the day, but when we were home he asked to get on the potty several times. It was always a minute too late...I could still feel the warmth in his diaper by the time he said it. This morning before church he mentioned it again. I was getting ready for church so Zac put him on there and he actually peed in the potty! So proud of my little guy! I am trying to get myself psyched up for the task because I should probably take advantage of his interest in it. Looks like it's time for pull-ups around here. For Paxton's birthday I let the boys pick out a special sugary cereal - Fruit loops- a snack for the party - cheese balls- and a box cake - strawberry. I didn't have the energy to make it from scratch this year, and they probably like this just as well. They definitely loved the fruit loops and cheese puffs since I don't typically buy junk food. That morning we went to some friends house for a birthday play date. It was a gorgeous day so they played in the sprinklers, kiddy pool, and painted.