Dear Desmond, on your 2nd birthday.

{traditional birthday breakfast at Original Pancake House}

Dear precious Desmond,

You have grown from my baby into my little boy very quickly over the last 2 years! You've worked hard to keep up with your big brother and are always found by his side, usually mimicking his every move and word. You've picked up on a lot language over the past year and I'm still in awe over the full blown conversations we've been having over the last few months. I love that you can easily tell me how you are feeling and even why. Your verbal skills have surely come in handy in holding your own when your brother gets a bit bossy. 

You've always been our little climber, before you were walking you were climbing. Just the other day I caught you climbing your chair to reach something on the table, you waved me off and said "no problem, no problem." Sadly you're starting to tune me out when you're intent on doing something that you know you shouldn't. I see the same fierce independence Malakai had at this age coming through in you as well. 

I love watching you learn and grow. You love numbers and shapes and devour books by the dozens. We have to go to the library once a week to keep up with your appetite for reading both with someone or thumbing through picture books on your own. 

Your favorite things are animals, especially those that say "ROAR", like lions, tigers, bears and dinosaurs. You love to say chomp like a crocodile as well. You are obsessed with trucks, trains, planes and pretty much anything that goes "vroom". Your party theme was modeled after this, "things that go". You remember the different sounds that fire trucks, dump trucks, trains and other automobiles make and you've memorized a few of your favorite books. 

Running and hopping come easy to you. I'm sure you'll be pedaling a bike with ease by next spring. You are a phenomenal eater, trying almost anything and going back to try several times even when you've decided "I don't wike it!"I'm so thankful you haven't started to mimick your older brother in this regard. You have always grown fast and are now growing into Kai's clothes almost immediately after he grows out of them. 

Sleep has been a struggle for the past 10 months or so. You did well as a baby, but since last December you haven't been able to go to bed for anyone but daddy at night. The last few months have been rough even with daddy by your side. Thankfully you nap pretty consistently, although that tide is changing as well. I'm praying hard you hold on to your afternoon nap for at least another year, I know you need that rest because you get VERY cranky at dinner time without it. 

Your favorite places to go are Grandma's, Mima's and church. Whenever we get in the car you say, "go to church!" and half the time, that's exactly where we are headed. You've learned the look of our neighborhood and shout "we're home!" when we turn onto our street. 

Sweet Des, you are very social and love to play with bigger kids. You shout hello to the neighbor boys whenever the front door opens and run to greet your daddy each afternoon when he arrives home from work. You transition to new environments quickly, even when you shed a few tears of protest they dry quickly and you have a great time making friends wherever you go. 

My good natured boy, I love you dearly and am so proud to be your mama. Let's continue on this adventure and keep on growing together. Happy Birthday Desmond!

Yours, mama.

_______ ___ _______ ___ _______ ___ _______

On Desmond's 2nd birthday we woke him up and whisked away, just the 4 of us, for an early breakfast at Original Pancake House. This is a tradition we started on Malakai's 2nd birthday. It's easily one of my favorites. 

Desmond was very excited for pancakes and especially blowing out his candle. He blew it out as soon as the plate was set in front of him. We clearly needed a do-over, so the waitress came back to re-light the candle so we could sing to him and I could capture the obligatory photo. That scrunchy face didn't disappoint. Oh how I love a good 2 year old facial expression

{waiting is more bearable with a bendy-straw}

Both boys were on their best behavior and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as usual. Taking kids out to breakfast is much more preferable than dinner!

Just before we headed out we got a quick family "selfie" and by some miracle Ben captured all of us smiling (albeit Kai's is quite goofy, but it's still a smile). 

Ben headed off to work and I took the boys to play indoors at the mall (it was freezing cold and windy that morning so the park was not a great option). They had a great time and walked hand in hand so sweetly. 

{Des LOVES trains!}

Before lunch we headed to the downtown library, which is much bigger than the little branch on our side of town. Malakai was looking forward to the elevators and Desmond enjoyed running around the aisles. I grabbed a ton of books to keep them happy later that afternoon. 

We headed home for lunch, Des took a nice little nap and once Ben got home we had dinner, cupcakes and gave Desmond one of his presents. Then off to bed! It was a whirlwind of a day but Desmond had a great 2nd birthday and we still have his party to look forward to!

Malakai is 3- a photo explosion...Part 1

On July 16th our 1st born turned three. I have no idea how that much time has passed since my sweet baby boy was born...but there you have it.

The Saturday before, we threw a construction themed party at my parents' place. There was swimming,  sand, toys, and treats. I had tirelessly prepared all the decor by hand the week before, but ordered a cake at Costco with just writing on it and just as the party started I decorated it with toys. I think it turned out rather well- the cake, and the party!

{crushed cocoa puffs make for great "dirt"}

{lots of construction gear}

{he was a pro at opening his gifts, a big change from last year!}

He played in sand, refused to swim, sprayed everyone with his new sprinkler toy, and finally decided to wear his hat after the party was over and it was time for bed. It was such a fun party, surrounded by friends and family. Big thanks to my parents for hosting, and everyone else for blessing us with gifts and love!

Part 2 of this post will be how we spent his actual birthday.

celebrating 5 years of wedded bliss

On July 7th Ben + I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. It's a small milestone, especially compared to the decades we plan to spend together. We decided to go away for the day/night, making it our first overnighter away from the boys for fun. Our 1st nights away from Kai were spent in the hospital when Desmond made his arrival. This was our very 1st night away from Desmond.

We hadn't done anything to celebrate except a quick dinner here in town since our 1st anniversary. Back in 2008 we spent a weekend at the coast, so we decided to do that again this year. We wanted to check out the River House Inn in Florence because it's right at the end of Old Town, so we could walk everywhere except the beach.

On Saturday morning we got ourselves and our boys ready to go to Mima's house, where we'd drop them off and our car so she could come back to our place for naps and the rest of our time away. Ben stopped for gas in the other car and met me there. I got Kai + Des all settled, chatted with my mom and joked with my dad about forgetting to leave them my car keys (and then I forgot to leave them my car keys...and they had to go to our house to get the other set, sorry guys!).

When we left Ben told me he had called the hotel to see if they do any free upgrades, as some do when they have openings. They don't...but he upgraded our room to the river view one anyway. It was such a lovely surprise!

When we got into town the first thing we did was run out onto the beach. Then we hurried to meet our dear friends, Michael and Megan, for a long overdue lunch in Old Town. We spent some time catching up and resolving to not let so much time go by before we see them again. We couldn't NOT see them while we were there, they live a block away from where we were staying!

Afterwards we checked into our room and I went straight to the balcony to take in our view.

$40 well spent. The other rooms had a view of the parking lot and the walk way. No thanks. 

We had a few hours before our dinner reservations at the Waterfront Depot (where we ate 4 years earlier), so we decided to go for a walk. 

{so blessed that this handsome man is mine}

We still had plenty of time to kill so we watched some HGtv (a channel we love but do not have) and enjoyed the quiet, uninterrupted time to ourselves. 

Once we were ready for dinner, I wanted to take a photo but didn't have the tripod. We tried a number of ways to prop the camera up and ultimately dared to put it on the balcony ledge. I love this photo so much, it's my profile picture on facebook right now, but that version is cropped. Here is the full version, 

This one makes me laugh because you can clearly tell the camera is balanced atop something, and our room is a disaster after on a few hours. We laughed about how "freeing" it was to leave our stuff lying around and not have to worry about one of our kids getting into it. We're wild ones, I tell ya, living on the edge!

We had a fantastic dinner and went for another walk afterwards. Ben suggested we walk along the river, after about 30 feet I got stuck in the mucky sand and we had to climb our way out. It wasn't pleasant at the time, but we were laughing hysterically anyway. 

The next day we slept in (SLEPT IN!!!), and took our time getting up for breakfast. We grabbed coffee and wandered Old Town again. Along the way we picked up prizes for our boys, and my parents as a thank you for enduring a sleepless night. We found some goodies at the dollar store that I was obnoxiously excited about, went to the beach again, had sushi for lunch, and grabbed ice cream at BJ's for the ride home. 

It was so much fun to spend time just the two of us and re-energize ourselves by taking some time away from the kids. Now that we've done it once, I'm looking forward to the next opportunity to do it again although it may be a while. Our boys were so excited to see us and it was such a joy to bring them a little something from our trip. Malakai still calls the magnifying glass that Ben picked out his "surprise". 

Happy Anniversary my love, each and every day as your wife is pure joy. Parenting with you is a dream come true. I love our life together and count myself blessed every moment. 

what we've been up to...

Memorial Day weekend was quite the whirlwind of events for us.

Friday night we drove up to Portland for our first long car ride with both Malakai + Desmond. It could not have gone any better. Kai drew on his aqua doodle pad nearly the whole way up. I was pleasantly surprised that we never had to pull out the ipod for last resort video games! Desmond napped a big chunk of the ride and then woke up happy and watched Malakai for a while. He was pretty fussy the last 20 minutes, but nothing unbearable.

{I-5 NB}

After we settled in at Lindsey + Adam's place she and I left the boys to hang out (aka Ben got to do bedtime for both kiddos and he ROCKED it!). We went to downtown Portland for Carina's 30th birthday party at The Barrel Room. It was a lot of fun and I was so excited to be out with friends, I can't remember the last time I did something like that!

{Linds + Elvis, China Town, Carina + her fiancee Reid}

{Carina on the piano, me + Lindsey, Carina + I, Carina + her cake}

Unfortunately almost as soon as we got there my voice started to get scratchy and with the increased volume once the band started playing I was straining to talk loud enough to have a conversation with anyone. Linds and I were the last to go and got back around 12:30am. I found Ben in the guest bed passed out with Kai sprawled across the bed next to him. He moved Kai to his cot and we passed out until Des woke up at 5:30am, when my amazing husband woke up with him and let Malakai and I sleep in til nearly 7am. That's when I woke up with a very hoarse voice.

{Des + Linds}

We had breakfast with Linds + Adam before packing up to head home. We stopped to stretch Malakai's legs and have some lunch on the way down. Kai slept the whole way and Des fell asleep about halfway down after a bit of a meltdown that we had to pull over for. I drove so that Ben could catch up on sleep as well.

{Bridgeport Village}

When we got back to town, there was a whole crew at our place to greet us because it was phase 2 of our lawn replacement. Ben's parents had gifted us with a new lawn for Christmas and the weekend before they had tilled up and raked out all the old grass to prepare for trenching, laying pipe for sprinklers, filling said trenches, calibrating sprinklers, evening out the land, spreading base mix, grass seed and the like and then waiting for it to all grow. My brother, his friend, Ben, his brother and their dad all worked from 2:30 (when we got back) til around 6pm that day.

Sunday I had a rare day off of work, but I was sick so I didn't really get to enjoy it. My voice was even worse- I could barely talk. Ben and his dad got started in on the lawn again that afternoon and into the evening while the boys and I hung out around the house.

Monday rolled around and I had arranged for Ben's mom to watch the boys so I could get some things done, including rest! Ben, his dad, and his brother were back at the yard for the whole day. I ran a few errands and took my time, but when I got home to nap I couldn't sleep. I did a few things around the house before picking up the boys and having lunch with them and their grandma. Even though I didn't get the rest I was hoping for it was still a nice break.

{trenching for new sprinklers}

Once the boys were down for nap I still couldn't sleep and was now coughing. After they woke up we played in the house and checked out the new sprinkler system a bit. Ben + I were both so exhausted (he was sick too!) that we ordered in for dinner and took it easy.

Yesterday we both went into the doctor. Ben seems to have another case of bronchitis and possibly asthma? I don't know if I agree with the doctor's theory, especially since her remedy was a $40+ inhaler. Oy! My diagnosis is viral laryngitis, the advice- wait it out. My voice is coming back a bit but my throat is painful and my cough is worse. I still sound like a frog man.

Today I went to work- I don't want to fall behind and honestly it's easier to be there while being sick than to be home with my 2 energetic boys. It's better for them to have some time with Mima who is healthy enough to keep up with them.

As for our yard, it's a lovely field of dirt and grass seed for now, but over the next few weeks we should be getting some lovely new grass sprouting up!

I'm super behind on my photo blog, but I have some catch up to do at home and at work before that gets updated. It'll get done soon though...I hope!