Brayden turned 2 on January 30th, we really do love this little guy. The time has passed so quickly. He spent the Sunday before his birthday at our house and we decided to give him his birthday present. We got him a bull to ride on. It took him a little while to warm up to it. He is still a little small for it, but that will change all too soon.
Saturday was his birthday party at Party Central in Benton. There were several people who came to celebrate with us. We got a chance to visit with Frankie and her daughter Reese.
Brayden seem to really enjoy himself. He played in all of the blow-up toys. Sean and Brayden played basketball.
Sean's dad and mom along with his sister and her husband came down from Rhode Island to join the fun. Heather and John went down the slide together.
There were plenty of large blow-up toys to play in. I think this is a train station. It has a small obstacle course in it. Brayden didn't stay in any one place for too long. He was very excited.
The theme of the party was Yo Gabba Gabba. Brayden really likes this show. Tabitha made a cake and some decorations for the party room.
We sang happy birthday and Brayden actually blew out his own candle!
Everyone enjoyed cake and ice cream. Yum!
Now for the presents ....
Happy birthday little man, we love you lots!
Brayden enjoyed checking-in on the bluebird box so much last summer (3 clutches raised in it) that he insisted we build more bird boxes for this summer. So we worked one day over my winter break building these boxes. We built one more bluebird box and put it on this fence post in the backyard because bluebirds like open spaces. We also built two bird boxes and attached them to different sides of my storage building. These should attract some wrens or sparrows, I would think. The wood came from a student of mine who brought me a truckload of various lengths of rough-sawn lumber. It had boards of cedar, cypress, hickory, and pine. We also have one bird box made from an apple-shaped gourd, but we will wait to put it out until later. 
