2!

Happy Birthday, Hayden! My sweet boy was born 2 years ago today. Our lives haven't been the same since and we wouldn't want it any other way. On his first birthday I didn't think there was any way I could love him more than I did then. I was wrong! This past year, it has been remarkable to watch his personality emerge and see him start to grow into a caring, sweet, smart, and friendly little boy.

I wanted to get some "official 2-year photos," but wasn't optimistic I'd get anything worthy of wall display. While I'd still love to get some "action" shots of him doing his favorite activities or playing with favorite toys, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome of my photo shoot. And, yes, I did pull out Mr. Bear for his birthday shots.

Don't worry, it wasn't all serious. . .

How about a nice, sweet smile for Mommy? "Noooooooo. . . ."

Well, maybe I can. . .

So, how would I sum up Hayden at 2 years old? Let's see. . .

-He just loves life. He's so joyful and happy and inquisitive (most of the time). His attitude is infectious, and it's so fun to look at things through his eyes.

-He loves trains, trucks, cars, all things that go, dinosaurs, books, animals, singing, dancing, going for rides in the Chariot, Maggie dog, Thomas the tank engine, Curious George, graham crackers, milk, oatmeal, fig newtons.

-He loves the idea of friends. For instance, if you tell him that Henry or Elsa is coming over he gets so excited. He's even so excited when they get here, but then they don't really play together. And when you ask him later in the day if he had fun playing with his friend, he excitedly tells you "yeah!"

-He knows the alphabet (one of his favorite songs to sing) and recognizes all of the capital letters. When we drove past a McDonald's today, he said from the backseat, "M for Mommy!" I didn't have the heart to tell him the golden arches weren't there just for Mommy. He recognizes the numbers 1 through 9 and gets his colors right about 95% of the time.

-Things we hear often out of his mouth these days: a play-by-play of the day's activities ("Hayden has milk. Mommy has milk, too."), describing what he sees ("A cat. An orange cat. Another orange cat! Two orange cats!"), breaking into song ("The Muffin Man" is his standard tune when we're in the produce section on our weekly grocery trips).

-He's started using his imagination in play. He likes to feed his stuffed friend, Bubby, at meals and makes up conversations between his other stuffed friends.

-He loves to help. He helps me do the laundry and he loves to throw things away and close the fridge and cabinet doors for me. He loves to vacuum. I'm happy I got him started early!

Oh, I thought this was kind of neat. . . his 1st birthday photo shoot compared to his 2nd birthday photo shoot.

He just lights up our world and we're so glad he's in it. Today we celebrate just how special he is and we love him more than ever!

Sweetness

I've become the unofficial cake-maker for my monthly book club and I love it! I can't really get away with making a cake for a household of 3 very often, but baking for 15 literary-loving women is a cause I can support.

I set out to make the Oreos 'n' Cream Cake I saw on the cover of Family Circle magazine. Unfortunately, when I pulled my cakes out of the oven, the centers had collapsed. I though I could maybe salvage them until I flipped the pans over to remove the cakes and discovered a large chunk of cake stuck to the bottom of both pans. . . right in the center. I now had two cakes with no centers. But there was still so much goodness around the outside. I got inspired!

I cut the remaining cake into rounds using a 1 1/2" biscuit cutter. I whipped up some vanilla-cream filling and slathered it on.

Then, I sandwiched the mini-cake rounds together.

I drizzled some chocolate glaze over the top.

And popped them into muffin papers.

They needed a little something else. . . so I added some decoration in honor of the upcoming birthday in our house and declared my near-disastrous sunken cake a tasty success!

As yummy as these were, I was determined to make a successful cake. . . I couldn't let my book club down, after all.

Second time was a charm!

With a birthday cake still on the docket for this week, I'm starting to feel a bit like Bakerella!

Streaker

Hayden needed a diaper change after dinner last week. Rather than put him in a clean diaper for 15 minutes before bathtime, we let him go naked. He proceeded with his after-dinner business as usual.

That's my boy.

Flashback Friday: 1979

I've been in a blog-slump lately, not feeling like taking pictures or having much to post. Then, I saw Samantha's Flashback Friday and the lightbulb came on! As Hayden approaches his 2nd birthday and I keep thinking more and more about documenting him at this age, I wondered back to what I looked like at 2.

I don't have many pictures of my childhood--a few scrapbook pages worth--but I found a few good ones. For most of the photos I do have, though, I don't know exactly when they were taken. Many have "May 1983" printed on the back, but lots were obviously taken before then, so they just weren't printed until 1983. The only ones I have where I definitively know how old I was were of my sister's birth. She was born in November 1979, when I was 23 months old. Everything else I have to categorize as "before Laura" or "after Laura".

When I set out to find these childhood photos of myself, my main intent was to compare my appearance to Hayden's, but when I thought about my siblings and the "before/after sister" aspect of my life I realized that in a few more months, it will be Hayden with the "before/after brother" reference. Since all of my memories include my sister, as I'm sure all of Hayden's will include his brother, it does make me a little sad to think that all the wonderful times we've had in the last 2 years will never be a part of his conscious life. Yes, there are tons of pictures to show him, but for him, this time (and I'm sure a few more years to come) aren't really real for him. And that makes me a little bit sad. Cause I'll never ever forget them.

Anyhow, digressing way further from what I intended, here I am nearly 30 years ago at just about the same age Hayden is. . .

While I wouldn't say he looks exactly like me, you can't deny the resemblance. . .

I also can't believe that in a few more months, we'll have a photo like this to add to our own album (minus the BIG brother, of course), with me standing in as my mom, Hayden standing in as me, and a new little guy wrapped up tight in a blanket!

Time marches on. . .

Ten on Tuesday

1. I love America! I am so thankful and proud to be an American. I often get bogged down in my day-to-day life and day-to-day headlines, but on days like today my sense of pride swells up at living in this wonderful country. While I'm glad I'm not in Washington, D.C. today (I HATE crowds. . . in fact, I chuckled this morning when I saw an article in the Bozeman Chronicle about local families that made the trip out East for the inauguration. It said, "Montanans usually avoid big crowds." No wonder I like it here so much!), I did get to experience Inauguration Day in person back in 1997.

I was a sophomore at the Air Force Academy and our squadron, earning the title of "Honor Squadron" the prior school year (basically the best overall--in military, academic, and athletic endeavors--of all 40 squadrons at the Academy), had the honor of marching in the official parade celebrating Bill Clinton's second inauguration.

Our entire squadron, around 100 of us, flew to D.C. and were put up at the Naval Academy for a few nights. We had a day of parade rehearsal and some time to tour many of the national monuments. Being in uniform while doing our site-seeing gave me a new perspective and an enormous sense of pride being in the Air Force, particularly when strangers wanted our pictures and thanked us for our service.

This is my roommate, Kate, and I. Still friends all these years later!

And here we are prior to marching in the parade. As you can see, the streets weren't quite as crowded as they are today!

2. The www.allrecipes.com Christmas Cookie photo contest is still going on. Voting continues through Friday and you can vote once a day. Click here to log a vote for me! I really appreciate all your support. Oh, and every time you vote, you are entered to win $100.

3. I had a nice surprise while thumbing through the newspaper on Saturday afternoon. Once a month the Bozeman Chronicle publishes a special magazine called Carve. It's devoted to covering skiing, boarding, and winter recreation in Southwest Montana. In December's issue, I noticed a community photo contest and decided to enter this photo from one of our local ski expeditions. I never heard anything about it and had actually forgotten about it. As I flipped through the pages of Carve on Saturday afternoon, an article about cross country ski waxing caught my eye. Then, I noticed a guy in a sweater and thought to myself, "Rich has a sweater like that!" I looked closer and realized that it was Rich! And then that it was my photo! I was so excited! I won a $50 gift certificate to one of our local downtown cafes. Pretty sweet!

4. Lest I be the only one with newsprint fame this week, Rich's hat made it into today's New York Times! Last week, a reporter and photographer were at MSU to do an article about the research that his little group is doing. Rich hasn't really gotten into his research project yet, mostly focusing on classes right now, but he'll be doing something similar to the work described in the article. And Ed Adams, the professor highlighted, is his advisor. It's a "cool" article, so go check it out!

Oh, the "hat". In the top article photo, Andrew, one of Rich's fellow PhD students, is wearing Rich's winter hat. He must have borrowed it for the staged photo scene!

5. Our friends, Shelley and Robert, recently started a journey to add a second child to their family. After struggling through a very difficult first pregnancy, they decided to pursue adoption and have started the process to bring home a baby girl from Korea. As you can imagine, it is an extremely expensive process, so to help defray some of the cost Shelley came up with a brilliant idea--a raffle! For $5 you can buy a ticket from now until Feb 2nd. For each ticket you buy, you're entered in Claire's Super Huge Adoption Raffle-Raiser and could win a new Canon Digital Rebel XS (a great dSLR camera!), an awesome camera bag, and an adorable, personalized camera strap. Click on the link over on the right to check it out and buy a raffle ticket (or two or three!).

6. One of Hayden's new friends here in Montana just turned 2, exactly two weeks before Hayden will have that honor. I made up a batch of my friend, J.J.'s (whose husband marched in the inaugural parade, too!) Sunshine Muffins and packaged them up. A treat that a 2-year-old (and his mom!) can enjoy!

Here's her awesome recipe!

Sunshine Muffins

2 c. flour ½ c. shredded coconut
1 ¼ c. sugar ½ c. chopped pecans
3 beaten eggs ½ c. raisins
2 t. baking soda ¾ c. canola oil
2 t. cinnamon 1 apple, cored and shredded
½ t. salt 2 t. vanilla extract
2 c. grated carrots

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Stir in carrots, raisins, coconut, and pecans. Beat eggs, oil, apple, and vanilla in small bowl. Add to flour mixture and stir just til moistened. Spoon into greased or paper-lined muffin cups. Bake at 350° for 15-18 minutes.

7. I made a roast chicken for the first time on Sunday. It was so easy and so tasty. And since it's much cheaper than buying packaged boneless, skinless chicken breast, I think I might be doing it more often. After we had eaten the chicken and I cleaned off the rest of the meat to save for leftovers, I decided to try my hand at making homemade Chicken Stock. I'm so excited at how it turned out! I ended up with the equivalent of about 5 cans of broth using nothing more than stuff that was headed for the trash anyway! I'll definitely be doing this again!

8. It's happened. We've fallen down that slippery slope of television with Hayden. I've let him watch a show a few times a week since we moved to Montana. When we moved, we got a DVR for the first time, so it was easy to record some good PBS shows for him. Now, I let him choose between Signing Time, Curious George, or Thomas. I was okay with one show a day. . . it helped me get in a shower without having every drawer in my room emptied. Well, within the last week, Hayden has started begging to "watch TV!" And then bursting into tears when I tell him no. If he had his druthers, he'd be plopped in front of the tube for 3-4 hours a day, I'm sure. Even though it has made my job harder, I'm sticking to my guns! No matter how much begging or how many tears, only 1 show per day. I know we're going to have struggles over this for a while!

9. I'm getting more and more kicks from the little boy in my belly! It's such an amazing, unique feeling. I think he's much more active than Hayden ever was. It's as though he's saying, "hey, don't forget about me in here!" Because I often do forget that I'm pregnant! Such a contrast to the first pregnancy when you can think of nothing else. Not that we're not excited about his arrival in about 4 months, a second pregnancy is just different.

10. So, as I mentioned, we have a birthday coming up. Eleven more days until 2! I won't wax poetic about all the emotion involved in that for me (right now, at least). I've been more concerned with planning details. A celebration, yes, but mostly I've been thinking about photos. I want to do an official 2-year-old photo shoot, but have realized this will be an enormous undertaking! Hayden's busy personality, lack of desire to look at my camera and actually smile, his insistence on wearing something with a train, or car, or dinosaur on it, so-so indoor light and the fact that the best (and it's only mediocre) light usually happens during his naptime, has me fearing the worst outcome.

I did a preliminary rehearsal yesterday and was nominally encouraged to get this:

Maybe if we do a few more practice sessions, it will all come together and I'll get a magic shot, truly capturing my little man at 2-years-old. Yeah, and maybe a magic fairy will come and clean my house while I'm asleep tonight!

Let the sun shine!

Hallelujah! The sun is shining and the temperatures have been mild (highs in the 40's!)! We pulled out the shades and headed to the park.

We actually haven't had snow here in over a week and the warm temperatures have been a nice change from our sub-zero temps back in December. We're ready for a little more snow, though, it is ski season after all!

Although the ground still has a covering of the white stuff, the playground equipment was free and clear. First stop: the swings.

Check out those long legs!

Next up: the slide.

The couple-month hiatus we've had from the park wasn't long enough for Hayden to forget about the creek. The rocks are all covered in snow, but he managed to find a stick worthy of throwing.

Before we headed back home, Hayden did some sidewalk sprints. Mama was happy to see him burn off some more energy!

A few more days of sunshine are in the forecast and we plan to take full advantage. . . then we'll be happy to get out our skis again!

Twinkle Toes, Part II

A few things to notice while watching this:

1. The "twinkle toe" slippers.

2. The crazy dino-camo print pants (courtesy of Grandma, which Hayden loves to wear).

3. The not-so-subtle Thomas shirt (it actually makes noise--peeping like Thomas--this is also courtesy of Grandma, another Hayden favorite).

4. The mess around our house. Maybe I shouldn't point it out, but I can't help but notice it in the clips. I'd like to say that is not our home's normal state, but by dinner time each night (when these videos were taken) it pretty much is.

5. I've been posting a lot of video lately. I'm in a bit of a camera funk. . . the lighting in our house is pretty poor, especially when the skies are gray outside (which they've been quite a bit lately). I've also realized that I don't have that many videos of Hayden. I shoot these on our point-and-shoot camera. Prior to Christmas, the last time we had the "real" video camera out was Hayden's 1st birthday. We're committed to make sure that doesn't happen this year! Plus, Hayden's appearance and daily activities haven't changed much in the last few months (and how many photos of him playing with his trains do I need?!) but his personality certainly has. He comes up with some quip or action daily (sometimes multiple times daily) that has me cracking up. And I want to remember it!

6. The sun has come out, though, and it's made its way onto every single day in the 10 day forecast! So, I'm sure I'll be getting my camera groove back soon!

Enjoy!

Twinkle Toes

It's no secret that Hayden loves all things trucks. So when his Grandma and Papa were shopping for some slippers for him and spotted these. . .

. . .they snapped them right up! They actually gave them to him when we were down in Florida for Thanksgiving. And ever since we got back from that trip, Hayden has them on whenever we're at home. He asks for them every single morning. (That's also why they're covered in dog hair. . . because he always has them on, and there's a lot of pet hair around our house!).

The digger and dump truck are excitement enough for my dear boy, but there's more. . . the wheels have LED lights that illuminate when Hayden moves his feet!

Pretty sweet, eh?

So, speaking of cars and trucks on clothes, I have to admit that the number of items in Hayden's wardrobe with these items on them has grown significantly in recent months. I was always opposed to buying him "character" shirts or things with, well, cars and trucks all over them. I preferred to stick to simple, classic designs like stripes and plaids and solids. But I've been totally suckered by my dapper little man himself. When I'm out shopping, I'll see something with a car or truck or train or dinosaur and think oh he'll LOVE this!

When he gets up in the morning and I'm trying to get him dressed, he almost always asks for a specific shirt. And then he gets SO excited about having his "tow truck shirt" on. Or his "snow plow shirt" or "dinosaur shirt" etc, etc, etc. The only days I can get him into a non-emblazoned shirt is if he's distracted. I'm okay with it now, though, because I have discovered that there are lots of tasteful shirts with cars and trucks out there. In fact, this one is actually a current favorite of mine. . .

It's a Hayden favorite, too, so he wears it 2-3 times a week, pretty much every time it comes out of the wash.

Here's something to make you chuckle today:

Hayden and I were in the bathroom this morning and he stepped on the scale. I said to him, "let's see how big Hayden is." He held his hands into the air and said, "so big" (like we'd taught him when he was little). He then looked over at me and said, "Mommy is so big, too!" Just what a pregnant-and-feeling-frumpy-girl wants to hear!

Yellowstone

When Rich's family was visiting last week we took a little trip down to Yellowstone National Park to see this wonderful park in the winter. Yet another perk to Bozeman is it's proximity to Yellowstone. . . a little over an hour after pulling out of our driveway, we were driving through the Roosevelt Arch and into the north entrance of the park.

We stayed at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel for two nights and explored the surrounding area on the days in between.

We, of course, checked out the Visitor's Center, where Hayden immediately found the book display.

He was also pretty enamored with the taxidermy display of the many animals that call the park home.

The real highlight of the trip was the skiing. In winter, the park is known as a cross-country ski destination with trails throughout. Several were right in Mammoth Hot Springs, just minutes from our hotel. During Hayden's naptime, Rich and I took advantage of the grandparent babysitters and checked out the trail around Mammoth's geothermal Upper Terrace. Skiing alongside boiling and steaming (and sulphurous) bubbling pools is an experience like no other!

And yes, it is stinky. The last time I was in Yellowstone I was pregnant with Hayden. I think we'll wait and take our next visit when I'm not so sensitive to odors!

We followed a side spur to our trail and within minutes spotted our first wildlife--a deer!

And then we were treated to a lovely overlook of Mammoth down below!

Despite gray skies during our entire 3-day visit, the temperatures were actually not all that cold, hovering right around freezing. It was still nice to come inside and warm up in the common area of the lodge.

The next morning we set the alarm clocks early and headed out on a van tour to "wake up to wildlife." We saw quite a variety! First up were the wolves. . . can't you see them there below, just about in the center of the photo next to a clump of trees? ;-)

Luckily our guide had a scope so we could get a closer look!

After the wolves, we spotted a bald eagle, and then some elk and bison.

Even a coyote crossed our path!

As much as Hayden loves animal, I think the highlight of the tour for him was the tow truck. Unfortunately, our guide skidded the van off the slick road and we got stuck, waiting nearly an hour for assistance to arrive.

The tow truck rescued the van and we got safely back to the lodge none-the-worse for the wear!

Hayden's afternoon nap and generous grandparents once again afforded Rich and I the opportunity to head off on our skis. This time, we got a little more adventurous and took a snow coach about 10 miles south of Mammoth to explore some trails. The ride was pretty cool. . . definitely a highlight of the trip!

The skiing at Indian Creek was a highlight, too, soaking in the quiet beauty of our surroundings.

We warmed up again in the lodge and had a tasty dinner. After a restful night we headed out for a family ski in yet another area of the park, along the Blacktail Plateau.

Everyone enjoyed the morning!

Including the little passenger who insisted on bringing his friend, Koby Kangaroo, along for the ride. We kept telling him that Koby probably didn't find this climate to his liking, but Hayden didn't buy it!

We loaded up the skis and headed back to Bozeman, thankful for the opportunity to spend some time with family and see such a wondrous place in the beauty of winter!