thanksgiving 09

i have to catch up on my posts from thanksgiving and the rest of declan's birthday celebrations before december gets away from me! we have been having a very busy month packed with many fun trips, visitors and christmas activities.

quick thanksgiving update
we swap years for the major holidays with our families so this thanksgiving was in chicago with tim's family this year. it is nice to be on a schedule, it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings and makes it easier to plan! we also celebrated declan's 2nd birthday since it was the day before thanksgiving this year.


madison, mary kate, mitch, caroline and baby connor
declan had to miss out on our traditional "cousins on the couch" photo op b/c he was having a mood problem

my niece caroline with new baby cousin connor. she is 7 now, so hard to believe! i always remember her as a 3 year old, when she was our flower girl. such a sweet girl!

dec and daddy

coolest cake from deerfield bakery, the undisputed best bakery of the no. shore. thank you ceci! take note of the hand-frosted sesame street guys, so neat!

he is basking in the birthday spotlight and loving every minute of it

lots of elmo this year!

cool new red vacuum!

this child LOVES his cake

party with the stewarts

our stewart friends came over at the end of november to celebrate declan's birthday. parker and declan are just 5 weeks apart. you just never know what you'll get when you throw two 2 year olds together, but we couldn't have had a more successful mini-party! their newborn baby kate slept peacefully the entire time. we played downstairs and then came up to eat pizza and elmo cupcakes.



declan received a doodle pro from them, like a giant etch a sketch for toddlers. he plays with it all the time and it is the BEST car toy too!

the boys truly had fun playing together! i was happy i didn't have to wear my referee jersey. sadly, dec cried his eyes out like he had a broken heart when we waved goodbye to his little friend and they drove down the driveway.


little picassos

birthday pizza

declan demolished his cupcake in 1.5 minutes, parker is wondering if we ever feed his friend

playing with the obnoxious fa la la la la singing dog

things i don't want to forget

since a blog is an awesome way to remember... here are some things i don't want to forget. about who else, my favorite 2 year old!

- how he wakes up happy and yells out "all done" for us to come get him
- that he hasn't realized he could easily climb out of his crib
- that he sleeps from 7:30pm to 7:30am, could it get any better?
- how we warn him that he'll get a time out and he goes and pulls the chair out for us and starts the time out himself
- how the school kids waiting for the bus in our front yard laugh at him banging on the window waiting for the bus
- his current love of all things "stop sign"
- he pats your back when he gives hugs
- that i get excited when he wakes up so we can talk and play and hang out
- his frequent write-ups at school for tackling and laying on his friends, and even a visit to the principal's office before his 2nd birthday
- how he asks for a cookie, cake or ice cream after most meals
- how goodnight moon is required reading before bed, it is getting so tattered
- his first and only full sentence thus far is "i love you" (melt...)
- how he only knows water as "agua"
- that at age 2, he weighs more than many 5 year old girls, 35 solid lbs

just some random amusing pictures from the past few months

declan and oscar

my friend andrea came over for a playdate with her 10 month old son oscar a couple of weeks ago, i know i'm a little slow on my updates! anyway how cute are they??? the boys played very well together despite the age gap, oscar was tagging right along with declan, checking out all his toys. i think declan appreciated that oscar was still too young to steal his toys so he was very nice to him and didn't perform his usual tackling, hitting, pushing and even, yes, strangling tactics which have been known to come out on playdates.

oscar came over in his jammies b/c it was early in the morning and he slept in, they live close by!


such handsome brown-eyed little boys, both were born with tons of beautiful dark hair!

happy 2nd birthday to our little man!

i'm 2!

what a busy week! declan turned 2 the day before thanksgiving this year. we headed up to chicago to be with tim's family in the evening but we got to spend a fun day together before our road trip and the beginning of the mini-celebrations. he got to open some presents at breakfast from tim and i and then he wore his special personalized 2 shirt all day and got lots of attention. we went to gymboree class and all his friends sang to him while we were under the parachute which made him smile from ear to ear. i think he was a little embarassed because he ran into my arms at 60 mph when the song was over!
then daddy met us for lunch which was a treat to do during the week and we even got ice cream. he was on his best car behavior yet for our drive up to chicago and didn't fall asleep until 10pm when we were driving through the south side of chicago, he was so excited to go to ceci and papa's house.

declan, you bring us so much joy and fill our house with laughter and happiness. you are growing up too fast for this mommy but thankfully every day brings something new to look forward to!
a quick look back...

just a couple of weeks old

1st birthday

2nd birthday

an obsession with stop signs

a few times a week we visit the stop sign on the other side of the street. declan has a thing for stop signs right now, not sure how or why this started, seems a funny thing to be into! "stop sign" is frequently the first word heard on the monitor in the morning, he knows that it is right outside his window.

once a week we go to gymboree class for his play & music, well we are late each week because he always needs to visit and talk with the stop sign out in the parking lot. he tells it hello, waves to it, touches it, runs around it and says "wow" "stop" "yeay" i love the reactions and laughter of people passing by, he kind of sounds like rain man! he gets pretty mad when we have to say bye-bye to head into class. part of the fun of keeping a blog is i will be able to look back at this and laugh about the stop signs!


asking me to pick him up so he can touch the stop sign

camped out at his post



popping into daddy's office to say hello

bouncertown fun

we discovered this great new place bouncertown at our little nearby outdoor mall. kids under 2 bounce for free so we've been doing that for a few months now when we are in the area! and last time we were there, declan bounced for 10 minutes and played this car racing game for about 30 minutes! had a blast without any quarters, he really thought he was driving!


very serious business