Brandon

Well, it has finally arrived. One of the days I've been working towards since Brandon was born. Brandon turns 8. He has reached the age of accountability.
Now the testing starts.

I've tried to teach him about right and wrong, good and evil, righteousness and wickedness.

We'll see whether I've taught him enough.

Luckily, life is an open book test and I can still help him. But, I don't know how much help Brandon will need. He is such a great kid! I am constantly amazed at his abilities. We have been reading the Book of Mormon together every morning and I love hearing his thoughts on it. Somedays they are spiritual questions - "what is the holy ghost, is it really a ghost?" and other days they are basic detail questions -"How did the treasures in the earth slip away?"
Even when it was like pulling teeth to get him to read, we have had some good memories as I shared my testimony of the importance of reading the Book of Mormon and its truthfulness. I am so proud of my Brandon.

To memorialize the past year I picked out a bunch of my favorite pictures. Just 3 days after his last birthday we welcomed Alauna into the family. Whom he loves dearly and is always trying to hold and help. I just love this picture of Brandon holding Alauna, I can see the love that he has for her. Brandon is such a great big brother. He and Sean play together wonderfully and rarely fight. Brandon is so very protective of Natalia and tries to help her in every way possible. He take his responsiblity of being the oldest very seriously. While I was pregnant with Alauna I was so exhausted that I would fall asleep playing games with the kids. Brandon really stepped up and helped me. He got really good at making corn dogs for everyone to eat for dinner.

Brandon is a very active, 'go-get-em' kind of a kid. He is such a boy! Notice in the first picture that there is a worm on his HEAD!!! ewwww gross!! Really, who does that? Boys! For free fishing day this year, Brandon caught a very squirmy/wriggly fish. Brandon really had to keep his eyes on it!

Besides the fishing and worms, Brandon also likes hiking. This past summer we explored a bit of the Bonneville trail. Brandon was an intrepid explorer. He didn't complain or fuss. Even when we took a trail that led straight up the mountain. He had a great time discovering all sorts of things.

Like rocks to climb on

Distant vistas to gaze upon

In looking at his pictures, I've come to the conclusion that Brandon is a bit of a dare devil. (I'm not so sure that as a mom I like that - it kind of worries me) He likes to climb up high. First the rock in the picture above then the jungle gym and then jumping off the high dive multiple times. Wheww! that is a lot of heights for one year. I remember when he was so scared of heights and wouldn't even think of going off the high dive. All it took was a promise of ice cream from his dad and away he went. And he hasn't looked back since.

My favorite pictures are of him being a ninja. Maybe it's because they were just taken or maybe it's because they are soooo cool. Look at those moves! I bet you think he's a real ninja.

To round off this collection of pictures I have to include ones of Brandon playing soccer and basketball and running his very first road race. Brandon likes to think through the things that he does and I can see that in his sports playing. He likes to kind of watch at first and then once he is confident that he knows what he is supposed to do then he plays and he plays very well.

I love having Brandon in our family and am so proud of him. He is the best 1st born I could ever wish for. I really look forward to seeing all that he does with his life.