A: 1 Year Old

Toby explains to me "It's called the first birthday, but it's really the second birthday because on the first one he was born. Because what do you call the day you were born? A birthday, the least funnest birthday."

Regardless of how you count the birthdays and which one is most fun, Avery is 1 year old!

photo by Tobias

He loves wrestling, peekaboo, music, climbing onto things, giving people 5 and stopping to smell the roses. His brothers assert that his favorite color is orange, so orange cupcakes are on the menu for his birthday. 

M: 3 Years

Happy 3rd birthday to Malachi!

Born with a little bit of turkey in his personality that shines through daily. I don't know anyone else who would concoct a medley of "George of the Jungle" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" for the occasion of grocery shopping.

Favorite things to do: singing, dancing, preschool, picking herbs

Favorite Foods: popcorn, spaghetti, and "all the foods"

Favorite Music: Army of Mushrooms, Raffi (especially Bananaphone), Pop Goes the Weasel, Rico's Pizza Restaurant

Favorite Books: The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

Favorite Humor: Replacing a word of a song or conversation with "NOTHING." For example: There once was a man and his name was NOTHING!

Life Strategy So Far: "fake it 'til you make it" (though occasionally he will admit that he can't actually read)

Skills: Fwimping pancakes, putting toppings on pizza, finding his favorite songs on the computer, being gentle with animals, finding herbs for cooking

Tobias's favorite thing about Malachi: His jokes.

T: 5 years!

Five years ago we were very excited to meet Tobias! It would have been hard then to imagine him as a helping, hiking, reading, building, joking 5 year old. It's fun to be able to hear all his ideas and questions about the world and I'm excited to see how much he learns and grows this year.

Some of his current favorite things:

• Book: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (to listen to), Marvin K. Mooney will you Please Go Now (to read himself)
• Food: pizza (for me to cook), sausages (to cook himself)
• Thing to do outside: play on playground with ECHO preschool friends
• Thing to do with Dad: Snap Circuits or go for a walk
• Thing to do with Malachi: build trains or Duplos
• Thing to do with Avery: pat his head
• Thing to do with Mom: help clean the kitchen floor
• Thing to do in the car: look out the window at trains and mountains
• Movie: The Iron Giant

Things he thinks he will do while he is 5:

• learn to cook at ECHO
• finish the Narnia books with Dad
• hold Avery

M: 2 Years

Favorite Author: Dr. Seuss
Favorite Books: What Do People Do All Day (Richard Scarry), Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss), The Mitten (Jan Brett), The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle)
Favorite Movie: Chicken Run
Favorite foods: pickles, pears, bagels, spicy chocolate, any chocolate, broccoli
Favorite songs/music: "What Does the Fox Say?", "Nothing is Impossible with God", Raffi, anything he can dance to
Daily activities: giving Toby a goodnight hug and good morning hug, looking at books, helping in the kitchen
Favorite tricks and jokes:
Pretending his finger is hurt (very convincing!), then pointing to the porcupine in a book poked him.
Insisting with a twinkle in his eye that what Daddy wears to work is…"Nekkid".
As I pull a perfect pizza from the oven and say "ooh, it's good", he responds seriously with "No. Bad. Taste bad." and then starts to giggle and smile.
How do you say "no" to him?: Usually it's the curly blond hair and happy eyes that prompt people to ask how I can possibly say no to him. We do say no, but mostly it's hard because he's so sweet: I know that if he had a stash of chocolate and I said "chock-it pees…need chock-it", he would share it with me. It's hard not to reciprocate. Mostly he's very generous and looks out for the people around him: recently he was crying during supper, genuinely tired from playing all day and skipping his nap, but he took a moment between sobs to pass a knife over to Toby when Toby mentioned he needed a knife to spread butter on his cornbread. He gave me a hug and a "feel better pees" when I started gagging over some nasty-smelling basil.
And is he always this good?: Nope, usually I have to sit on him to get him in his carseat, and he has arrived at church without pants several times because I didn't think I could fight the pants battle and the carseat battle consecutively. Always, always getting into the fridge. When presented with something he doesn't want to eat, he pronounces "Yucky. Chickens eat it." Typically he is very polite about food though.

This turkey Two-Year-Old is super excited about "mine biffy cake" (my birthday cake) waiting in the fridge, I'm excited to see him grow and learn and enjoy life heading into his next year!

Happy Birthday, Little Turkey!

Happy Birthday to our upwardly mobile (that means "climbs on the table"), goofy, curly-haired determined little helper. We are all thankful to God for Malachi's first year!

• Plays the kazoo happily, or unhappily: it's kind of funny to hear him cry into a kazoo. Sometimes accompanies himself with a rattle.
• Loves guacamole, pickles, peas, squash, popcorn. Whatever everyone else is eating. 
• Says Ma (mom) Da (Dad),  dih (this, or what's this), dat (that, or what's that) and num-num-num.
• Enjoys animals, both real and in books.
• 7 teeth in front and 1 molar trying to come through, ouch!
• In his spare time he cooks imaginary soups, plays the foot pedals on the organ (or the keyboards if he gets a chance), and researches topics such as "Sheep in a Jeep" in his personal library.

A Few Memories

First food, 6th anniversary, 3rd birthday, first time in the swimming pool, the last mile of an 18-hour-drive road trip...life is filled with milestones and accomplishments. Sometimes they fly by at an alarming rate, but they're great opportunities to celebrate and remember. Remember how Tobias didn't want to blow out his 2nd candle last year but this year he knew just what to do? Remember two hundred people singing "praise Him above you heavenly hosts" at our wedding reception? 

I wonder if Tobias will remember our recent trip. Will he remember riding in the "granola" (gondola) and looking at the mountains? Making nutella and marshmallow animals? Throwing rocks in the lake with Uncle Jon? I hope he'll at least have fun looking at the pictures and hearing stories as he gets older! Maybe Malachi won't remember anything specific, but he knows that his Grandpas and Grandmas and Aunts and Uncles love him a lot!

Little Guy Malachi!

Ooh, I'm behind. Malachi's great-grandma blogged his birthday before I got around to it!

Malachi Reese was born at 5:19 p.m. on Thanksgiving day, November 24. He weighed 7 lbs and 6 ounces and was 21 (and a half? I forget) inches long. We are so excited that he's here and very thankful that he and I are both doing well.

He was born at home and we really appreciated the care that Kristin provided before, during, and after the birth. Unfortunately Lorri could not be there as another family was also having a Thanksgiving baby! There's lots I could say about how it was different (and better for us) than our experience giving birth to Tobias in a hospital with a doctor, but that might be another post. Feel free to ask me about it though! I will say that although I felt fine after giving birth to Tobias, I feel great compared to how I felt 2 or 3 days after having Tobias, even without a single ibuprofen. Midwives really help keep the process as gentle as possible.

Tobias and Malachi were in their carseats next to each other in the car today on the way home from church and Tobias reached out and touched his hand and said "I like him. I like his little hands." So I think it is safe to say that Tobias is adjusting OK!

We know Tobias has already established quite a fan club for his videos, so we'll try to get a video up soon of Malachi so he can share the spotlight.

Thank you everyone for your prayers, congratulations, video chats, and support! Malachi is looking forward to meeting many of you soon!

Turkey, Cake, Chicken, Peach

Here's a hodge podge video of G&G H and Aunt Holly's visit in July, plus some peach picking footage just because!