a visit from Grandpa & Grammy...

At the end of September, Jeff and I went to a conference in Wake Forest so my parents came down to stay with Deacon for a few days.  They had a blast, as usual.  And with their smart phone technology, they captured some of their time together...

 [they read LOTS of books over the weekend.]

 [and took LOTS of trips around the tracks over the weekend.]

[ I *AM* BATMAN.]

Thanks, Momma & Daddy, for taking such good care of our boy!  We know you had a good time, and Deacon loved having you here!

Easter 2013

Easter Sunday this year dawned...well, not so sunny.  Or warm.  At least not to begin with.  It turned out to be a decent day, though, by the time we left church.  We had a great service, as always, celebrating the resurrection and saving power of our Lord Jesus.  I am so very thankful that I belong to Him, that He has made me free!

 

I tried again to coordinate our "Easter outfits".  It's a little more subtle than last year, but we are both actually coordinated with Deacon's little sweater vest.  Oh, he was SO handsome!  And bonus!  We found our friends, Larry & Kristen, as we were picking Deacon up from the nursery so I was able to have Larry snap some quick photos of us after church.  Larry was our photographer at both of Deacon's birthday parties.

As we did last year, we waited until after church to do Easter baskets.  I'm not even trying to deal with a kid who is either a) strung out on all kinds of candy, or b) pissed because we gave him the basket but told him he couldn't have any of the candy in it.

 

It was fun to watch him discover the basket and then look in it to find all the goodies.  We gave him a few books from the Target dollar section (that place NEVER fails me), some eggs filled with various candy including gummy bears (one of his faves) and peepsters (have you heard of these?  chocolate covered marshmallow, holla!), and a battery-operated Percy train.  He loves the other battery-powered train on his train table, and he loves Percy (Thomas' best friend :) so we figured that would be a hit.

 

 

And oh, boy...he's been introduced to Peeps.  These are Jeff's all-time fave Easter candy (I say yuk.) so I'm actually surprised of course, he shared with Deacon.  Well, what's not to like when you're a kid with a major sweet tooth??

 

Yeah, he's a fan.

 

 

 

I'm just gonna eat ALL of this candy right now, mkay??

special birthday presents...

I know I might be stretching this birthday thing out a little bit but I thought it would be fun to share these videos of Deacon playing with a couple of his bigger birthday presents.  The first is what he got from his Grandpa Duane & Grandma Sherry (Jeff's parents), and the second is what we gave him...

  

  

Children's Museum...

I took Deacon to the Children's Museum of Wilmington last weekend and we had a blast! Jeff was out of town at a conference, and I had a coupon to get us both in for free so off we went Saturday morning.

 

It's a kid's paradise, I tell ya.  There are so many things to do for kids of all ages, it's pretty hard for them to get bored.  But it isn't hard for them to get WORN OUT.  We were there for a couple of hours and that's what it took to get through the whole thing and have time to play.  But that's about all Deacon was good for, so it worked out great.  It was really a nice outing for us.  :)

We started off in an area designed just for toddlers 4 and under.  This room had an enormous tree in the middle of it that you could climb under/through or crawl up on (via stairs).  There was a slide to slide down on one side of the tree.  Deacon found this car and promptly claimed it for his own.  Thankfully, there weren't any other kids in there when we started so he got to play with it for awhile.  He enjoyed sitting in it but also pushing it around.  We did eventually give other kids a turn. :)

 

 

 

We headed outside afterward before it got really sweltering.  There was a gutted schoolbus that Deacon just thought was the coolest.  The kids can climb up in the driver's seat and push all the buttons.  They can turn the A/C controls.  I thought it was pretty cool, too.  :)

 

 

They had this whole courtyard full of stuff for kids to do -- the school bus, a little mini house to walk through, this bridge to cross and the little tunnel to climb up in.  They also had a wagon with water and water toys to play with (Deacon's was more interested in the puddles on the ground around the wagon...lovely.), and a big rope spider web that older kids can climb up.

 

 

But oh, the trains!  The trains were the big hit with Deacon.  Which further confirmed that I'm doing the right thing for his birthday party this year. ;)  I liked to NEVER got him away from these train tables!  He had the best time just walking around and playing with all the trains.  He recognized a lot of the engines because he watches Thomas the Train almost every day.  He was so cute to just sit and watch.  The train tables were a big hit with other kids, too, and Deacon played pretty well with all of them.  :: heart swelling with pride ::

 

 

I did eventually get him away from the trains, though.  :)  We found a little camping site -- I thought it was so cute.  I immediately thought of my brother and his family + my mom & dad who happened to really BE camping while we were at the museum.  Deacon liked getting into the tent with the sleeping bags, but he got a little spooked by those fish sitting there.  He made a break for it after he spotted those.

 

 

 

We found a little restaurant, complete with tables to sit at and order food, plus the means to prepare the food for the customers.  Griddles and burners, lots of fake (but so real-looking) food.  A lot of the older kids enjoyed that.  But Deacon did grill me up a pork chop.  Mmm, tasty.  :)

 

 

We went outside one more time before leaving.  This will definitely be a place that we come to from time to time.  So thankful to have a place that encourages our little ones to imagine and dream!

 

For more photos from our 1st trip to the museum, click here.

just braggin' a little...

For your enjoyment today, just a few random photos of my boy...

I HAVE mentioned how hard it is to get a good sharp photo of him these days, right?  Yeah, I thought so.  We were just hanging out in the office/craft room listening to Daddy play his drum one night and I decided to get the camera out.   

 

I think I caught him mid-word here.  :)

 

Just had to share these -- his faces crack me up.  Especially when you look at them all together.  This was the exact order that we took them.  I think maybe in the first (top left) he was waiting for the flash?  I don't use flash if I can help it.  I most definitely didn't in these.  The bottom left is probably where I was trying to get him to smile so I told him to say "cheeeese".  It looks like he did.  :)

 

Y'all would not believe all that this kid can do at almost 2 years old.  This is probably the heart of every mama but I am SO proud of him.  :: heart bursting ::

 

I've always talked about him being a chatterbox and that hasn't changed -- it's just that now we can understand maybe 75% of what he says.  He's still got a little bit of that "japanese" he speaks going on, but he will attempt to say anything we ask him to.  And some things we DON'T ask him to, if you know what I mean.  :: raises eyebrow ::

 

He's close to knowing all his body parts and where they are.  He most definitely knows his first name and is just beginning to say his last name when we prompt him.  The way he says "Wenzel" is so cute.  :)  Well, that pretty much goes for anything he says, in my opinion.  He sings A LOT.  To himself, or with us.  I think his faves at this point are "Twinkle, Twinkle", the ABC song and he still likes "The Wheels on the Bus".  Jeff recently taught him "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and he likes that one, too.  He can finish parts of all the songs we sing together if we stop singing.  Such a smarty.  :)

 

He also knows who the best his fave baseball team is.  If you ask him who his fave baseball team is, he says "yyyyyyaaaaankeeeeees!!"  It's adorable how excited he gets.  We watch a lot of Yankees baseball in this house so he recognizes the Yankees logo and even the MLB logo, hello!  Jeff loves that!

 

He is especially into trains, specifically Thomas, right now.  He likes trucks and fire engines (which are referred to as buses, for some reason -- I guess they do look more like a bus than a truck...), and still loves to sit in your lap and look at books.  He's beginning to let us read to him more than just wanting to flip through the pages as fast as he can and move on.  He's still got that 10 sec attention span, but he will actually point out things on the pages to us, or answer questions that we ask about what's on the page.  I'm so glad he loves books.  :)

 

We FINALLY got him to say the number 1!  Right up until this week, probably, he would NOT say "one".  When we would ask him to say "one", he would skip right to 2.  Well, now he's started counting with 1...2...4...6...7...9...10.  We're missing some numbers, sure, but the important one at this point is 2 and he's had that one for AWHILE.

 

There are so many little things -- triumphs, sweet (as well as frustrating) moments, etc. that I haven't included in my general summary here of life with our toddler but we are enjoying every single moment, watching Deacon grow and change.  I just wanted to share a little of that with you.  :)

 

[22 months]