Me and Magoo

Something special happened this week! Magoo turned two! He is officially a big boy now- no longer a little baby. How did that even happen??

How did that little guy get so enormous in only two years?

Little Man's first birthday.

And here we are, age two! He's so grown up!

Boy and His Dogs, 2015

For his birthday party, we had barbecue and cake with some friends, and followed up with some Beatles Rockband. Magoo had so much fun, showing off his cars and basketball hoop to anyone he could drag into his room.

He had almost all of his favorite people with him for party night, and didn't want anyone to leave when it was over! One of his tiny friends was getting bundled up to leave and he ran over to her, grabbed her by the hand, and led her back over to his toys to play some more. Too cute!

On his actual birthday, we just relaxed and had fun playing around the house with the dogs and Magoo's new toys. We didn't do anything too overwhelming, since we'd already had a rockin' party!!

Oh, just doing a little carpentry!

This kid has so stinkin' much personality! He never ceases to make me laugh. :)

Some little facts about Magoo:

1) He loooooooves to read.

2) He also loves to count.

3) He especially likes to read AND count. He'll turn the pages of whatever book he's reading, and with each turned page, I hear "ive! yix! eh'en! eigh! nine! nine! nine! den!!"

4) Choo-choo trains (joo-joos) are the bomb, yo! (He had a Thomas the Train cake for his party - the frosting was a little soupy looking by the time I was done with all of the food coloring, but it still looked pretty darn good for my first-ever cake painting!)

5) He's got a mouthful of teeth, sixteen (plus some molars coming in now) to be exact.

6) He can say all of his aunts and uncles' names, which is quite a feat, considering how many aunts and uncles he has.

7) Blue is his favorite color. He'll take apart his foam alphabet floor mat and sort all of the blue pieces into a little pile, leaving all of the other colors in one big, multicolored heap on the floor. He also has rainbow popsicle sticks with velcro pieces attached to them - what does he do with them, do you think? He tears them all apart and wanders the house with every blue popsicle stick in hand or pocket, leaving all of the other colors in their pencil box. Silly kid!

8) His speech is somewhat delayed, not enough for me to really worry about him, but enough that TV has been banned while he is awake, in order to have as much creative, hands-on learning and people interaction as possible. He is improving quite a bit already, and is a pretty chatty guy, even though I don't often know what he's trying to say!

9) FaceTime is a favorite. He would talk for hours on FaceTime if anyone was available to talk to him for that long. :)

10) He's a food thief! He eats his own breakfast every morning, and then tries to eat mine, too! I have to move pretty fast if I want to get 50% or more of my own food. Sidenote: If I just cooked two of whatever I was eating and gave one to him, he wouldn't want it. It's just because it's mine that has a such a draw!

11) He's a tantrum boy! If he doesn't get what he wants, he will either throw himself down on the floor, or if he's sitting on something, he'll do a limp noodle and slide off of it and THEN throw himself down on the floor, and cry. He used to bang his head on the ground, too, but finally figured out that all that does is hurt is head, so at least he doesn't do that anymore, except for the occasional accident. I've tried to reason with him (dumb, right? he's a toddler), and I've tried to distract him. Mostly I just ignore him and play with something he likes on the other side of the room, hoping he'll notice during a lull and get distracted by whatever I'm doing. It usually works!

12) He's started going to Sunday School and really likes it! He has a mailbox, and he gets to sing a song with his teacher and his classmates. He also usually gets to color a picture and he gets to take a Sunday School paper home. This week the story was about Zacchaeus, so he had a little paper with a spot for his paper doll Zacchaeus to sit in the tree, and a spot for him to stand on the ground next to Jesus. Pretty fun stuff!

13) Finding Nemo was an effective bribe for washing/rinsing his hair without thrashing or crying in the tub back in December, AND he has a fish shower curtain, so ocean life is really cool right now. He loves all of his sea life storybooks and his octopus bath toy.

14) He's a big fan of the Mexican restaurant in town, although he only ever eats the refried beans and the tortilla chips and salsa. Everything else gets spit back out. Sick! ;)

15) Magoo is learning how to use a potty chair, so that's a really new development! It helps when the potty chair plays the Thomas theme song every time it gets wet. We're doing it at a leisurely pace though, so I'm not really doing the "potty training" thing. I'll ask him after naps or throughout the day if he wants to sit on the potty, and sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. No big deal either way. He'll start doing it all the time when he's ready.

16) He loves wearing hats. Sailor hats are especially cool. Or his grandma's cowboy hat. Or his raccoon hat. Or his fireman hat. Or his summertime in the pool hat. All hats. That's not true. Most hats.

17) He's very good at taking stealthy selfies. I don't usually let him touch my phone, but somehow there are always pictures of his forehead or the floor in my photos. Maybe he'll be the Ansel Adams of his generation? I've got to get him out into nature! :)

18) His dogs are his favorite. He loves petting, hugging, snuggling, chasing, and talking to them, and he loves "feeding" them food from his kitchen. Sometimes I let him give them each a treat, and he'll grab the treats, run out to his kitchen, and put each treat in a different skillet and carefully carry them over and set them down on the ground for the dogs to eat.

19) He's also really loving a panda teddy that his grandma gave him for Christmas. It is pretty special!

20) Magoo gives the best hugs and kisses!