Sep

Matthew is 2!!! {another catch up post}

THE BIRTHDAY FESTIVITIES

Matthew’s birthday fell on Friday this year. We decided to go to a local bounce house/party center to celebrate. Matthew typically loves bounce houses but was a little slow to warm up to it on his birthday. He spent a lot of time running around the building and checking stuff out.

Once he finally got brave enough to go down one of the slides, it was all over. He turned into a little daredevil wild man. 🙂

Here are some videos and pictures of the night:

Trying out a baby slide:

Going for a sail!

Waiting for the birthday boy to come down the slide:

He’d go about a few steps past this point and turn around to come down:

First ride down the big slide:

Ian and Matthew playing with Nick and Aunt Rachel:

Literally (I’m not exaggerating here!), his second ride down the slide:

Bouncing:

Having the time of his life:

It was a bit of a rough exit from this bounce house for Aunt Rachel:

After that, we went home for a quick dinner, presents, cake and ice cream!

Posing for a picture before tearing into the presents:

Birthday boy looking super sweet in the birthday hat:

Checking out his brand new choo choo trains:

Opening presents:

(Did you like the nose picking at the end? LOL)

Enjoying rainbow cake:

A damn cool looking cake, if you ask me! 😉

Cake information:
*You just add a ton of food coloring to regular old cake mix (2 boxes, prepared according to the box instructions).
*Pour it into round pans and bake. Cake will probably bake less time that what is on the box. Just keep an eye on it.
*Let cool completely (I popped in the freezer overnight).
*Stack layers with icing between each layer, on the top and on the side.

I had a pretty rough trial run a few nights before his birthday and had to retry again the day before. I tried to do layers that ended up too thin. Smaller pans would probably have worked to make a smaller cake.

Here is a picture before I iced the sides:

(I never ended up taking a picture BEFORE we cut it. Oh well!)

THE PEDIATRICIAN APPOINTMENT

On June 21st, I took Matthew for his 2 year well child pediatrician visit. Matthew did really awesome and got weighed and measured like a big boy. (Ian started throwing colossal fits at this point and had to be forcibly weighed/measured for about 2 years. LOL)

Stats:
Height: 34.75 inches (57th percentile)
Weight: 30 pounds (75th percentile)

Because he got measured standing up (instead of laying down), Matthew appears to have “shrunk” a bit. Nothing to worry about, just the measurements becoming more accurate. The doctor showed me Matthew’s BMI on a chart. I can’t remember what it said but it looked very proportional.

After that we had to get his blood tested for iron (thank you, NYS!) and needed a few shots. Matthew was a trouper and managed to survive all the pain and torture we inflicted upon him.

I brought up my concerns regarding Matthew’s language (again) and got the old “let’s wait and see” song and dance. (Mike and I have decided to wait until October to see how he’s doing language-wise. If we don’t see an improvement, we’re going to call for an early intervention evaluation. )

Little man Sass passed his exam with flying colors and doesn’t go back for another 6 months.

THE 2 YEAR PORTRAITS

I took Matthew for his 2 year portraits a week after his birthday. Mike had his Gus Macker tournament in Buffalo that weekend so Mom and Dad helped me wrangle the wild beasts, um, I mean kids. They also popped in for a quick picture at the end of the somewhat disastrous session. LOL

Here’s what you need to know about photographing a 2 year old:

It sucks.

Bad.

And the 12 year old photographers that my studio hires don’t seem to understand that.

We got some pretty decent shots out of Matthew but they just kept going and going. Hi. He’s two. We need to move on before we lose him. It was important that we kept him happy because…..

I also decided that I wanted to get photos of Ian and Matthew together. I haven’t had professional photos taken of the two them since Matthew was 10 days old.

Sooooo, without further ado…here are the 2 year portraits: