Chugga Chugga...

Choo Choo!

I bet prior to this post you wouldn't be able to imagine all the places a toddler could play with his trains. 

The coffee table. 

The head board on our bed.

(I find this one particularly annoying since it a)messes up my bed, b)involves Matthew standing on our bed, and c) it is SO hard to get the trains back that fall down in the back of the bed).

In front of the DVD player.

On his arm.

(we went to a playgroup where there was a woman painting pictures on the toddlers arms for them.  Matthew, of course, requested a "choo choo".)

On the window sill.

(this happens to be the living room, but the sill in the Master's Bedroom is used quite often as well).

In the window blinds.

(yes, this one made me laugh too).

On Daddy's leg.

On the stair case.

And, the ever so obvious, train track.

Vroom...

Well, it only took 4 months, but we finally spent some time working on Matthew's new bedroom.  Funny, the last time we moved I was 30+ weeks pregnant and the nursery was the first bedroom to get done, the only room we even ended up painting in the Oregon home.  This time around he's pretty much last.  The benefit of moving around a lot is I had a perfect excuse to re-do his room in a less baby theme.

So...his new car/garage theme room!

The pictures aren't that great, but you can get the idea.  The top color is actually a light blue that turned out really great next to the red.  Unfortunately it looks white here.  I bought the checkered border months ago and knew I wanted to do something car themed, but was having a difficult time deciding what exactly to do.

There is still one big empty wall, that we have yet to hang anything on, but we got a great start. 

For now, I didn't buy any new bedding (other than a few sheets to match the room better).  My mom is working on a very cool race car quilt and it's a twin size, so eventually he'll have a bed and that.  For now, I really don't see any reason to change the crib to a toddler bed even.  I want to do it for the novelty of it, but really, Matthew has made no attempts at escape and until that happens, it's quite nice having him locked up. I have spied a few race car beds that we've contemplated buying, but haven't decided on that yet.

I had plans to do something really cool and creative with old license plates (another bonus to moving a lot), but in the end we liked how they looked like this.  Honestly, it looks better in person when you can see the wall color and everything better. We've found some other cool tidbits for the room, but haven't gotten them yet. 

Matthew's reaction when he walked into the room?

"woa.   Cool!"

I'll take it.

Winning kisses

Matthew has taken to putting things into the toilet.  Not pee pee or poo poo of course, but things. A bib, a few clean diapers, loads and loads of toilet paper.  And he's sneaky.  And quick.  He can go from quietly playing with his choo choo's to our bathroom, item in the toilet, lid closed, toilet flushed, bathroom door closed and back to the trains in 2.2 seconds flat.  One must be on guard at all times.  Bathroom doors should be shut at all times.  And even still, it happens.

So.  Yesterday afternoon, we had just gotten home.  I was in the kitchen rinsing out Matthew's milk cup.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him run in the direction of our bedroom (and thus, our bathroom). Before I could even turn the water off in the sink and start running after him, I hear a flush and then Matthew comes around the corner with that look of guilt.  It really is the funniest little look.  Like "I did something wasn't supposed to, and I know it, but Mommy, look how cute I am!"

I go into the bathroom and unlike the other times, there's nothing in the toilet.  Whatever it was went down. I will probably never know what the poor item was that was lost to the plumbing at the sticky hands of my little toddler. 

Anyway, I get down on my hands and knees to confront the guilty.  Look Matthew in the eye, "Matthew. What did you flush in the potty? Please tell Mommy what you put into the potty."

Matthew: "arblah mama yanablah blah"

Me: "Matthew. Tell Mommy what you put in the potty. Remember, Mommy said only pee pee and poo poo in the potty. What did you flush?"

Matthew: "adaba gaba blah blah"

Me:  "Come buddy. What did you put in the potty?"

Matthew: *bats eyelashes and leans in gives me a kiss and puts his head on my shoulder hugging me*

Me: Laughing a lot. 

Ok. You win.

Our summer, in pictures

Trying on Daddy's tie

Aquarium visit with friends

Fell asleep while waiting in line for the choo choo. He was so excited to ride the train and then he slept through it- woke up 2 minutes from the end.

Budding artist

4th of July Fireworks. He fell asleep right after this picture was taken- another fun thing he slept through!

The wait staff at one of our favorite places to eat, LOVE Matthew. (The restaurant is appropriately named "Choo Choo Sushi". How could we not love it there?)

Time to cool off!

Eating wings with Daddy.

Our little fish loves the beach!

More artwork! Matthew loves to fingerpaint.

Cooling off in the backyard after fingerpainting.

Super cool prince crown he got at a friends birthday party.

Bad blogger :-(

I feel so bad about my lack of blogging lately.  I have a really good account of Matthew's first year, but the blogging really fell short after that, didn't it? 

All I can say is, my baby isn't a baby anymore. Not by a long shot.  It's like one day, all of a sudden, I looked down at him and realized he is a little boy.  A running (and falling), climbing, dancing, singing, sort of talking, little boy.  Right now he's dancing all around the living room to the number 7 song on Sesame Street.

Some of his favorites right now are swimming, Disney Cars (movie, books, toys, anything), trains, trains and trains.  He still loves his gaga (lovey) beyond belief. He has the most amazing reaction when Daddy comes home from work- a mixture of amazement and bewilderment.  He's talking more--still a lot of gibberish, but there are some words we understand for sure.  Some of my favorites:

Lightening McQueen- "yaya- key"

Trains- "choo choo"

Frog- "fok" (sound it out...it's funny. Incidently, fork sounds quite similar)

milk- "wok"

  When he calls out Mommy clear as day, my heart melts just a little.  He tells the dog "boss! no yay down".  When he talks to Babci on the phone he says "hi. ok bye."  Shortest conversation ever.  I can't wait to hear what else Matthew has to say--it's so fun as his vocabulary increases.  I even love his little nonsense conversations.

Hopefully pictures will be coming soon! I haven't taken very many this summer, but there must be a few on that camera.