Happy Unbirthday!

When Corban was born Jared and I decided that we would celebrate his birthday in the summer since is birthday is just a few days after Christmas. I hadn't necessarily planned it out for this year until I went shopping and couldn't resist buying toys from him. I needed an excuse to give them to him for Jared to be okay with me having spent the money. Let's have a party!

It has now been 4 weeks I have held onto these gifts, anticipating the day when we could celebrate so I could see Corban play with his new toys. We called up the Clawson's so we would have some great party guests to entertain, and they accepted our offer. With such short notice I was thinking they wouldn't feel an obligation to bring a gift. They didn't...they brought TWO! Their gifts out did mommy's with all the moving parts and boy fun! Hopefully we fed them some great food, yummy carrot cake, and provided entertainment with our little ones.

Here is a photo run down of how the day went:

Right before I was getting us into the car, I came down the stairs to this scene:

Here is the beautiful cupcakes that Jared made. Yes, that one with the candles does have 2 bites out of it. Corban couldn't resist.

Corban watching the sparking candles. He was SO adorbale to watch when trying to blow them out. One of the candles would go out and then light back up. The first time it went out he said, "Oh no." It lite back up and he blew it out again and said, "Oh, goodness". I will try to post the video at the end of this post.

Notice I dressed him in his birthday suit? That really was no choice of mine, though I didn't put up a fight with the pink diaper.

All the kids helping him open his presents. Malia is a ham for the camera, just like Corban!

Corban focusing intently on getting this dumptruck out of the box. What great toys! THANK YOU Clawsons!

At 2 1/2 this little man is full of surprises everyday. Here are 10 things, in no particular order, of what I love about my little Corban:

1. His big blue eyes that give so much expression to what he is thinking or doing. He loves to do the raised eyebrows when interested in something or as if to get approval on something.

2. He is all boy and really revs it up when daddy is around- taking with a pretend deep, manly voice, karate chopping things, making sound effects, and running around like he is crazy.

3. "Kiss it better" still works like a charm.

4. He loves to be naked, but he will settle for a diaper when necessary. He now will NOT sleep in PJs.

5. He is a talker, finding new words to say everyday. I love to give him new big words to just hear him say them- he too enjoys my game.

6. His LOVE of water, especially the ocean! He is facinated with the "rocks, water, and sand."

7. He is always curious and eager to learn. He seems to be quick at catching onto concepts.

8. He gets so excited when mommy or daddy come home, ALWAYS greeting you with a big smile, and "oh mommy!" or "Daddy's home!"

9. He is really getting a memory, recognizing where we are driving to and knowing what we do at certain stores even if we are only in the parking lot.

10. His sweet wake up call on mornings we get to sleep in. He comes in with "pink" and tells you that "baby's wake" or "new diaper" or "I want breakfast".

It is so much fun to watch and enjoy them getting older, but it brings tears to my eyes and an aching in my heart to know that I will never have these exact sweet moments again. It is a really good thing sweet moments keep on happening!

Free Nutrition and Fitness coaching

With my desire to make my 3rd pregnancy just as successful as the first two, I have started a Nutrition and Fitness blog. Knowing myself, I do best at following my own advice when I am sharing it with others. This is my way of using my expensive education.

The focus of the blog is nutrition in pregnancy for now, though much of the advice would apply to anyone. I have plans to continue the blog after the arrival of #3, and will then make the focus more general. I am also more than happy to answer any personal questions you have and will take it in the direction my readers desire.

If you are interested, stop by Active Cultures and see if there is anything of interest to you.

Miss Congeniality

For the past one and a half, at least, Malia has been on the move. Her crawling skills blossomed long ago...between 5 and 6 months, and that just wasn't mobile enough, so she put herself on her feet. She has been walking around furniture and will occasionally use toys, but what she really wants are YOUR fingers. This wouldn't be so bad if you were her height and didn't have to bend over to help her walk. I thought for sure she would be walking before she turned 9 months, but that came and went. Liz, my great friend, kept suggesting that we practice with her, but it took her actually initiating it this Friday for it to happen. Well, there were a few steps in that practice, but the next morning when we showed daddy, she was even better! And I might say that her Sunday practice is even better than Saturday. Now that she knows it is a game to mommy and daddy, she is loving it. She gets just as excited as we do when we clap for her accomplishments.

Corban was one to do it all on his own. The week before he walked we went on a cruise, where I don't believe I let him down on the ground ever. I guess he had had it with that, so when we returned home he just started walking. That was at 11 months, so I guess it makes sense that Malia would need a little help. She just wants to do everything early.

Malia is also starting to blossom with her own little personality. Reading that doesn't say much, as she has always had one, but I really don't know how to put it into words. Her actions have me giggling at her all day- the way she swings her feet, her love for being upside down, her reaction when you direct her another way, her excitement over watching people- do what? I don't know, her LOVE for following and copying Corban...this is so irritating to him. This reminds me of a story from yesterday:

Corban was trying to enjoy "Horton Hears a Who" with his green and pink blanket. Malia decided that she too wanted to enjoy "pink". Corban doesn't like sharing that particular one very much, so he kindly (surprising mommy) shared "green". She loved on that for maybe 1 second, and then went for pink again. I would remove her, but shortly after, would find her back on pink and Corban starting his whine. The best part was when he lied down on the ground on top of another blanket, pink still right there with him. She too lied down back on the blanket, right by his side rubbing her hand over pink. It was almost like she was doing it just because she knew that it would annoy him, but at the same time it was like she wanted to just do whatever her big brother was doing.

On top of the cute stuff, she also has down the manipulative cry. This cry sounds like you have just hurt her, but it means that you have done something that she doesn't like- things like lay her down to get her diaper changed, put her in her seat to have a snack (before the food arrives), or take her away from mommy (that one is cute).

Corban, on the other hand, does have his good moments away from being grumpy and getting mad at "M-lia". Yesterday he was sitting in his highchair just naming off fruits and vegetables. I have no idea where he came up with making lists, but it was hilarious to listen to. He has since repeated a similar list- fruits and vegetables again.

I allowed him to help me with preparing dinner the other afternoon. It required baking mix- or in his eyes, pancake mix. As I was mixing the eggs he said he wanted to do it. Harmless, I thought, so I handed the whisk to him and turned to get something. When turning back to Corban, he had the whisk held up and he was saying "Yummy" and putting the whisk in his mouth. Mommy wasn't fast enough to catch him, so he did get to task the not so yummy raw eggs. Next when mixing the batter together, he said, "First, um, ya exactly." He is such a good little helper! When I couldn't really have him help very much, he had his fingers in the COOKED meat sauce, saying , "It's yummy." Unfortunately he wasn't saying the same thing once dinner was presented to him. He has been tough, but he eats when he is hungry enough.

This little man can count to 50, knows his basic shapes (including star and diamond), upper and lower case in the alphabet, knows the days of a week (when singing a song), and his colors. Some of these he even knows in sign language, thanks to Baby Signing Times. None of this is really new, except the counting to 50- and that isn't completely perfect yet.

Last little story was today when I asked Jared to take Corban with him to choir (so I could be lazy and blog) Jared was telling him they were going in the van. Corban said, "Mommy, in the truck?". Like he was asking if mommy wanted to come too. Then he kept insisting that they were going, "In the truck". So daddy would respond with, "Okay, we will go in the van." They continued this all the way out the door. I don't really know how it ended, though I do know they went in the van.