Malcolm Turns 2

It's been two beautiful years since I became a mom.  On Monday, Malcolm's actual birthday, we had a party to celebrate.  I'll  post about the party, then a bit about this silly little 2-year-old that makes every day awesome.

Malcolm loves fire trucks, or "heavy trucks" as he says.  So we had a fire truck themed party.  We had a fire to roast hot dogs and marshmallows on, ate chili, and had other themed snacks.  It ended up being less decorated and themed out than I had originally thought of, but I liked it better.  Need I mention I was worn out enough as it was?  It ended up that a lot of people were out of town or had other commitments, so I didn't have to provide as much food either.

(Stupid fuzzy pictures.)

I had to buy this fire truck with Malcolm present.  I thought for sure I'd never get it back to put on his cake.  After it was all decorated, he kept asking me to "get it".

Opening presents.  If you ever need help opening presents, Bridget is your gal! ;)

Blowing out candles.  Or in other words, being really scared of the candles and mommy and daddy blow them out for you.

We sent this pic to Kevin and Ryan's parents.  Kevin's "little friend" is named Lisa.  Ryan's mom replied that we "all look so good!"  I'm pretty sure what she meant was:  "Woah Ashley!  Packing on the pounds already!  and you can't even do your hair and makeup for a party?!"  Or maybe that's just what I thought when I saw it.  Sigh, first trimester makes me grumpy.  Sorry.

After most everyone left and we were playing ladder ball with Kev, Lisa, Kell, and Jordan.

The next day Mal went right to work playing with all his spoils!  He made me get in the tent at least 3 times that day. And I mean, pushed me into the tent. Ah, two year olds.

Party aftermath.  Never got a shot of it all done up pre-party.

About Malcolm, the 2 year old:

-Cars, cars, cars, cars, cars.  He loves them.  He loves the toy kind, the real kind, pictures of them...  Mal is never without a car in his fist.  He knows everyone's car on the block, and every family member's car.  Even out of context.  Like if we meet family at a restaurant, he points out "Grampa's car" and "Jornan's car". He also loves trains, trucks with trailers, and tractors.  Oh, and of course, fire trucks and police cars.  Or even just construction cars with lights on the top.

-Malcolm's vocabulary is pretty impressive, I think.  He strings together sentences now.  Things like, "Mommy close-a de door" and "Daddy work done?"  He even puts two sentences together.  Like, "Go Tucker house. Tucker gone!" I can understand the majority of what he says, though I've noticed others need more translation.  I LOVE that we can communicate!  It makes things so much nicer.

-Malcolm still likes to read books, but they are the same 6 or so every time.  Over and over and over and over.  I try new books, and he pushes them out of my hands.

-Malcolm has a mind like a steel trap.  We were coloring once and I looked at the name of one of the crayons and told him it was "Misty Moss".  He has remembered ever since an pulls out the crayon all the time to tell me it's "Missy moss".  He goes to the neighbors across the street frequently to be babysat.  He met a sister that was visiting over a month ago.  This week she is here again and was in church, sitting with her eyes closed.  Malcolm told Ryan "Lisa sleeping".  They hadn't been re-introduced, but he remembered her name from the last time he'd met her.

-Malcolm knows almost all the abc's by site (all but 4), numbers 1-9, and all the basic shapes and colors.  Quizzing him on flashcards seems to work the best.

-He loves to sing the "star song", "frog song", "bird song", "bbc's" and "Mommy's song".  Which are really "I am like a star shining brightly", "five green and speckled frogs", "hush little baby", "abc's" and "Baby mine".  He will sometimes sing along with me, and if you leave off a word, he can fill it in.  There's a smattering of other songs he knows and likes too, but not as much as those 5.

-After taking Malcolm to the splash park, I asked him if it was "so fun".  And now when we do anything he always talks about it later as being "so fun".  "So fun a water.  So fun a swimming."  "So fun a fice forks [fireworks]".

-Malcolm loves to be naked these days.  After a bath, it's a challenge to get his clothes on.  He will refuse some article of clothing every day and we have to wrestle him into his clothes when it's time to go anywhere. Once when Ryan was dressing him for church after his bath, Malcolm proclaimed, "No church!  Naked more!"

-Mal still likes most everything we feed him, but actually getting the food into his body is a challenge.  He gets distracted so easily.  I often let him get down from the table after eating half his meal and feed the rest to him as he runs by back and forth playing.

I can't tell you how great it is being Malcolm's parents.  We love him so much, he makes everything better. He's funny and quirky, and we find ourselves quoting him to each other like funny movie quotes.  Can't wait to see what the next year brings.  Especially with such a big change of getting a younger sibling!

The Reason For My Hiatus: An Announcement

I have never gone so long without blogging.  The last time I posted was the first of this month, and here we are at the last day of this month. Really, for the last few months I've been very much not-blogging.

I have a good excuse!  At least I think so.

Exhaustion.  Lethargy. Fatigue. Lassitude. A complete lack of motivation.
I'd rather be napping.
If It weren't for the toddler in my house I'd sleep til noon.
Think depression mixed with radiation treatments.

No I don't have cancer.  Though it is true that all my energy is being sapped away to a rapidly growing mass of cells.  That's right people!  I'm pregnant!!

Baby #2 will be here sometime around Feb 3rd.  I'm 13 weeks along, and finally starting to feel human again as my first trimester is coming to an end.  We've heard a heart beat, so chances of a miscarriage are small.  Yay!

How's it been?
Just like I remember.  Super sucky.  Though not as bad as the majority of mothers I know.  I'm not sick, only if I go too long not eating.  So I spend a lot of time doing just that: eating.  I've gained more weight than I did in my first trimester with Malcolm --Whoops!  I've never been close to throwing up.  So I count my blessings.  I'm just super super tired, like I said. I'm reminded once again that I'm really not one of those people who enjoys being pregnant.  I'm excited for the time when I can feel the baby moving--it's always a saving grace.

I don't mean to complain.  We are very excited and happy and scared and all those emotions you have when facing a new challenge.  I'm glad we get to finally share this news with all of you, and glad to finally be back blogging.  Look out for a whole slew of catch up posts!

This isn't the way I was hoping to announce.  I have plans for a cute announcement picture, but have yet to find time to do it.  We will still try to get the picture done, but like so many things these days, it's kind of fallen by the wayside.

Last [Month's] Pictures

Holy Moly!  I'm so very behind in my blogging.  One stinking blog post in June, and now it's July!  June was a busy busy month though. We had Ryan's parent's in town, then I had girls camp, then we had the big Green family reunion. There was plenty of other stuff too. It's been busy, and I've been tired and playing catch up with everything else leaving no time for catching up the blog.  Today I finally uploaded all the pictures from my phone for pretty much the whole month of June.  Good thing I'm a picture taking weirdo, because there's no way I'd remember what we've done.

Are you ready for picture over load?   There's over 50 of them.

Back when it was still cool enough to be outside, I took Malcolm on a walk along the parkway, where he pointed out  the x's on the bridge.  "ex-ssss" 

Mal said "Uuuuuuh" The whole length of this boardwalk to hear his voice shake.  It made me laugh because I always used to do that as a kid.

Crazy bed head!

More crazy bed head.  On my instagram posting I said he looked like Rick Moranis on Ghostbusters.  

This was cute!  Malcolm propped up a strawberry slice during breakfast and said "Strawberry a house!".  Then said "bye bye house a strawberry" and ate it.

The Scottish Festival was during the month of june and I actually got to go this year because my shifts got switched.  I ended up working the night before instead of the day of.  It was fun.  It's been years since I've been.  Here we all gathered to watch mom compete.  When I was standing up, Dad told the kids to "look at aunt Lorie, uh, Aunt Lisa, uh..."  He's used to saying his own sisters instead of his daughters as the Aunt ____.  It was funny.

Mom competing with the pipe band.

We also had a family gathering at Grandma McAllisters and family pictures taken.  We did it because Richard and Reed were in town.  The only evidence of the whole thing I have is this picture of Malcolm with his glow necklaces and bracelets from Great-Grandma's house afterward.  He wouldn't put them down, even to brush his teeth.

As its started to heat up, we got a soft serve at Walmart's Mcdonalds one day and ate it in the parking lot.  We're totally white trash like that.  :)  I hate Walmart, have I mentioned that before?

We went to Bed Bath and Beyond for bed risers for the guest bed before Ryan's parent's came.  We came home with a patio set that was on sale.  Well, and bed risers.  We didn't forget those at least.  It was really nice to sit out there before it got crazy hot the week after.

For Young Women's we went downtown to the Church History Museum.  We had 3  whole girls come.  Sometimes it's like that.  Especially during the summer.

Grandma and Malcolm reading books!  It was so fun to have them over and Malcolm loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa every morning.

Once when Brad and Julie were visiting Brad's mom, we went for a bike ride to the park.  Malcolm always opens his mouth against the strap on his helmet and it makes me laugh.

Ry and his mom looking at something funny on the computer.

A different Grandpa on Father's day before church!  How fun!

We had a get together at the VanDenBurge's for Aimee's birthday and because so many people were in town for the reunion later that week.  Malcolm enjoyed begging food off grandma.

He found lots of cars to play with, of course.  Makes it easy to enjoy  ourselves when he'll entertain himself for so long that way.

Leo's blue tongue from snowcones.

Aimee the birthday girl!  Who sadly got hit with the Ladder Ball ladder and chipper her front tooth!  Ouch!

We took Ryan's parents to City Creek.  It was a really  nice temperature the whole time they were here.  We lucked out.

This is at the reunion.  Ryan looks a little tired.

The reunion was at this big rental house up at bear lake.  One morning we took some of the other cousins and Malcolm to the lake for about an hour.  

Malcolm's favorite reunion activity was touching all the cars in the parking lot and naming who they  belonged too.  

Having a bath in the giant jetted tub in our room!

This is where we stayed.  It was a huge house and well equipped for reunions.  It was awesome.

Daddy tickles on the grass while waiting for family picture time.

On the way home we stopped at the Brigham City Temple to have a look.  Ry's parents and Kevin had never been.

Malcolm got these cars from Grandma and Grandpa for his birthday.  Of course, here they are all lined up...

Malcolm is showing his chewed up food to himself.  The goggles?  I don't know, he just found them and put them on.  Then I showed him he could keep them on his head.  So they went back and forth, head, eyes, head, eyes, over and over.

It's been hot.  Too hot to play outside fully clothed I guess.

We tried to beat the heat one day at the splash pad in North Salt Lake with Laura, Denali, Bridget, Quinn, Brenna, and MiQuelle.

Watching Daddy play games on his phone.  I'm sure Ryan finds it very  convenient.

Taylorsville Dayzz came at the end of the month.  This is only our second year participating because we were in Alaska last year.  It was hot, but we went to about 2/3rds of the parade and Malcolm enjoyed seeing fire trucks, floats, and getting lots and lots of candy.

We went to REI later that day with Laura and Andrew.  Denali pushed Malcolm around in his stroller and Malcolm teased her with "pee-boo!"  It was cute.  They both were giggling like crazy!

 Whew!  The end!  How's that for a post for a whole month's worth of activities?