Braxton is 11 Months old!

Wow... I can't believe how FAST Braxton is growing up!! He'll turn 1 in less than a month!



Braxton is now:

* really into independence... self feeding, drinking, playing with toys, turning pages of books etc.

* is learning to say "words" he now can communicate "bbbb" for bite (anything food related or hungry) and "dooo" for drink. He also says "ba ba" for bottle. He religiously calls me dada... and seems content with this. I, however, am not a fan.

* he crawls SO fast and has been cruising for a while now. He is finally starting to take about 6 steps by himself... and could take more if he didn't get chicken. I think he'll be walking by his birthday. And he can't wait... Quincy's always teasing him by taking toys and running away.

* has quite the personality! He likes to snuggle, but ONLY with me. He loves rough housing with his brother and dad. He hates it when someone takes a toy away from him and resorts to biting. We're trying to break this habit by taking him away from the situation and saying 'no biting'.

* LOVES bath time! In fact you can find him practically zooming down the hallway when he hears the water running in the tub.

* he's working on his molars, which has been fun... and so there's lots of drooling around our house.

* he is in LOVE with Quincy. Anything Quincy says or does is funny. (With the exception of taking toys he's playing with.)

Braxton is such a sweet boy and extremely mild tempered, it's so hard to believe my baby will be 1 so soon... I will get his stats on here after his next appt. :)

Family Game Night

Just so you know... Grandma Teesy and Grandpa Kent... we have been putting our new kids' games to good use! Quincy loves playing them... the only one who gets upset is Braxton because he wants to suck on the pieces.

Heavenly Father Answers Prayers...

About two weeks ago I had the opportunity to teach Quincy about the power of prayer.

As a mother I know that this is one of my greatest and sole responsibilities, to teach my children the best things, to help them gain strong testimonies of the gospel, and prepare them on their way back to our Heavenly father. However, there are days when I'm tired, stressed, worn out, or other wise preoccupied with the everyday tasks of motherhood.

I suppose one of the greatest tricks the devil uses on mothers is distraction. Most days I'm distracted by my children, other days I'm distracted by my household responsibilities, and there are days still when I'm distracted by my church callings and so forth.... The majority of these things aren't necessarily terrible things, but the sum of all of them leads me further from the MOST important things I should be focusing on, like my children's spiritual welfare. I often get caught up in the little details of running my home that I forget to consciously make an effort to SEARCH for opportunities to teach my children gospel principles in the home.

I did, however, manage to remember this goal of mine two weeks ago. It was one of those days where I was stressed to the max and totally burnt out! The boys were wearing me down slowly, but surely as the day progressed. I hadn't slept at all that night and Tyler didn't get home until late in the evening. My boys were so spoiled this year at Christmas, they got so many new toys and I have been stressing the importance of taking care of ALL of our new things (toys included) so we can continue to enjoy and play with them.

Well in the late evening of this particular day Quincy was supposed to be picking up his toys in his room while I was making dinner so we could eat when Tyler came home from work. He ran into the kitchen to inform me he couldn't find 2 of the clock pieces from the wooden clock he got from Christmas. I told him to look harder. So he went back in his room only to come out once more and inform me he STILL couldn't find the pieces. Finally, exasperated I said, "Fine! I'll look." And look I did.... and FIND I didn't! I was frustrated that he had been careless enough to lose these pieces to a toy he JUST got for Christmas. After taking a short minute to check dinner I had the prompting that this situation was a teaching opportunity.

I gathered Quincy into his room and we knelt together on the floor, folding our arms and bowing our heads. I explained to him: "Quincy, we don't know where the pieces are and we've looked everywhere for them, but Heavenly Father knows EVERYTHING and he can help us find them." I asked Quincy to help me with the prayer and together with my sweet 3 year old son we gave the most simplest of prayers: "Heavenly Father, we are thankful for our new toys. We're thankful for our home. Please help us to know where to look so we can find the pieces to our new toy. Amen."

After we finished praying I could feel the spirit resume back inside my heart, as previous to the prayer I was feeling quite frustrated. I said to Quincy, "First we need to think about where we were playing with the toy and then Heavenly Father will help us find the missing pieces." So Quincy retraced his steps with me and then I had a small prompting to look inside a toy tractor and as I did I found the missing pieces.

I pulled them out and said, "LOOK Quincy!" His eyes were huge, his smile was full and he exclaimed with the most happiest heart, "Heavenly Father helped us find the missing pieces!"

It was a moment as a mother I will treasure forever... the feelings I felt and the testimony I was able to witness in my 3 year old son's eyes that Heavenly Father ANSWERS prayers.


I can only hope that as my boys age their testimonies will continue to grow and as their mother I will be able to search out for those important teaching moments.

January Catch Up!

We haven't been up to much lately... all the holiday festivities kind of wore us out! I've also been slacking on taking pictures.... so my camera isn't filled with new fun stuff (in fact I still have Christmas and even Halloween stuff on there!) However, I will post a few new pics on here for you all who still read. :)

The boys are professional wrestlers with each other now and it seems that I'm always breaking up fights! They DO have fun play wrestling most of the time, but there are occasional moments where one or both end up in tears. Boys will be boys, right?