Happy Birthday!

Matthew turned two on June 14th! Amazing that this wonderful little boy is already two years old! Seems like yesterday he was screaming in the delivery room!!

Matt celebrated his birthday this year with three different birthday parties! First, he had a birthday party in Daddy's backyard. He was spoiled rotten with lots of new wonderful toys (thank you all!). And the power tools from Auntie Katie went over so well that he even attempted to cut a piece of cake with them!

Then Matt had a joint birthday party with cousins Emmy, Mikey, and Casey. The best part of that party was climbing up on Uncle Jimmy's roof! And as you can see, we had to carry our new power saw up there with us!

And his third birthday party was with his friends Arianna, Sadie, Alexandra, and Kaitlin! He had a great time playing with his friends and eating cupcakes!

Thank you to all of our friends and family for making Matthew's 2nd birthday such a special one! We love you all!

Ladies Man

As everyone already knows, Matt is quite the ladies man. Here is just one more picture of him macking it with the girls!

Fake Smile

Whenever Matthew even sees a camera now, he busts out his fake smile. It's quite the snaggle-toothed sneer so we are going to have to work on that!

Threesome!

Matthew's two girlfriends, Sadie and Ari, come over to play at least once a week. Their newest favorite game is jumping in the crib. So not only does Matt have two girlfriends, but he has already gotten them into his bed!

They also used to quite enjoy hammering the coffee table, but the day Matthew gave Ari a black eye with a hammer was the last day they were allowed to play with the hammers. Now, the hammers all live way up on top of the television every time Sadie and Ari come to play. Along with hard balls, brooms, mops, and a few other things that are always used as weapons!

Even though they do have a few sharing issues from time to time, they all get along really well and have just recently started to actually play together. And as you can see from the second video, Matt might have a little crush on Sadie. Hope Rob is ok with that!!!

Little Baker!

Matthew made his first batch of banana muffins and they sure did taste good! It took as long to actually bake them as it did to wipe off all the extra batter on the sides of the muffin cups, but it was well worth the fun! Emeril in the making...

Snow Sliding

That's right, snow sliding, not snow sledding! Once the snow tapered off on Monday, Matt and I ventured outside to play. First we took a stroll and watched neighbors shovelling and snow plows going by. But then, we had the real fun. We discovered that the slide on our swing set is way more fun when it's covered in snow and you have snow pants on that make you fly right down it! As you can see, Matthew loved it and just wanted to go again and again and again. I was so tired by the end that I just laid down in the snow for a rest. Well Matt thought this was hilarious and made his way over to me and laid right down next to me. So then we made snow angels for the first time this year too! Hopefully that will be the last time we are able to do that this winter! But we'll sure look forward to doing it again next winter!

Indoor Fun

We have tried very hard this winter to find activities to entertain Matthew, or in other words, to tucker him out for naptime! One of our favorite places to go is Playtown Express in Hopkinton. It's a big warehouse type space with lots of blow-up moon bounces, slides, and maze type things. Just the right kind of place for a little boy to run, and climb, and run, and jump, and run! Now we just need to work on the sharing aspect of it.....

Howdy

Matt's orange overalls kept reminding me of a farmer all day long, so I broke out a cowboy hat from a past Halloween and plopped it on his head! He is at the point where he can repeat pretty much anything, so I taught him to say "howdy." It was quite adorable!

Dance Dance Dance

Matthew just might not take after his mom and dad, neither of whom can dance:

I love movies about trucks!

The best purchase of 2009 so far is our new truck movie! We discovered a clip of this movie online at YouTube.com while searching for videos about trucks. It is simply footage of real working construction trucks with a silly songs about each one. And it makes Matthew sit still, for a half hour, which is truly an amazing feat! This was one of the first times he watched it, and as you can see in the video, he was completely enraptured!

New Hat

While shopping last week, Matthew picked out something for himself for the very first time. He grabbed it off the shelf and ran over and held it up to me. I put it on his head and there it stayed for the next three hours! It was a blue baseball cap, it fit perfectly, and he absolutely loves it! We don't, though it is adorable, simply because he just looks so grown up in it! He is turning into a little boy too fast...where did our baby go?

Lunch Time

Just an adorable video of Matthew eating lunch...and being cute!

Is it spring time yet?

Matthew has been such a good boy so far this winter when it comes to bundling up to go outside. He knows that after a few minutes in the car, mom will let him take off his mittens so he toughs it out until then. He has even learned to carry his truck or suck his lollipop with mittens on! Occasionally he'll try to pull of his hat but he's usually pretty good about leaving that on too. But man, it sure is a pain and we both can't wait until we don't need to put on anything to go out that door!

Matthew has been saying new words everyday. His list of words includes: kitty, hot, baby, hat, hi, bye, nanny, daddy, ball, out, down, mouth, and his very most favorite, no! :-) He says no to everything, all day long. If you ask, "Do you want to go outside" he'll say, "No." And then you ask, "So you want to stay inside" and he'll say, "No." It's actually quite cute!

Snow Fun!

Most of our blog entries start with "Matthew loves..." Perhaps you think I'm just making it up, or at least exaggerating, but he really does love most everything he does! He is just one happy little man!

So when I say Matthew loves the snow, I sure do mean it! He loves running around in it, he loves helping to shovel, he loves being pulled in his sled, and of course, he loves watching the snow plows! Even though the amount of time it takes to get dressed in our snow gear and the amount of time we spend outside is usually equal, it's well worth it!