Party!

If you remember Seth's party from last year, you'll be sorely disappointed in our party throwing this year. Without Nanny Marah here to help, I just wasn't up to having 30+ people over for a party. So we kept things simple this year. REALLY simple.Seth kicked things off a few days early by sneaking into the package from Grandma Cathy and grabbing out a present. He opened it just enough to find out there was a car inside before he started hyperventilating. "Car? Car. CAR! CAR!!" Luckily Grandma was a sucker and gave him permission to open it early. Okay, Mom was a sucker, too. We spent the next couple of days trying to keep him out of the rest of the gifts.

Seth's birthday was Monday. He helped me decorate the sign I made for him (the whole time exclaiming over the 's'es and balloons). He also helped me make his blueberry muffins for breakfast--he was very concerned over the cracking of the eggs.
We invited Angelina and Debbie over to swim Monday afternoon. Angelina surprised Seth with an M&Ms dispenser with a fan on top. He was thrilled, since fans are one of his favorite things in the world. They had a great time splashing around the pools and chasing the frog I found in the filter. After a couple of hours, we headed back to our house for lunch and popsicles. Seth had never had a popsicle before, but he learned quickly. I obviously wasn't thinking. Guess what? Red popsicles stain. For dinner we had Seth's favorites: crab alfredo, garlic bread and 'appa joose.' After dinner we called Grandma Cathy on Skype and had our little party: Mom, Dad, Seth, Grandma Cathy and occasionally Aunt Bubba over Skype.

Seth's cake, of course, was Lightning McQueen, or as he calls him, 'Ka-Chow!' I had a hard time keeping Seth away from the cake so I could finish it. He kept trying to crawl on my lap, saying, "Ooo, big Ka-Chow!" He liked it so much I was afraid of how he'd react when we cut it open...I thought about doing the cake in fondant. It would have looked better, but guess what? Fondant is gross. So buttercream it was!We were very impressed--Seth managed to blow out the candles all by himself! Unfortunately I missed it with the video camera because I was trying to take a picture with the regular camera. Next year we need to invite at least one person so there are enough people to document every detail.
Of course, he was spoiled completely rotten. 90% of his gifts were cars or Cars paraphernalia. He was so excited that he didn't know what to play with--he kept running back and forth between his gifts. Our big gift for him was a wagon. It's actually for us, too. Next time we need to haul a bunch of stuff to/from our backyard, we won't have to carry it all around the building or finagle some method of dragging it through the house and off the deck. Townhomes are awesome sometimes.

Taking Grandma Cathy for a ride in his new wagon.

He LOVED his cake and ice cream, and there were no tears when we cut into Ka-Chow. Definitely a successful birthday.

Jon and I were really excited about his 'surprise' the next day. I stumbled across an article in the local paper about the Mason-Dixon fair. On the day after Seth's birthday, they were having a monster truck show. Since admission to the fair was only $3 for adults, free for kids, we jumped at the idea.

After dinner at Chick-fila, we drove the 35 minutes to the Pennsylvania border. Seth was thrilled--they had tractors pulling trolleys full of people to and from the parking lot.

Once we got inside, he was enthralled by all the lights and movement from the rides. We spent a lot of time just walking around so he could stare at everything. Eventually we found the animals. He was fairly excited to see the ducks, pigs, goats, cows, etc. We even got him to pet a sheep, but things got a little tense when the sheep tried to eat Ka-Chow. Eventually we made our way to the monster truck area. They were a little late getting started, so Seth relieved his boredom by running away from us as often as we'd let him. Luckily he didn't actually go too far before he turned around.Finally, they brought in the monster truck. I realized our mistake when the woman next to me whipped out some noise-cancelling headphones for her toddler. Having never actually been to a monster truck show, I failed to anticipate that it would be loud. REALLY loud. And the loudness was amplified by the fact that we were sitting directly under a speaker.

Seth did great through the part with the stuntman on the 4 wheeler. He was even okay with the monster truck for a while.After several passes that included loud engine revving, I noticed that Seth was starting to tear up. Despite my hands over his ears, it was just too loud for him. We immediately packed everything up and headed to the car.

Monster Trucks are a little bit scary...

Turns out Seth was inspired. Not only was the show about 2 minutes from being over, it also started sprinkling as we headed to the car. By the time we got in and headed home, it was pouring. Thank you, Seth for sparing us a good soaking!

We felt a little guilty on the drive home. Did we just traumatize our son? Luckily he slept well that night and didn't wake up screaming about 'big trucks.' In fact, ever since that night he's been carrying around a monster truck in one hand and a tractor in the other. He's also insisted on wearing his boots. Apparently instead of scarring him for life, we turned our son into a redneck. Awesome. Must be those West Virginia roots...

I still can't believe we have a two year old.

PS--I can't imagine how a monster truck show could possibly be lamer than that one. ONE monster truck crushing 3 cars. Over, and over, and over again. Meh. But then again, it was only $6 total...

Two? Already?

Didn't you just turn one a few months ago?I love watching you grow. I love seeing all the things you know how to do by yourself. I love hearing new words come out of your mouth. You make me laugh every single day.

Here are some of your favorites at two:

• Foods: 'Eggs' (yogurt covered raisins), olives, strawberries, alfredo, chips, popcorn and bread.
• Movie: Cars, of course. Also, movies of yourself and friends (you'll ask specifically for "Lina", "Bekah", or "Toria").
  
• Book: My Book About Me, anything with cars, trucks, tractors, etc.
  
• Toy: Cars, your lawnmower, and sidewalk chalk. Occasionally, balls.
  

Some thing you're doing now that I want to remember:

*You still sing when you're falling asleep. You've done it since you were tiny.

*You also sing when you're eating something you like. The whole time you're eating we'll hear, "Yummaanummanummanumm..." It makes your nursery leaders laugh.

*You spend most of your playtime driving your cars back and forth across our card table. You love watching the wheels spin. We especially love it when we hear the cars telling each other, "no, no!" or when we watch you tipping the tractor backwards and saying "boooo" ("mooo"). We didn't think you paid that much attention to the tractor scene in Cars.

*You're obsessed with "man mans" (fans). When we go outside you'll drag me from AC unit to AC unit so you can see whether the fans are "on" or "off."

*Our favorite phrase is "Ooo, big __________" (insert car, truck, bubble, etc.) Sometimes when Daddy comes home and picks you up, you'll say, "Ooo, big Daddy!" My favorite was at my piano recital: my students were all up on the balcony waiting to perform. You looked up at them and said, "Oooo, big friends!"

*You (and every other boy your age) are so into Cars. We don't watch the movie often, but you love all your cars, clothes, books, and stickers with "Ka-chow" "Dad-gum" and "Sah-yee."

*We are kind of sort of maybe starting to think about potty training. You've managed to use your potty twice, but you don't seem terribly interested. And I am NOT pushing it.

*You recognize a few letters and numbers. 8 was the first one you spontaneously recognized. You're obsessed with finding 'S' wherever you can. You also know 'M' ("Mommy") 'D' ("Daddy") 'A' ("Angelina") and 'O'. 2 and 5 are usually just more 's' es. Oh, and exclamation marks. I love how you try to say it: 'ehamaton mahk.'

*You would spend all day playing in your water table if we'd let you. You're especially adept at tipping the whole thing over so you can watch the water gush out (and so Mommy will have to fill it up again).

*You love waiting for Daddy to come home. When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you'll say is, "Daddy work." "Yes, Daddy is at work." "Daddy car." "Yep, in Daddy's car." "Noom, noom, noom!" (vroom, vroom, vroom!). "Daddy home." "Yep, Daddy will come home and give you kisses." "No." (He always says 'no' when we mention kisses). When Daddy finally makes it through the door, you ALWAYS have to have something to show him. A car, your lawn mower, whatever. If you don't have anything, you'll run to grab something before you'll let him pick you up.

*You're still sleeping in a pack and play. Debbie let us borrow her bigger one (it's square, so you have more room). We have the mattress on your bunk bed, and we tell you "This is Seth's big bed." You love to jump around on it. But we have no plans for moving you yet.

*You still LOVE your pacifiers. You're only allowed to have them when you're going to sleep, but you find ways around that. You'll sneak them out of your backpack whenever possible and then come show us (you have a huge grin on your face). When you decide you need a quick pacifier fix, you'll go upstairs, climb into your pack and play and suck on a pacifier for 10 minutes or so. Only problem: you can get in, but not out. Once you've gotten your fix, you'll call for us to come get you out.

*Your favorite songs are "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Ring Around the Rosies." You don't sing 'spider', as you call it, but you'll do the actions. You do, however, sing 'ashes, ashes'. Occasionally I've heard you sing "Cows eat the cups, ashes ashes, stand up." It's really cute. And of course, 'clean up, clean up."

*You have quite an impressive vocabulary, especially for a little boy. You can make your demands understood probably 90-95% of the time, which makes life SO much easier for Mom & Dad. Of course, you've managed to pick up 'no' and 'mine', but we've already made it through the 'my answer to everything is "NO"' stage, and you just aren't possessive enough to really care about 'mine.'

*You spend 80% of your day with a car in each hand. This includes sleeping.

Monkey man, we love you so much. Thank you for all the joy you bring to our home.

Happy 5th of July

Because you can't have this kind of fun on Sundays:

Our very first tomato from our garden! Absolutely delicious.
Seth has some big shoes to fill...

Official 5th of July Celebrations include:

Dinner with the Atkinsons
(grilled chicken, pasta salad, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, chips and fruit pizza)

Actually getting our kids to hold their sparklersThey were having a blast until Victoria grabbed the still-hot end of the sparkler.
After some tears we decided stomping on poppers was much more fun.


This girl is a professional popper-stomper.


Seth saw how much fun Victoria was having and finally decided to stop being a wimp and join in.
They were both sad when the poppers ran out...

Happy 5th of July!
(Thanks, Atkinsons, for celebrating with us!)

This Week Alone...

The lip

We have accomplished the following:

*fell and skinned our knee
*did something mysterious that ended in a profusely bleeding elbow
*fell off Dad's bedside table and landed flat on our face (resulting in a red, scraped nose)
*fell in the bathroom and put one of our teeth straight through our lip

The joys of being a toddler (and a boy).

Want to hear how we celebrated the 4th? First there were three hours of church (meaning organ, Primary piano and Young Women for me). Then there was this awesomeness:

Jon has to stay after church every week to do tithing (he's ward financial clerk). He helped me load up Seth and then headed back inside. Seth and I drive home, excited about getting to eat food. We pull up, I unload everything, and go to open the bolt on our front door.

My key is totally stuck. Won't turn. Won't come out. Which means I can't unlock the handle. Which means we're sitting on our front porch and are totally locked out. I need to go to the bathroom. Seth is starving. And it's 90 degrees outside.

Of course, Seth chooses this moment to do something (I never saw him fall or anything) that results in a bloody elbow. I grab the diaper bag to pull out a wipe for all the blood running down the elbow, only to find that the wipes aren't in there.

So now we're locked out, hot, starving, and BLEEDING.

Thank heaven for cell phones. Jon came to rescue us (meaning that he used his key to unlock the handle). I felt much better about myself after he tried to get my key out without success. In fact, it's still sitting in the lock. That's right: our front door has no functioning bolt. Come rob us.

What a fantastic 4th, right? Okay, so we did light some sparklers later that evening (Seth wouldn't touch them. Wimp.) and throw some poppers around. We'll do some more tonight. But we didn't want to drag an exhausted Seth to some fireworks show an hour after his bedtime. Next year, maybe.

New York, New York! (part 2)

Have you ever had a really good friend? The kind that you can hang out with several times a week and still have things to talk about? The kind that you call on their birthdays even though you haven't seen them in years? The kind that, when you do finally see each other again, it's like that gap is completely forgotten and things are just like they used to be?

Because we have friends like that. Several, actually. But the ones I'm thinking about are special in that they were our first 'married couple' friends (meaning we were both married couples).

Here's how it happened. It's the beginning of 2009, and Jon and I have been married all of two weeks. I've just left behind everything and everyone I know to be with him in Texarkana, Arkansas. And it's lonely while he's at work.

Enter Kellie. I'm home all alone, cleaning the (filthy) apartment when she and her toddler, Audrey, knock on the door. She had come to meet me--just to chat and tell me about life in Texarkana (oh, the joys). Audrey played happily with a container of kitchen utensils on the furniture-less floor while Kellie and I talked. I felt like I had a friend.

And Kellie is an amazing friend. She threw me a welcome party/bridal shower so I could meet the girls in the ward/apartment complex and bought me a mixing bowl so I could actually feed my husband (our furniture and things wouldn't be there for a month). I still have that bowl, and it makes me smile every time I see it.

Here's the best part: she taught me how to cook. I know lots of good cooks, but Kellie is amazing. Every week we would get together and make one of her recipes. She introduced me to the garlic press, good Parmesan cheese, and homemade cheesecake. Jon will be eternally grateful for her tutelage.

In exchange for cooking lessons, Jon & I would watch their daughter Audrey so they could go out. We adored Audrey. She was our practice child, and she was hilarious. Our apartment was always a total disaster after she left, but we had a great time. I was secretly proud that I was one of the few people Audrey would go to besides her parents. Of course, she really liked Jon better. If I ever came over to visit without him, the first thing out of her mouth would be, "Jon?"

Jon & Scott were carpool buddies, Calvin and Hobbes connoisseurs, and collaborators on projects ranging from Sudoku solvers to laser building. Between the two of them, dinner conversations were always entertaining. They especially enjoyed playing Mario Kart (N64, of course) on our 13 inch television.
We have a lot of great memories with Scott, Kellie, and Audrey. They introduced us to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes (the most faithful representation I've ever seen), homemade Oreo cookies, and Ticket to Ride (the European version, of course). We loved playing games and eating delicious food with them. It was great to have such awesome friends to mooch off of.In August the boys graduated with their MBA/MSBAs and we went our separate ways. Scott and Kellie headed down South to Huntsville and we headed to Iowa. Four years and two moves later and we're now only two and half hours from each other. Since we were headed up north to see Daniel and Wendy, we were so excited to have an excuse to stop and see Scott and Kellie. (Disclaimer: I took no pictures, and I forgot to ask Kellie. Sorry!)Last time we saw Audrey, she had just turned two years old and we had presented her with a giant orange kickball that she could barely hold over her head. Now she's almost six. I was expecting the same shy little girl we left. Instead, it took me a full hour to get used to a tall, talkative, intelligent girl who has clearly inherited her mom's hostess skills. Not only that, but she now has a little brother, Ian, who is just a few months younger than Seth.

Kellie fed us an incredible dinner (seriously better than what you'd get in a restaurant) followed by an incredible dessert. I told her she needs to start a recipe blog--I'm still surviving off her recipes from four years ago, but she's clearly moved on to bigger and better things!

We spent the afternoon catching up. Kellie and I refereed the kids in the basement while Scott showed Jon how his laser is coming along. Later we went for a walk along a creek to a park where the kids could play. We laughed at how Seth and Ian manifest their boyness in two different ways: Seth walked the entire way with a car in each hand, while Ian was constantly stopping to grab dirt and rocks.

As it got close to bedtime, we said our goodbyes and headed back home. It's awesome to think that we have our friends so close. We can meet up at the beach or in New York City (should we ever decide to brave the city with Seth). We love it.

Thank again, Scott, Kellie, Audrey and Ian! Hopefully we'll get to see you again soon!

And Kellie, I'm still thinking about that dinner. Amazing.

New York, New York! (part 1)

Last weekend we braved the five and a half hour drive with Seth and headed up to see Daniel (Jon's brother). Seth was amazingly good--not a single minute of whining. Thank heaven for portable DVD players and library books!

Seth had a blast playing with his cousins, Megan and Jocelyn. They played really well together. The only fights were over the toy stroller: Seth thought it was his personal possession (it was the only toy with wheels) and insisted on pushing it around all the time. Whenever Megan or Jocelyn would try to put a baby doll inside, Seth would immediately pitch it out. The difference between boys and girls (which Daniel and Wendy will soon learn: they're expecting a little boy the end of August).

Daniel and Wendy were great hosts. Friday they took us to a 'nearby' lake (45 minute drive) with a beach and playground for the kids. We had a great time. I had to snap this picture of Seth while we were eating lunch. I guess the leaf-phobia is abating...(please, please, please!)

After we ate, Jocelyn headed straight for the water while Megan and Seth were content to play in the sand.Eventually we got all three cousins in the water, splashing and having a great time.
Wendy and her girls

Saturday we divided up into Boy's Time and Girl's Time. Jon and Daniel went golfing in the morning (WAY too early for a Saturday), then Wendy and I went to her baby shower in the afternoon. We got back just in time to watch the US lose to Ghana in the World Cup. Boo!

Sunday we were apostate and skipped church because we had a long drive ahead of us. We headed back to Maryland, with a much-anticipated stop on the way...

Thanks again, Daniel and Wendy! We'd love to return the favor!