Bad Mom Award

Somehow this cute game of playing in a cave...


Turned into a minor contusion when the glass from the table fell on his head.


My poor, wounded soldier.


Bad call, Mom.

Happy 2nd Birthday!!

Mav turned 2 on Valentine's Day! It's so crazy to me that my baby isn't a baby anymore.

But I won't dwell on that - I find it depressing and therefore there's really no way for anyone else to see anything else in it!

So on to pictures! Mav's had a thing for dinosaurs lately, so I figured I'd make him some dino cookies instead of a birthday cake - it's not like we'd eat the cake anyway, and Mav looooves the cookies I make! He's convinced anytime I have my mixer running that there's cookie dough inside. Can't say he's wrong often...

Anyway!! Dinosaur cookies!




The stegosaurus is my favorite. Considering Mav's two-fisted approach, I don't think he cared what they looked like.


We had a friend party at Chik-fil-a with his friends Olivia and Wyatt Griffith and Jameson and Lucy Proudfit (and their moms CJ and Becky, respectively). They all had a blast playing in the play place!

That night Uncle Ted and Aunty Jake came up and opened presents and had pizza with him. He's actually getting what opening presents is now! He knows how to rip off the paper and understands that when he does, there's usually something cool inside! Or clothes, whichever. Haha. It was fun to watch him open his presents this year.




His favorite present was the very first one he saw in the morning. Waiting at the bottom of the stairs was his very own truck! He saw it and got this just awed, inexpressibly happy little expression on his face - it was the cutest thing I've ever seen! He loves this thing!



Happy Birthday to our Maverick! We love you little bub!

Artistic Endeavors

Since Maverick was old enough to sit in a high chair at restaurants, the waitress has given him a kids' menu with crayons. Also since that time Mav hasn't been able to resist the urge to shove said crayons in his mouth, chew a little, and then spit them back out in a rainbow of spittle with a firm "Blech!" behind them! No matter how many times we tell him not to eat the crayons, he doesn't seem to get it!

Due to this little habit, I've been very hesitant to try anything artsy - nothing is worse than trying to feel all cool-mom-ish and then having to frantically clear spit-saturated paint out of a kid's mouth! So I turned to two things that have proven pretty fun and, while messy, really fast to clean up!

First of all is the Crayola Window Crayons. I've used the markers on windows before, but haven't liked the feel of them or their performance. Plus the idea of handing Mav a marker of any kind is enough to send me into deep breathing exercises. So when I found these I figured I'd give 'em a shot! He LOVES them! They're so smooth - they just glide over the glass - he doesn't have a tricky time making marks like he sometimes does with regular crayons. And they have caps so, as long as I stay nearby, they don't make a mess everywhere. But even if they do, they're so fast and easy to clean up that I don't worry at all if coloring on the back door turns into coloring on each other! I still put a smock on him, though. No sense washing a shirt that doesn't need to be, right?



Creating art is exhausting work, so he decided to lay down and work for a while...


He discovered his smock (a bib from IKEA) had a pocket in the front. Guess what you can do with pockets?! Spend 20 minutes putting crayons into and taking crayons out of it!!


Guess what else you can do with a big pocket?!



The other thing he loves is sidewalk chalk. It's super washable and he does it in his favorite place: outside! We're both thrilled. He's learned that chalk will color on pretty much anything hard, though his favorite canvas is the cinderblock wall surrounding our backyard. Easy access, I guess.

Rocks work well, too.


I promise I don't have issues with him getting his shirt dirty. I just didn't ever put one on him that day...