Losing Time and Catching Up

It's been a long time. I originally stopped posting because my job had me so physically and mentally exhausted that I just had no time to post. But since then I have a new job. My new position is not a cake walk either, but it does allow me to leave work at work (for the most part) which has allowed me more time with Braysen. I have been soaking up this time with him, rather than blogging, because I felt like I had missed out on so much. Here's some of what you've missed out on because of a lack of my blogging:

• Braysen will be 2 in less than a month. Where did this last year go and why did it go by so much faster than the first year!?
• He LOVES to be outside and is such a boy. I can't wail until our backyard is done so I can just let him run a muck without worrying about him falling into a sprinkler trench or playing with one of the shovels or any of the other tools out there
• He knows quite a few of his colors. His favorites are blue and red. Whenever you ask him the color of something, he always shouts, "BLUE", then "RED", then he will finally tell you the real color.
• He has a bicycle that Santa brought him that he still has a hard time pedaling. But last year for his birthday, he received a little run bike that is supposed to teach them how to balance on two wheels. Yay (insert sarcasm here)! Just what I need, is for my two-year-old to be able to balance on a two-wheeled bike. Scary! But he does love zooming up and down our huge hallway and I do have to say he's getting pretty good at it. I'll have to upload a video of him on it.
• He knows that "Green means go!" and "Red means stop!" at signal lights.
• He can count to 10, but many times skips 4 and 7.
• He doesn't know any of his letters yet, but does randomly yell "S!" or "B!" or "A" when he sees different letters, so I'm pretty sure he recognizes the fact that they ARE letters, he just hasn't learned specific letter names yet.
• He is talking quite a bit. At one point I was keeping track of all his words and had a count of how many he knew, but at this point there are so many that I've lost track. He's like a little parrot and will repeat almost anything.
• Not a whole lot of new stuff going on around here except the back yard. We now have our slope cut out and the back wall is up. Sprinklers are put in and 1/2 of my patio furniture is bought. We bought our table set today, but they were sold out of the little seating area set that I wanted, so we have to go back and get it later.
• It's coming along, but still on our back yard to do list: Lay sod, stain the retaining wall (I HATE the color of it), plant some trees on our slope, and plant some ground cover on our slope. Seems like a pretty big (and expensive) to-do list, but I can finally see a light at the end of that LONG tunnel we've been stuck in for two years now!

I'm HOPING to get back into my blog more, but no promises because I now have a little birthday party sneaking up on me in less than a month. Blog posts may be pretty short and brief. The one good thing about birthday number 2 is that we are only inviting family and a few of Braysen's little friends (and their mommies and daddies of course), so this year's party will be much more low-key than last years!