Alex's 2nd Birthday

Can you believe my little baby is already 2 years old? Time goes too quickly. This age has some of the most fun and most frustrating aspects to it... Alex is just constantly exploding with new words and new skills. Simultaneously, he's asserting himself more and more. And while I certainly want an assertive adult, sometimes it's just really difficult to absolutely NEED to get out the door and have a child refuse to get dressed with every scrap of his energy, you know? When it takes two adults and still a good 5-10 minutes of forcing clothes onto a wriggling, screaming toddler, who, for whatever reason, simply does not want to get dressed... ugh. It's not fun.

That said, there are so many fun things. I wish I could capture it all on camera. But he's a smart cookie. As soon as he catches glimpse of the camera, he stops everything to give a toothy grin. And then wants to see the results of his posing on the LCD screen.

Anyway. We celebrated his birthday on April 1st. The first ever of any of our children that we got to celebrate with family. Actually, that's not entirely true. My youngest sister Kaija was present for Alex's first birthday! Lucky little guy!

After Melinda got home from school that day, and after we ate some lunch, we headed over to Grandma Newson's house, with bags and bags full of supplies. We took over birthday presents, cake, and all the makings for his birthday dinner.

Alex got a very short nap after we got there, and I quickly wrapped his presents. By 3pm we started dinner preparations, and we ate at about 6pm. I tried really hard to think of things that Alex would really enjoy for dinner: Meatballs with sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted carrots and sweet potatoes, homemade rolls, and assorted fresh fruits. As it turned out, he mostly just ate the fruits. I can't blame him- they were really yummy! But I was surprised he didn't gobble the rest of it down, too.

Obviously, Rachel decided that by sneaking in as photographer, she'd make sure she wasn't included in the picture. Poor Rachel caught the cold that my kids have had for the last week. Except, worse, since she got a bit of a fever along with it. Sorry, Rachel. Well, at least we know and will always remember that you were there, whether or not you allow us to show off the proof. ;)

We actually had waaay too much fruit. Blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, mango, kiwi fruit, and green grapes. So delicious, though.

After dinner we played a few simple games. Penny, Penny, Who Has the Penny was a lot of fun. Alex had a great time trying to figure out who was holding the penny after someone tried to pass it on in secret, and he even started to understand how to pass it on himself after a few rounds. Here's a little video from that game:


After that we moved onto another goody from my childhood: Pop the balloon. Okay, well, I don't know if it really has a name or not, but it's always fun. You write a bunch of silly instructions on paper, fold each individual slip of paper up into a small tube, stuff it into a balloon, then blow up and tie the balloon. Each person has to take a turn popping the balloon and doing what their instructions tell them to. This is a great one for younger kids, who just *love* popping balloons. Alex was a little to small for following the directions, but had a great time with popping, anyway. Also, a funny little note: Out of 20 slips of paper, I only wrote 4 name-specific instructions: Give Grandma a hug, Tickle Jacob, Tickle Alex, and Sit on Jesse's Lap. Alex got "Tickle Alex", and Jesse got "Sit on Jesse's Lap." How's that for funny coincidence? Jesse, true to his character, made a hilarious attempt to sit on his own lap. Which I unfortunately did not record. Alas. Also, Rachel got "Sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", which she sang in her lovely operatic voice. Despite her cold! I also didn't get that recorded. Not that she would have allowed me to publish it anyway, since she's sick. ;) Sigh. Still, enjoy this video clip of the balloon game:


I was going to play drop the clothespin into a jar, too... but nobody seemed especially interested. The kids each took a short turn dropping in clothespins, but we left it at that and jumped into opening presents, instead.

First thing he opened was my unfinished city map. I bought some white vinyl and had been planning on coloring a city playmat for him with my nice set of permanent markers. The first night I worked on it, I got all the roads and traffic lines and signs colored in. The next night, I got a nice little section of houses done. I was laying on top of the vinyl while I worked on it, and when I got up to stretch, I saw that all of the yellow lines were almost completely smudged off. Further investigating showed that just a simple finger-rub would take off almost all the ink from any of the sections I colored with my Bic brand markers. The black road lines themselves were done with a regular Sharpie brand marker, and they didn't have any problem. But that was the easiest part! I was aghast!! Yes, that's the best word to describe it, I think. It was only a couple nights away from his birthday, and it would have been a stretch to finish it in time, anyway. With this little problem thrown in, there was no way I could have it ready in time. We decided, though, to go out and buy a set of colored Sharpie markers, and see if that would work. Well, it did, but I simply didn't have enough time to do much with it. I gave it to him on his birthday, anyway. And I think it'll look really nice once it's done... but in the meantime, I was pretty bummed. I hate it when good ideas fail.

Of course, to go with the city playmat, I got him a bunch of Matchbook-type cars to play with, since we had very few.

And Rachel made him this gorgeous little wall banner with his name. Which, for the time being, has made its home in my bedroom, since that's where Alex's bed is. Hopefully in the not-too-far-distant future, we'll live in a house and he'll have his own space to display his name banner.

In this video, you can see my favorite part! First, he opens a gift from Grandma Newson: a spaceship made from polar fleece, with little finger puppet aliens. It's so cute! I don't think he really knows what aliens are yet, but we've taught him how to make alien-speech babble, which he thinks is pretty funny. He likes it a lot. And of course, the part I was really looking forward to- opening up the backpack I sewed for him. I was slightly annoyed with Melinda chanting "backpack, backpack!" while he opened it... I really wanted to see him figure out for himself what it was... but his reaction was absolutely, 110% perfect! He was so excited, and so proud to have his own backpack! Which I didn't think he wouldn't be - he'd spent the last several days trying to steal Melinda's backpack and pretending to go off to school, claiming it was his - but sometimes even when you know it's something they'll love, the reaction is not what you expect. But he definitely didn't disappoint!


Ben and Brea gave him a perfect simple little gift - a sparkly pinwheel!! He still needs to figure out just how to blow on it to make it work, but he'll get there soon. Melinda was playing with it in my bedroom last night with the evening sun streaming in through the window, and it made a gorgeous little rainbow on the wall, and a brilliant blue streak along with it. Alex was thrilled: "Ooooooh, PRETTY!! Rainbow!!!" he exclaimed!

And then, after all the presents were done, we finally got around to the birthday cake. I made a white chocolate lemon cake for his birthday, complete with homemade lemon curd between the layers. I decorated it with an owl (because I just seem to be on a cute owl kick!) that says, "Look whoooo's 2!" When I was decorating it, he was watching, and when it finally became apparent that it was an owl on his cake, he said, "Mommy, owl?" And I replied, "Yes, I'm putting an owl on your birthday cake." And Alex said, "Oh! NICE!!" And I wish I had a recording for you to hear the voice inflections when he says that phrase, because every time he says it, I about die of cuteness overload.

And here's a video of the birthday singing and him blowing out the candles. I think it's hilarious how hesitant he is about blowing - he doesn't even lean forward! He's always so eager to blow out any candles we have around the house, but it's been since Melinda's birthday that we've done any candles on cake, and maybe he just didn't remember how it worked! But he blew them out without any effort at all, and then was so excited about it that he kept talking about it! Of course, he didn't eat any cake at all, not even after weeks of talking about birthday cake. All he touched was the ice cream!! Oh, well. It was a yummy cake anyway!


And of course, I had to throw in a few little party-favor blowers. They were a little upset that they weren't the noisemaker kind. And Jacob was very upset that his didn't seem to flatten completely out, even after Uncle Ben insisted and insisted that it was working exactly like everyone else's. Still, I thought it was fun. And I think this picture, despite its poor quality, is cute!

We survived his second birthday! And I'm experiencing a 2-year-old for the first time ever without being simultaneously pregnant! Isn't it fun?? Well, most of the time, anyway. ;)

Happy Birthday, Alex. We're so glad and thankful to have you in our lives! I look forward to the amazing boy you're going to grow up to be.

Metroid

(Did I say something earlier about being able to find time to catch up on my blogging?  Obviously, getting a yucky cold wasn't part of the plan, so I beg mercy.....)

Alex has picked up a totally cute ability for an almost-14-month old:  He's making sound effects.  You know, he watches the kids like a hawk, and tries to do everything they do.  Which, a lot of times, is not fun:  Like when he tries to climb the bunk bed ladder, or jump on the couch, or all sorts of too-big-for-him things.  But when it comes to imaginitive play, the whole copy-the-big-sibs thing is so adorable!!!

Lately, their new thing is playing Metroid.  I mentioned this briefly in one of the Facebook Friday updates (and yes, I realize I haven't posted the latest installment....).  The kids dug up a copy of Jesse's Game Boy Advance "Metroid Zero" game about a month ago.  Since then, they've asked him to play it, they've asked me to play it, and they've figured out how to play it themselves.  And of course, it wasn't long before they started pretending Metroid games in the home.  Complete with curling up into a ball to get into narrow spaces, doing the beam-me-up animation style "save", and of course, shooting enemies.

Jacob is such an action poser.  He mimics it with such precision.  He would grab his forearm, get into a forward-facing attack crouch, and make "Pshew, Pshew" sorts of laser gun sounds as he shot at imaginary monsters.  So then Jesse had the bright idea to give them props, which he made from used Vitamin Water bottles - just cut off the end, and painted them green, like Samus' weapon.  Observe:

 

You get the concept, right?  Green cylindrical shape that covers your forearm.  Easy enough, with a water bottle or two!!  Well, Jacob's was a hit, and Melinda soon got her own, and now even Alex has one.  Because he just couldn't be left out of the fun.  As soon as anyone starts playing any sort of shooting/chasing/fighting game, Alex is so in on it.  And the sound effects make watching it just absolutely a hoot!!

So I tried to grab a video of it tonight - it's not great... there's a lot of other noise going on in the video, and I had a hard time being in front of him so you could see his face while he was making sounds.  But of the "Pshew, Pshew" sounds, Alex is making about half of them, and Jesse's doing the rest, for the most part.  Also, if you see a large pink tutu flying around, Jesse was pretending it was a fireball shooting out of his fist.  I'm so glad he can still play with the kids like that.  It's awesome, and I love it.

So here's the video.  Enjoy the cuteness!!  I know I do.  :)

A Few More

Pictures and videos, that is.

Here's a couple more of Alex climbing our dining chairs... he's really getting too big for his own good!

 

  

This is what happens lately, if I dare sit at the computer with Alex awake.  If he's not already on my lap, he'll climb up onto it (and if I'm sitting just right, he doesn't need any help from me, between using the stool, my crossed ankles, and the arms of my chair as strategic climbing grips).  And once he's on my lap, he's not satisfied to stop there.  He'll pound my keyboard or climb all over my desk.  Today he finally made it all the way on top.  Now I'll never be able to do computer stuff with him awake again, he's just too eager to get back on top of my desk!!!

 

 

And here's a video I grabbed during one of our recent sick days.  All of us lined up in front of the computer to play some Webkinz games.  Sigh, no, they're not really educational.  But they're fun for the whole family!  Just see how much they all enjoy it.  ;)