Matthew’s big gift for his 2nd birthday was a membership to the Imagine Children’s Museum in Everett. I hope this will be a great escape for Matty once baby sister arrives and the winter weather sets in. He loves it there! I took him there to celebrate his birthday and then we went out to lunch too, just the two of us.
 
the water area

tractor

working in the art studio on the project of the day
 
  
then I attempted to go to the bathroom… not only am I cheered on "yay mommy, pee-pee potty!" but the ingenious child seat (which is pretty great) was positioned very close to the door lock… can you guess what happened??
  
then we headed up the the roof
 
 
then we went to lunch, where he informed me "no high chair" "me big boy" and he was, he sat in the booth and insisted on eating his lunch with a fork

 

We took Matthew in for his 2- year check up with Dr. Rave. He was now old enough to wear a children’s hospital gown while waiting for the doctor. It was pretty funny to watch him run around in that! We had a 6pm appt, which is great that they have appts that late.. but unfortunately it usually means the doc is late too. So he stayed entertained for our 30 min wait by playing ball (what else) and reading stories… then he tried to break out.
 
He thinks the doctor is fun and a "nice guy" and she is a nice lady – she was impressed with Matty’s motor skills and speech and said he was looking great. His head continues to be very large and his height/weight are 75% He had to get one shot this time and he sat on Daddy’s lap and watched the nurse as she did it but he didn’t cry, he did give her quite the look though! The doc also informed us that one of the two-year molars is all the way in, two are in process and one hasn’t started yet…. great.

August was a great month as my brother and Laura visted for almost 3 weeks and Grampy Mike and Kim came up from Oregon too (not to mention Uncle Henry and Tamary were still in town and we got to see them a few times too!) and Nicole came down from Lopez Island too!
getting some work done with Uncle Mikey

Matthew and Uncle Henry working on fielding with Matty’s new glove

We celebrated a 4-way birthday (Matthew, Tony, Laura & Mom) at Anthony’s at sunset. It was a great evening and a lovely meal (especially since the toddler wrangling was done by pretty much everyone but me it was a nice break! That night was a big meteor shower and we hung out on the new deck with the patio heaters and watched the show. It was a great finale to a fun visit!

Matthew had so much fun with "Mike" & "Auntie war-ra" and especially liked it when they came over and spent the night in baby sister’s room. He looked for them in there every mornign for at least a week! He still talks about them all the time. Matthew fell in love with Michael’s iPAD and was thrilled when Uncle Mike downloaded kids apps just for him. We were all impressed with how quickly he figured it all out.

Grampy Mike stayed with us for a few days and he and Tony even got to see a Sounders game.

We met up with Grampy Mike, Kim, Auntie Amanda and Uncle Avi at the High Life in Ballard for a fantastic breakfast during their visit too. Best breakfast I had in ages, so so yummy!
 

 
I know i’m behind…… but no time like the present to play catch up. We went camping at Lake Easton (a gorgeous mountain lake) with Nana and Papa.

"happy cake" – just a funny video

 We left early in the day and Daddy joined us that night (as he just started his new job that week). We rode in the motorhome which was lots of fun for Matthew until we detoured in North Bend with mechanical issues for a couple hours.


Matthew loved the whole camping expierence and the freedom to explore. He made friends with the "chip-a-monks" and Daddy even helped him feed a few too. Daddy’s tent made the perfect batting cage and he and Papa went on lots of walks too.
He loved the playground and really loved discovering how to swing

Matthew and Papa played "ball" a bunch too, here are a couple videos – they were also working on running the bases


floating with Nana in the lake

The lake was FREEZING but after the numbness set in, it wasn’t too bad It was hot, but not too bad in the shade of the camp area but once we got out in the sun the lake felt great!
"Happy Camper"


Matthew was soaking wet & cold when he jumped on Nana’s back!

"me helper"

Daddy and Papa got to go golfing too and Mom and I enjoyed some quiet time while Matthew napped. It was a nice trip overall and a great escape!

We celebrated Matthew’s 2nd Birthday yesterday and had a fantastic time with friends and family. The weather turned out wonderfully and we had a wonderful party outside at Nana & Papa’s house (they were generous to let a bunch of toddlers invade).

It was crazy but so much fun and Matthew had the best day ever! Thank you to everyone to came!!

 Here are all the pictures from the party and also the video montage I made of his second year. Enjoy!
 



    

So… I’ve been slacking a bit on the blog and the baby updates. I have now been blogging for over 900 days and our little blog has seen as of this morning 21,774 hits! Wow! Thanks to all the loyal follwers and sorry for the intermittent updates lately. FB has been an easier and quicker way to share some of Matthew’s daily happenings and some of the cute things he says. We had Uncle Mike and Auntie Laura for dinner last week and after eating some of the steak he pronounced "Happy Steak… In my mouth… yummy, yummy" he also matter of factly told uncle mike that "airplanes fly in the sky" as if he were the first to ever discover it and just had to make sure Uncle Mike knew!

It has been so fun to see him put things together and be able to communicate with us and more us with him too. He has also really been enjoying using the word "no" and uses it for just about everything! "No, Mine" is another favorite the twos are upon us! He uses the word "yellow" to mean ‘little’ and also to mean ‘yellow’ which gets pretty comical sometimes. He always want to be or go "outsi" outside and loves playing with friends. His current favs are Vin and Colin and will ask to see them each time we get in the car. He also has a ton of fun with "grey" or Greysen, Abby & Cash. We are lucky to get in lots of play time with friends but there are some we wish we saw more too!

Matthew is very sweet and kisses my belly often and is very excited about baby sister’s room and often times calls to her just in case she’s in there. Most days he knows baby is in mommy’s tummy but sometimes Daddy, Nana and sometimes even Matthew have babies in their tummies too! He is a very sweet boy and enjoys cuddling and gives kisses and hugs too which we love.

He also continues to be OBSESSED with sports in particular baseball and requests to watch "hit da ball" on TV. Since we don’t have cable the best we could find was a Cal Ripken instructional hitting video on Net Flix and he loves it! He’ll sit and watch intently sometimes practicing his swing or say "nice hit" to the kids on the program. He has spent lots of time playing ball with Papa and Uncle Mike has joined in during his visit too. The other night to the three of them were in the cul-de-sac practicing hitting and running the bases! He’s not even 2! We are getting him glove for his birthday and know he’ll be thrilled. He has been making gloves out of whatever he can for months now, but the real thing will be so exciting! He loves Bob the Builder (the theme for this 2nd birthday) and has enjoyed all the construction both at our house and at Nana & Papa’s house. He likes to comment if anyone lifts anything, and his typical comment is "big, heavy" or "big, heavy, tight!" the ‘fun’ part is that if he sees someone in particular lifting something it usually comes out "Mommy, big heavy!" or something like that, and as a preggo woman, what else do you want to hear?? speaking of Mommy, big heavy, here is a belly shot from a couple weeks ago….. getting big in my 6th month!

Baby sister is doing good. I don’t think I posted here but I had a scary fall down the stairs a couple weeks ago. It was frightening for all but thankfully she kicked soon after the fall which was a nice reassurance. Prompted by friends and other concerned folks we did the right thing and went into the hospital to make sure everything was okay. After 4 hours of monitoring we were assured all was fine with baby, mom was just very sore and bruised! would did my hip and back turn every color of the rainbow! My pregnancy is progressing well and baby is moving around all the time. I am still sleeping OK at this point although I am having some of the same back issues I had while pregnant with Matthew. At our last ultrasound (a few weeks ago) they took some 3D pictures – they are pretty crazy to see. At that point baby was only 1.3# – which was the 68th percentile, but still very skinny. We are excited to get some more pics once she has chunked up a bit too! She is over a foot long now too  approx the size of an eggplant. She is most active at night as soon as I lay down to sleep. Sometimes we’ll just lay back and watch my belly hop around which is always fun We are really looking forward to having a baby girl in the house and seeing Matthew devolp as a big brother!

the new crib in the new room!

Our remodel is finished…. (except for some touch-up paint that I have not been able to get to yet) I love the new room, and colors and decor but still feel like I am in someone else’s house when I’m in there! Grampy Mike came to visit and was the first official overnight guest in the new room and said he slept great! He also hauled the crib up and Matty and I put it together. I really like how it looks! you can check out the rest of the pics from the remodel here – http://picasaweb.google.com/matthewpowter/LoftRemodel# Tony did a fantastic job and it is such a great addition to the house- looks like it should have always been that way! The closet is quickly filling up thanks to my shopping and generous hand-me-downs from friends. This little girl is set!

speaking of the FB updates I thought I would include some – for baby sister and Matthew to see when they are older. Here are the predictions of boy/girl..

and then I announced (mintues after the ultrasound – bc that is the day and age we live in) that we were having a GIRL!

lots of love!~ and an example of social networking banding together to prompt me to do the right thing after the fall down the stairs – it is nice to have so many people that care

and the relief

Last Sunday we went over to our friends’ house for dinner (which was delicious as always!) and for some playtime too. Matthew and Cash had a great time causing chaos and mess wherever they roamed!
 
watch out!
  
they had a great time playing in Cash’s diaper box aka "the race car"

Vivi (who is 4 months now) was as sweet as ever and is showing so much personality now and is full of smiles.
 
The boys were just as interested as she was in the rainforsest crib toy too! She didn’t mind them all crowding her space in the crib and showed off how good she is at holding her head up too!

 
a slideshow of the rest of the pics is below……

I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of the whole group this year But a big thanks to Mom & Dad, Nicole, Tony, Matthew, Bernice, Wally, Gary, Brad, Katina, Cash, Vivi, Cami, Mariam, Colin, Greysen & Nita!
here are some of the walkers… The Boggs family was directed (by Cash) to walk in a line
 
Matthew in the stroller

Nicole, Mom & Cami – looking good!

crossing the finish line – looking very pregnant
 
I was still in my baby shower outfit from earlier in the afternoon… just a quick pick of the cake from the shower… amazing! A friend from my mommy group did this cake check her out http://www.sugarplumcakery.net/

posing after the walk
  
The BIG slide… Cami and Nicole took Matthew down, as you can see (although the quality is bad) I think they all had a blast!
 
 
with his buddy Greysen

possibly the best tradition… after the walk we stopped and got ice cream at Dick’s last year Matthew didn’t get any… this year, he got his own cone!

he was pretty happy about it too!! until it was time to get out of the car, see below
d
later on that day… singing and dancing while helping with the new deck at Nana & Papa’s house

We’ve spent two days in a row at the beach at Silver Lake which is always a blast and close to home too. Yesterday we met friends there and all the kids played in the water and had a great time!

 
 
 
 
Today we went back to Silver Lake and brought Daddy along too! We came to see Tim Noah (who I totally remember from when I was a kid) and met up with lots of friends too.
Sitting with Daddy at the Tim Noah concert in the park


Kaitlyn and Toren
  
Not so happy when sand was thrown at him … but was fine throwing it at others
 
it is sure fun when Daddy can come along to the beach
 

having some snacks with Daddy

entertaining Vin & Colin in their stroller

Slideshows
Yesterday

Today

 Matthew (finally) attended his first Mariner’s game last Friday and LOVED it! It was Papa’s company’s night at the game and so we went with Nana & Papa and first stopped at Dick’s for dinner on the way down.

It was a wonderful warm evening which was fantastic.

Our seats weren’t great (nose bleed) but that didn’t stop Matty from really paying attention and watching the game. He did get a bit restless at one point and Papa took him out for a walk.

They ended up being gone for almost and hour! When they were out for their walk my Dad was approached by the Mariner’s Media Team who asked if they could film Matty and him bc they were so cute. My Dad said "sure" and so they filmed and directed them for about 15 min and had him sign come waivers too. I guess they might use them in a commercial.

Then they got our seat numbers from my Dad and sent the Mariner Moose up to our seats to dance with Matthew on the big screen during the 7th inning stretch… not sure how to top that for the next game we got to!