Happy Birthday, Matt!

Matt's birthday was really the 21st, but we seemed to string it out a few days between our opening gifts on his birthday to his party 3 days later. We hear rumors that there are several more gifts in the mail. I don't know what we will do come Christmas. Hopefully, he won't think his birthday lasts for a whole month! That will be quite something to live up to each year!

I tried my hand at cake decorating another year. It's really hard to find kid birthday decorations that don't have a character theme, so, we made do with the icing airplane on the cake instead. Yes, that's an airplane!


We had Matt's party at a friend's indoor playground that Matt just loves. He had a blast running around like a crazy 2 year old and playing with all of the kids. Here he is in the "car wash" with his friend Ava.

Matt played ball with Maya and Skyler for quite some time. They would toss the ball over the top and he would laugh and run to get it and throw it back out at them.

Matt was quite happy riding on top of the car, while Lindsey pushed him and her daughter Ava around. That is, he was happy until he saw "MOMMMMMMMYYYY!" That's how it goes some days around here now.

Bubble time is magical for all ages it seems!

Matt discovered slides here a few months ago and loves to go down the bouncy slides, as long as none of the older kids were coming right behind him. He got bounced and rolled out a few times, but quickly recovered and returned to run and slide.

Parachute time took some coaxing, but all of the kids seemed to enjoy it to some extent.

Matt enjoyed being pushed around in the car by his favorite playmate, his daddy!

When everyone left, they got to take a balloon with them. With all of the wind and rain, several parents opted to leave the balloons. Matt got lucky and ended up with more than planned. He punched those balloons while running around the house for a few hours that night. He was very excited all night!

When it came time to open presents, Matt was reluctant because it meant he had to stop playing with the other presents he had received earlier in his birthday week! (see below for his new tool bench his daddy got him) But, once the train set was up, he was game for that! I can't believe he let me assemble it, and kept it together for so long.

Here he is setting up his signs around the parking lot. His newest thing when we're in the car is to point out the street signs to me. His favorite is to tell me there's a circle and then tell me that it says "Do Not E e e e enter". He can't seem to get it out without stumbling every time. It's funny to listen to how many variations he comes up with on one trip to the store.

34 weeks!

6 more weeks to go, and just look at that belly! I feel huge somedays and chasing after Matt doesn't make me feel any smaller! He's having fun with the idea of the baby in my belly and even tried to feet the baby some of his macaroni and cheese tonight at dinner. It sure will be interesting when the baby is born and everything changes!

Ballunar

We decided to spend some time at NASA this morning for the Ballunar Liftoff Festival. The boys pulled over yesterday to view the hot air balloons while they were running errands, but we stopped on site to see more today. We watched a few hang gliders and some kind of flying go carts while we were there. Matt enjoyed watching all of them, but got a bit scared when they began firing rockets into the air. We stepped away and walked around at that point.

Matt walks with his daddy, proudly carrying his loot from the day. He picked the biggest inflatable prize he could have from the duck game he played. He wouldn't let us hold it for him.

Deep in thought!

Once in "Daddy's truck", he still wouldn't part with any of his goodies. He even has his blue balloon next to him. It was funny when he asked for his water on our way home. I wasn't sure what he was going to sacrifice to hold onto his cup. Amazingly, he managed to hold it all and still finish his water.

Happy Halloween!

Matt went to daycare in his costume, and wore it most of the day! He really did well with his costume, with the exception of his accessories, which you will see later.

Here he is with his friends at daycare. That's Miss Susie pushing the "Bye Bye Buggy". He loves going for rides in that thing!

The kids got out of the buggy long enough to go trick or treating at the receptionist's desk. Miss Janie gave them some treats along with some kisses as usual!

I caught up with Matt just long enough to get a picture with my little golfer! I had to hold the clubs though.

Here's Matt checking out his clubs.

I tried to snap a photo of him with his hat on, but he ripped it off before I could push the button. He's very modest, wouldn't you say?

It looks like we took the smile right off his face by trying to get a picture of him with his golf clubs. He was not happy that we were trying to add things to such a snappy ensemble.

Here's our little Bobby Jones, sans the clubs.

After a walk around the block and a seemingly pro trick or treating evening, our worn out and sweaty little golfer checked out his load of treats!

Think he slept well? He did! It was just hard to tear him away from the candy, while convincing him he couldn't have any of it.

Before he would leave his stash, he had to tell us the colors and shapes of all of the candy. He was so excited to tell us all about the candy.

More pumpkins!

With the rotting pumpkin in the garbage, we decided to go ahead with our painting job on the second pumpkin we got at the pumpkin patch. Matt proudly donned one of my painting shirts and picked out his colors.

It took him a minute or two to get the brush out of the paint and onto the pumpkin.

More paint for an already overloaded brush.

Let the finger painting begin!

Silly me, I thought he'd have fun painting the pumpkin, but it turns out that painting my shirt was more fun!

He looks at Nick, wondering why we are giving him such funny looks about painting the shirt.

With the brush thrown aside, it was time to invest the whole hand in the painting endeavor.

At one point he just started slapping the pumpkin with a hand full of paint.

Here's the only picture I could get of Matt with his pumpkins, after he went and played in the yard with all the leaves and sprinklers. He was quite a mess after everything!

Here are Matt's finished works. The little pumpkin was from his friend Abby's birthday party on Sunday. He was quite proud of his pumpkins!

Our son the goofball!

The other night, we got home from work and Matt showed off his new version of walking that he has picked up from a playmate at daycare. I have seen them do this walk together and it's quite amusing, but I had to get in on film for Nick and couldn't resist sharing it.
Here's our highstepper!

Tonight, while playing Potato Head, Matt decided we both needed to try on the glasses. I couldn't resist the pictures!

He looks like an old man peeking over his glasses so he can see better!

He decided that running, while having your vision greatly distracted by a pair of Potato Head glasses, is a good idea! Luckily, no one was injured in the filming of this incident!

A Day of Pumpkins!

Over the weekend, we took Matt to a pumpkin patch at a local church and let him explore. Turns out, he explored everything but the pumpkins. He kept climbing up on the haystacks, and on the palettes and walking around on them. It was a tough transition back to the car after that visit, but he survived!

He wouldn't dare sit still and pose for a picture on the hay. He was too busy exploring all the new things.

He was picking out a pumpkin from the ones used to price the rest. Notice, he's one from the "top of the line" pumpkin. Great taste, I guess.

Once we got the pumpkins home, we decided to get messy with the taller of the two we bought. Yes, it will probably rot by next Wednesday, but we had fun anyway!

Matt was okay with holding all the tools, and helping scoop with a long handled spoon, but when it came time to touch the pumpkin "goop", he just wanted to watch.

He did help me get the seeds and goop from my hands by flicking them off violently!

I tried to get him in there, but he held on tight to his spoon instead.

He looks like he was helpful, doesn't he? I was almost elbow deep in the pumpkin! He did help put his hat on when we were all done.

I'll have to get a picture of him with his pumpkin on the porch. We'll be painting the other one this weekend. That should be interesting...

New favorites

These days it's easy to figure out what Matt is doing in the house. There are really only 2 things he does on a regular basis at home without prompting, which are watching "Finding Nemo" and reading "Mat Man". I really don't know how the whole Nemo thing started, but he is a real addict. I can tear him away for meals and he definitely plays while watching (at times), but he just loves that movie right now. "Mat Man" is a book from the Handwriting Without Tears program I use with the kids at work. I recently went to the preschool training and came home with some of the tools and introduced them to Matt knowing he isn't of preschool age yet, but what can it hurt? He fell in love with Mat Man, and that includes his new favorite book, making Mat Man out of the wooden pieces as well as listening to the song non-stop in the car.

Here he is with all of his remotes out ready for us to turn on Nemo, and reading his Mat Man book while waiting on us! His favorite word in the book is now "octagon", which he says for virtually every shape with a big grin on his face! I guess he likes the way it sounds when he says it.

Occasionally, we can get him to play with other toys while downstairs. He loves legos now and loves to build cars with his new set we got him.

He also recently discovered that it is fun to wear the container as a hat!

Here he goes, running away from me with his new hat on.

It's dark and blurry, but if you enlarge it you can see the blurry figure with the neon green hat, running down the hallway! He is such a goof ball! He keeps us laughing, and I can only hope that the next little has a sense of humor like Matt!