Terrible Twos?

So a few weeks ago my baby turned two.  The last few months leading up to his birthday I was afraid that Matthew was going to be one of those toddlers who coined the phrase "terrible twos" but since his actual b-day he has mellowed quite a bit- or else we have been too busy for him to pitch fits.  I'm not sure which.
Matthew at two is quite the charmer.  He still has that killer smile and belly laugh and is just so stinking cute if I do say so myself.  He talks non stop and is actually understandable much of the time.  (Although I did leave a translation guide for the babysitter when I left the kids for a couple of days to go to Utah.)  He acts like he is two going on eight.  He thinks he can do anything and everything his biggest brother, Samuel, does.  He has oficially hit tht Thomas the Train stage and is obsessed with his engines and tracks and plays with them all time.  He also still loves all things Mickey Mouse.  My parents sent him a couple of Mickey books for his birthday and now he makes me read one of them to him 10-15 times a day and he sleeps with it for naptime and bedtime.  However, that means he will pleasantly go to sleep without screaming so I am all over that!
For his birthday this year we had a Mickey Mouse party, of course, with family and close friends.  I even attempted a Mickey cake which turned out pretty darn well.  (I am a little cocky this post!)

As for two year old pictures, I usually go to Target because they do a decent job and don't cost an arm and a leg.  Unfortunately, since the last time we went, they started charging a $9.99 sitting fee per person.  Forget that!  I took my awesome camera (a Christmas gift from my amazing husband) and decided to take his two year old pictures myself.  What do you think?

Eight is Great

Last month Samuel turned eight. He has been looking forward to this birthday since January and not just for the party and the presents. Eight years old is a big deal! In our church eight is the age of accountability when we believe a child is old enough to decide if he wants to be baptized and officially become a member of our church. After baptism they are then confirmed a member of the church and receive the Holy Ghost to be a constant companion and advisor. Samuel is a sweet, sweet boy. He has the biggest heart I know and just wants to love everyone around him. He has a wide-eyed innocence and imagination that has somehow, miraculously survived two years of grade school. (Longer than I expected!) He is very smart and loves to play and learn and do all those things that boys do at that age. He has a huge spirit and more faith than I ever had when I was a kid. He was SO excited to get baptized! He has been anxiously awaiting his turn since his cousin, Nathan, was baptized last February. We have talked about the baptism non stop since then. Unfortunately, we had to make him wait a couple of weeks after his birthday to get baptized so that we could give family members a chance to finish school and get to Philly. But it was totally worth it! We had a great time and Samuel felt loved with so much of his family around him.

Some things about about Sam at age 8: He loves to read ( especially the Magic Tree House books- which are too easy but he loves the stories). He loves to play with Legos and would do that to the exclusion of all else if I would let him. He loves playing kickball and dodge ball. He can ride his bicycle without training wheels but it makes him a little nervous. He LOVES the water- ocean or swimming pool, it makes no difference to him. He loves the Narnia movies, Star Wars anything and Harry Potter 1-3 (he is still too young for the rest). He loves the fads: bey blades and silly bands and webkinz. He still wants to be a zebra doctor when he grows up. He is really excited to be a cub scout and enjoys passing off the various tasks in his manual. He is a great big brother who maybe teases a little too much but clearly loves his brothers more than anything. His best friend is still Keith- has been since Kindergarten and he is still friends with as many girls as boys and sees nothing wrong with that. As far as he is concerned, there is no such thing as cooties.

I love my Sam and his big heart!

Here are some of my favorite (recent) pics of Samuel:

The boys in their suits.

Our new cub scout

Red, white and blue- Happy 4th!

Can't you just see Sam as a zoologist?

The day he learned to ride minus the extra wheels.

Baptism Day!

All ready!

Singing with cousins?

Myrtle Beach

We took our annual family trip (AKA John's medical conference- you can ask him all about that aspect in person) to Myrtle Beach in the middle of June.  We did the math and realized that it was our sixth year and we have no desire at all to find someplace new.  It is the perfect vacation for young kids.  Although I have to say we did miss our partners in crime, Gavin and Jamie and the girls, Aunt B, Laura and kids and the Andrus family representative, who couldn't make it this year.  Instead, Tip brought a couple of friends, one of whom was the self-proclaimed Exercise Nazi, Pat.  She even got Jacko out exercising which is something of a miracle!
While in MB we rediscovered that Matthew has a disconcerting character trait.  He is a wanderer.  This is totally new to us because Sam and James always stuck right next to us in public.  They did not like crowds or strangers or being separated from us even a little bit.  Matthew has no such qualms.  Case and point:  The first evening we were in MB, we got back from the beach and got the boys bathed and dressed and set them in front of the TV so John and I could get ready for dinner.  We had two bathrooms so John and I each hopped in a shower.  When John finished he noticed that the front door to our condo was wide open.  He heard screaming and looked out.  There was a woman standing in the parking lot holding Matthew who was screaming his head off.  Our little guy had figured out how to open the door, climbed down the long flight of wooden steps, and wandered into the parking lot.  This lady saw him and had just picked him up, wondering what to do with him when John got to the door.  John yelled down, "I think that is mine.  I would come down and get him but I am in a towel."  The lady was nice enough to bring Matthew up to John and we learned our first lesson- blockade the door to avoid unwanted exiting-  there wasn't a deadbolt.  A couple days later Matthew pulled his disappearing trick again, this time in an amusement park with hundreds of people around.  John found him about 100 feet away from us just happily bobbing along. 
Luckily we all made it home safe and sound and had a good time in the process.  Here are some pics to prove it!


 

Matthew "helping" stuff his bear at the kids' activity tent.

S & J at their favorite place- the water park.



Riding the train with my boys at Family Kingdom.





Matthew tolerated the water slides- and maybe even liked them a little.



Taking a nap in Nonno's arms

Dinner at the Home Plate pizza buffet.

Issac, our favorite busboy, remembered us and signed some balloons for the boys.

Matthew wasn't too sure about Issac.

I have wanted to take family pictures on the beach since our first visit to MB.  This year I finally got around to it.

But it was really windy.



And the boys were being goofy.



There we go!

They clean up well!

I tried to add a couple more pictures- including the traditional pic of James sleeping through dinner- but my computer is malfunctioning at the moment- or maybe it is just blogger.  Will try later.

The Mormon Way

So with all of the famous Mormons and Mormon related stuff in the media these days, I get more and more questions from my non Mormon friends about the church.  This is a good thing and something I actually really enjoy, but there are days when I wish that I could broadcast my answers so that people who don't know a Mormon personally could be enlightened or disallusioned- whichever is necessary.
Today on FB a friend of mine posted this link to a Newsweek article on Mormons .  It was actually a decent overview of the religion- or at least as decent as one can get in so few words.  There are just a few things I would like to clarify: 

1)  The HBO show Big Love is not about Mormons.  It is about members of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Thanks for the correction, Zack).  The actual LDS Church, or people that you commonly refer to as Mormons, outlawed polygamy over 100 years ago.  It was a practice done only by a few members of the church in the 1800s. 
2)  The Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" is not put on by or sanctioned by the LDS church.  It is used to poke fun at the church not to proselytize.  This is not to say that it is all bad.  I personally haven't seen it but I have LDS friends who have seen it and who really enjoyed it.

If you want to know what we believe, that Newsweek article did a good job of explaining a few things about us.  Here is one more.  Our 13th Article of Faith states:

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul (yes, as in Paul from the New Testament)—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

To read the other 12, click here.


If you are confused about all of the misinformation about the church in the media go to http://www.lds.org/ or http://mormon.org/.- (Thanks for the suggestion, Sam.)  You can read everything you want to about the church and actually get a comprehensive understanding for yourself.

Questions?  Comment below.

Happy Birthday, James!

We have hit the busy season so most of my blog posts have not made it from my head to the computer.  However, I could not miss this one.
 
My sweet Mr James just celebrated his 6th birthday!  Hooray!
 
I took brownies into school on his actual birthday then he had a party a Chuck E Cheese with his friends from school the next day and a family party at home on Sunday.  Lots of fun!

Here are some fun facts about James at age 6:
James still loves Lambies (he has 5 stuffed animal lambs:  Lamby the White, Lamby the Lamb, Lamby the Sheep, Lamby the Small and Lamby the Big), strawberries (he will eat an entire carton in one sitting if you let him) and playing Xbox or Wii with his daddy and big brother.  He also plays really well with his little brother Matthew- most of the time, anyway.  He is in his last two weeks of Kindergarten and is reading up a storm and loves to demonstrate his counting and math skills.  His favorite class is Music (so my kid!).  He also likes to swim and play soccer and he finally thinks that riding bicycles is a fun thing to do.  He loved his after school art classes.  His favorite tv show is the cartoon "Avengers" and he loves Spiderman and Iron Man (in that order) the best.  His most favorite movie ever is "How to Train Your Dragon."  His best friends are Jacob S. and Michael R and of course, Gracie K.

Here are some fun photos of James over the last year:

Happy Birthday to my sweet neglected middle child.  One of these days I promise you will get all of the attention you deserve! =)