Terrific Twos

My baby turned two this week and I've been feeling just a teeny bit sad. I know it's cliche, but the time since Spencer was born has really flown by. He is getting so big and independent. He usually asks to walk everywhere we go which is a challenge in stores. Lately, however, Spencer has had a little cold and keeps saying "hold you" instead of "walk." We've been working on "hold me" instead but it often comes out "hold you me." He has also been saying "okey dokey" a lot lately. I love hearing his little voice and that he can communicate some of his thoughts now. Spencer's personality is coming out more and more and it's so fun to see. He's quite reserved and shy around new people, but talks like crazy at home and turns into a wild boy after dinner every night.

He LOVES to learn and has really surprised me by how much and how quickly he picks things up. He can name every capital letter of the alphabet and can say his ABC's in order up to G. He can say his numbers up to 10, but can only really count to 3. He knows all of the basic colors. Yellow is still his favorite (just because it's fun to say, I think). We still read a lot of stories before nap and bed time every day. He's able to pay attention to some longer books with plots now versus basic board books. He loves going to story time at the library every week even though he's too shy to participate in the songs much.

Spencer got to celebrate his birthday twice this year: on Tuesday for his actual birthday and again on Saturday when we had a few friends over for a party.

I didn't do a cake on Tuesday, but we had Spencer's favorite dinner: muffins, hash browns and scrabbled eggs. We were still living at Grandma and Grandpa's house so they got to be a part of all the fun.



Spencer got a lot of very nice gifts. Grandma Rasmussen gave him some fun puzzles that make noises when you put the pieces in.



Grandma LeFevre gave him an Elmo doll that sings the Alphabet song. He loves this one a little too much and plays the song over and over and over. ABC Elmo is now banned from his crib and has to sleep on the couch every night. :)



We finally got moved into our new house on Thursday, so we had some friends from our old ward over on Saturday to celebrate Spencer's birthday again. I made these Elmo cupcakes and was pleasantly surprised at how they turned out. (I am a total non-crafty person so this is big for me!)



Doesn't he have an adorable smile?



Yeah, he liked his cupcake just a little bit more than last year.



In his defense, he did have an ear infection. :(



Our friends the Cunninghams and the Lents and Alan's parents came to the party. Spencer didn't want to try very hard to open his presents and kept handing them to adorable, little Hailey for help. Don't most little kids love ripping the paper off packages? Spencer got more great presents from his friends and has been having a great time with them. Thank you so much everyone!


I love my little boy so much and am trying hard to cherish each new stage. I know each one ends too quickly, but I hope you'll always be my best buddy Spencer!

Lovies

This is how Spencer has been sleeping since we moved. Grandma has lots of stuffed animals and he often cries for more until his crib is just about full of them. A big, white teddy bear is currently his favorite and I'm afraid it might have to move to our new house with us. Today it was blankets instead of stuffed animals, but there's still barely any room for my little sweet heart. I love that he's so cuddly and snuggly right now and hope he doesn't out grow that anytime soon. It is a bit of a challenge trying to clog while holding a 28-lb little boy who cries every time I try to set him down during class though. :)

Surprises

We had a low-key Easter this year since Alan and I were wiped out from painting and Alan's parents had just returned home from Wyoming. It was wet and cold out, so Spencer did his Easter egg hunt in the living room. I found some plastic eggs in his toy bin a few weeks before we moved while trying to clean and pack. Putting snack "prises" (gold fish crackers, banana chips, raisins, etc) in them turned out to be a great way to keep him occupied for a few extra minutes. So, Spencer had a pretty good idea what to do on Easter morning. We had fun hiding them over and over all week.







He insisted on getting a girly yellow and pink basket.




Daddy got better treats than Spencer did in his basket.

Spring Break

We got to celebrate spring break with my parents and Michelle, this year. It had been almost 3 years since they had all gotten to come visit, so we were super excited to have them. We didn't get to play as much as we normally would have because spring break happened to be the week before we moved, but we did get to do a few fun things.

We got lucky and had great weather the entire time they were here, so we visited our favorite duck park one last time while living in Hillsboro.




It was so good for Spencer to develop a little relationship with his other Grandma and Grandpa. He had SO much fun being spoiled with attention!




Alan's parents were nice enough to let us use their beach house for a night. The beach is a huge deal for Arizonans, so we spent awhile there. Spencer immediately wanted his shoes and socks off like everyone else, but only lasted about 20 seconds on the cold sand. :)




Michelle had a fabulous time wading and wound up with very wet pants.




They are all a lot tougher than I am. I didn't go near the water.




After the beach, we watched a glass-blowing demonstration. This is Spencer's "Grandma smile."




Lovely.




This is the only picture I got of just Mom and Dad together.




Of course, we also had to hit up the Tillamook Cheese Factory for free cheese samples and ice cream cones. German Chocolate Cake ice cream = Divine.




On another nice day, we went to another park. Michelle was a little tall for the toddler playground, but she was a good sport and played there with Spencer anyway. My baby sister is just about to pass me up in height! She was such a good buddy for Spencer the whole time she was here.




Purse duty.




My best buddy. I love hearing Spencer say "best buddy." He has the cutest, little voice.




Cheese!



Thanks so much for coming to visit Mom, Dad and Michelle! We had a wonderful time even though things were a little crazy with moving. We miss you guys all the time and so wish we could see you more often. Until July...

Progress

I've been a bit of a blog-slacker lately, but I have a good excuse. Alan and I have been working our rear-ends off on our house. We have painted the entire interior, with the exception of two bathrooms and those will get painted next week. All of the walls with color on them had to have a coat of primer and then at least two coats of paint. We had hoped to move in this weekend, but decided to replace all of the trim and baseboards so it will be at least another week. I wasn't quite prepared for just how long all of the painting was going to take and how exhausting it was going to be, but it will be almost like a brand-new house when we finally do get to move in! Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited. Right now, I'm just tired and still have a lot more work to look forward to. I'll be SUPER excited when we finally move in.

This used to be the "fire wall." The whole place looks a thousand times better with just this one change.




This was my first color choice for the kitchen. The color swatch from Home Depot looked good, but this turned out scary!




After a lot more work, here's the color I changed it too. Ahhh, much better.




Spencer's room used to have a blue-green wall and a Mickey Mouse border along the ceiling. It's a boring white now, but that's what I prefer. We'll do some fun things to decorate when we get moved in.




My best buddy thought it was fun to work at the new house for about 2 days. Now, he doesn't like it so much and it's hard to do anything with him around. A million thanks to Alan's Mom, who watched Spencer for three entire days while I worked!




Thankfully, Spencer LOVES living at "Ma's house." In fact, he loves playing there so much, that it's hard to get him to stop long enough to eat anything. Grandma has lots of extra teddies that he can add to the collection in his bed. There's barely enough room for him now.



More catch-up posts coming soon!