My Braden

My Braden has grown up so much this first year of school! 

First day of school 2011.

He is 6 years old and such a little man already.  Lately, I've been thinking back to some of his wonderful random thoughts and B-isms that I don't want to forget.  Like Mary, I'll try to treasure these things up in my heart and ponder them (Luke 2:19).  Here are a few:

Shortly after he started Kindergarten, B asked to take a shower instead of his usual bath.  J helped him out.  They used the stand up in J's bathroom.  After his shower, he said he also wanted to sleep with his shirt off, like Dad.  He told me he wanted to practice his "big boy stuff."  When I tucked him into bed, I told him he smelled good and he said it was his "man shampoo."

I planned a mom and B day right before school started. We went to dinner and shopped for his backpack and school supplies.  While we finished up dessert, my baby looked across the table and said to me,

"This is not a date, Mom."

This past summer, B got a pretty good tan from playing in our pool.  After bath one night he was running around and stopped in front of our full length mirror and said,

"My back looks like peanuts, and my butt looks like clouds!"

Flip phone picture, sorry, but this is B wearing a travel pillow as hair.

After running up and down the stairs a few times and me asking what on earth he was doing, he replied,

"Sometimes when I can't remember what I was going to say, I go back upstairs to find my remembery.  Then I come back down and try again."

Being goofy at the Easter egg hunt, or "Easter Egg Gather" as he calls it since we don't really go find hidden eggs.  They are in a field to be gathered.

More recently while we were saying prayers before bed,
"Mom, when I die, can anything die with me?"
Me, "Like what, honey?"
B, "Like Rupert.  I want Rupert to come to heaven with me."

I also explained to him in that same conversation that when we get old, our bodies wear out and when we die, we can leave that body behind and go up to heaven and have perfect bodies with no sickness or sin, just like Jesus.

B, "So Tyler won't have his cold and I will have all my teeth!"

After watching The Three Stooges,

"Mommy, was real life in black and white before color was invented?"

He had his first Kindergarten program last night at school.  The kids did awesome!  I couldn't get very good pictures there because the lighting in the old gym is awful and I was pretty far away.  Over and out of the capacity of my point and shoot camera.  He had a solo and everything!  I'm so proud of him!

My Braden.  What a character.  I love his sense of humor (a 6 yr old who has mastered the art of sarcasm is scary funny!), his creativity, his friend-making ability, his big brother skills, his love of books, his kindness toward others, his interest in basketball (already!), and his great questions about Jesus.  I can't wait to see what kind of little man he grows up to be.  And I am enjoying every stage along the way. 

But he will always be my baby.