Maxwell - Year 2

*Date of publication SHOULD have been 2018 - Whoops!*

Oh Maxwell.  You are my little ball of energy.  You have taught us that just because you are another Bravo boy, that you are very very different!  But there is not one part of you that we would change.

This year, you became a toddler - and like your brother - you like to be on the move!  You like to climb over things, under things, into things.  You enjoy playing in piles of pillows and blankets, and baskets full of stuffed animals.  You are starting to talk quite a bit and we love the inflection you put on your vocabulary.  You have inherited the color orange from your brother as your favorite at his urging.  You were showing a preference for the color yellow, but with Mason constantly reminding you to see how cool orange was, you both love it, and now fight over who gets the orange cup at dinner.  You love dinosaurs and like to roar like one.

Bath time is my time.  You like taking baths but you absolutely loathe bubble baths.  I don't know what the bubbles ever did to you, but they are not allowed in your bath for some reason!  At night, after the three of us (Mason, Daddy, and myself read you a story), Daddy sings you a song when you climb into bed.  You frequently have a specific song request.

You like to watch Muppet Babies... your favorite character is Fozzy Bear.  You also like to color and do homework (scribble in coloring books) when Mason is working on his.  You like playing rough with lightsabers but also with anything soft and cuddly.

You are not a picky eater, but your favorite food is tomatoes.  You are the king of the power grab- always swiping food off of either mine or Daddy's plates.  You are doing fantastic with a bowl and spoon and regularly have a bowl of cereal with Daddy for breakfast.

You are a spunky little one, our little Maxwell James.  You are every bit as fantastic as we thought that you would be.

Mason - Year 7

Mason.  Masonator.  Masonhead.  Maseman.  Mase.  M1.  You have so many nicknames kiddo.  You still continue to amaze us as you grow.

I feel like this year you have changed so much - sometimes I look at you and you seem so grown up.  I'm losing count of how many teeth you have lost in the last year.  I know that you have lost 8 total.

You love to learn and are a stellar reader.  We always knew that you loved reading and your Dad enjoys taking you and your brother to the library most Fridays to pick out more books to read.  We have already finished all of the Captain Underpants books and you also enjoy Mo Willems and the Junie B. Jones series.  You are such a fantastic reader that you are already reading at a fourth grade reading level and your principal invited you (and only you out of your entire school) to showcase your reading skills in front of a bunch of adults at a district board meeting!  You are a great little mathematician and enjoy doing science projects.  You have a brain like your Dad.  In fact, just yesterday you were asking me questions about colleges to help you decide where you want to go!

You are a phenomenal big brother.  You love your little brother and sister so much.  When we first brought Ellie Sue home this year, you would get upset if you didn't get to hold her.  You love to love them and help them to learn.  You and Maxwell just started to share a room this year - a transition that your Dad and I thought would be difficult and met with some resistance - but you guys have adjusted pretty flawlessly.  We can hear you guys being silly saying, "good night" to each other with silly voices through the walls and every morning, we can hear you great each other with a, "good morning" before you come in together to say hi to Daddy and I.  You like to show them how to do things and are doing a great job of setting a good example for both of them.

This year you have gotten into video games and music.  You play Sonic the Hedgehog and Daddy even pulled out the old Wii game for you guys to play.  Along with your books on loan from the library, you have also started renting old games to play.  Your favorite band right now is Imagine Dragons, but you also enjoy OK Go and have also started requesting music that I have told you that I favored when I was younger.  I can hear you singing when you are getting ready for your school day and your brother is starting to pick up on doing it too!

You have imagination.  On a whim, you decided that our family was going to have a movie night at home.  You wrote out and addressed an invitation to us and pretended to set up a projector in our family room.  We decided to get into it too - I bought some popcorn and movie snacks, Daddy bought a movie we could all watch together, and we wrote the movie night on your calendar in your room.  Before the official showing, you even made an announcement to please turn off our electronic devices and enjoy the show.

You are a lot like your Dad, but you and I also have a lot in common too.  You like bath bombs and bubble baths.  You and I like to look at model homes together - and it's something special for just me and you.  You like to take photos with my old camera.  Every now and then, you ask me to cuddle - something that I am cherishing and take advantage of as often as I can.  I know that as you get bigger, you probably won't ask me as often.

You like to say that everything is your favorite.  We have to remind you that it's not possible for everything to be your favorite but you insist that it is.

Seven years old now.  Wow.  We love you Mason!