Declan's 2nd birthday

Declan had a birthday! It is pretty hard to believe he is two years old. In the last few weeks he has started to seem a lot more grown up, and in good ways too! But in the last week he has kind of been a twerp and has even started hitting. Not cool. I guess I'll brace myself now for a really fun year with him. ;)

All three of us went to get him out of his crib when he woke up in the morning. 

This face tells you how confused he was at first. 

But he quickly adjusted to the idea of being the center of attention. This kid eats.it.up.

He has been kind of obsessed with Paw Patrol since my brother came to visit and brought a Paw Patrol book and DVD. So I hung up the poster from the book in his room after he went to bed the night before. He noticed it right away.

Declan was making chocolate chip orange scones for a work thing that day so the lucky birthday boy got to get his day started off right.

We opened a couple presents before Brennan had to go to work.

He's been working on this little glare for awhile now. It gets better every time. Little stinker.

This was pretty much his reaction to our gifts. "What is this?" he would say over and over with a look of mild disgust on his face.

But then he got to open his present from grandma and papa later when we called them and there was no disgust or confusion. It was his beloved dog from Ikea! We go to Ikea at least every other week. I meet up with a friend there and we let the kids play in the kid section before getting a really healthy lunch of hot dogs and ice cream cones. And Declan will carry one of these dogs around the entire time. He loves them. And now he has his very own and he sure does love it. We've named him Dukey after my dog Duke who died recently. Seemed fitting. :)

This boy is trouble, don't let that adorable face fool you. But he sure keeps us laughing.

We went over to his best friend Annabelle's house to play in the morning and he was lucky enough to get McDonald's delivery for lunch. A two year old's dream right? Maybe not this two year old, although he did eat more than usual. They also got to watch a movie.

Walking back to the bus with his sister.

He enjoyed a quiet afternoon of playing with his cars and his bus.

Then we had the Taylors (Annabelle again) over for dinner and cake and ice cream. If we asked Declan what he wanted on his cake the answer was always different but it was always an animal. So Brennan went with a dog. I had my doubts, considering he waited until the absolute last minute and he didn't even look at a picture while he decorated it, but I'd say it turned out pretty good! Thank goodness I married someone with some level of artistic abilities. I have none. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Singing "Happy Birthday". 

I think it's safe to say he had a pretty good birthday. :)

Some things I want to record about Declan at his age:

-He is always saying "help you" when he needs help. It has now carried over into "carry you" and "hold you" etc. I never remember Tatum doing this, although I know a lot of kids do. But I happen to find it adorable and nearly impossible to say no to.

-In the last week or so he has started yelling "I yub you mommy!" from his crib after I lay him down. Over and over and over again. I'm not sure why it started but again, it's just too cute to tell him to stop.

-He remains the pickiest eater alive. Here's the list of things he will consistently eat: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, crackers, grapes, watermelon, pizza, cheese, oatmeal, cereal, muffins, occasionally noodles. He won't touch veggies or rice or eggs. He pretty much lives off of milk. Lots and lots of milk. He calls it chocolate milk because Tatum always asks for chocolate milk (we started putting a little chocolate in hers when we moved here because the milk here is kind of nasty and she would drink it.). I thought he actually wanted chocolate in it the first time so I added some and he didn't like it. He just calls milk chocolate milk.

-Declan has sure learned how to play the role of annoying little brother. The other day Tatum was watching a show and he was being loud and she told him she couldn't hear because he was being too loud. So what did he do? He moved closer to her and got louder. And so it begins. :) Another time he kept saying cockadoodle. The kids were in the other room so I'm not sure why he was saying it over and over. He probably just saw a chicken in a book or something and was trying to point it out to Tatum. But she kept saying "I'm not a cockadoodle!" Then he'd say it again and she'd scream the same response. It went on for quite sometime and escalated to pretty high volumes. But it sure was entertaining.

-As much as he likes to bother her, he still copies Tatum constantly. Everything she says, he says. Everything she does, he does. It's really pretty hilarious. It hasn't started bothering her yet but I'm sure it's bound to.

-He is a mama's boy but loves it when daddy gets home from work. He's always happy to give him a hug and touch his beard and talk to him for a minute. He also always insists a kiss goodbye before Brennan leaves in the morning.

-He is always running and loves to try to keep up with us. "Wait up guys, wait up!" he'll say. Is there anything cuter than their tiny little voices?

-He has learned quite a few primary songs from Tatum singing them around the house all the time. He surprised us on our trip to Bali a couple months ago when he started singing along with her. Now whenever I put him down for a nap or bed he asks me to sing "Jesus walked upon" which is the first line of a new song she learned.

He is definitely a little boy with a mind of his own. Trying to figure out what his mind is all about proves to be quite a challenge, even for him I'm afraid. He seems to often not know what he wants which is frustrating for all of us. But he is a cute, sweet little boy too and we are so happy he is part of our family. It really is a joy to watch him learn and grow! 

way too many halloween pictures

Well our Halloween festivities numbered far less than they normally would in the States. We had a Halloween themed playgroup which was a lot of fun. And it was a good chance to get Declan warmed up to the idea of wearing his Olaf costume. Tatum had an Anna dress up dress already and seemed happy enough to wear that for Halloween so we just ordered an Olaf costume for Declan and had my brother bring it out with him. The costume was perfect for Singapore because he could just wear the outer shell and leave the long sleeves/long pants jumpsuit off. Nice and breezy. :)

 As you can see it didn't take long for him to shed the costume and run around in just his diaper.

 That was really our only Halloween activity until the big day. Tatum was unbelievably excited about trick or treating this year. She really couldn't contain it. She also decided as she was getting ready that she wanted to wear the superhero cape my sister made for her. At first we tried to deter her until we realized she actually had a brilliant idea. Anna totally wears a cape and it is the exact color as the underside of the cape. It was perfect! She's a genius. ;) We tried to get some pictures of the kids before catching the bus to the Woodlands since we figured it would be darn near impossible to get them to pose for a picture once the night got going. Tatum was perfectly willing to pose but Declan wasn't having it. So we took a million and felt like we got nothing good. But then later as we were looking through them it seemed like we loved them all. So now we are going to share far too many of them with you.

 So. Excited.

Olaf, though, was so NOT excited. 

I'm not sure what is happening here. She is sniffing his head?

 Oh I just love seeing how excited she is. It makes me really excited for Christmas. Kids can be so much fun!

 Keep in mind that we were not saying a single thing about what she should be doing. Brennan might have been asking who is excited to go trick or treating or something along those lines, but for the most part I was just snapping pictures while she was giddy.

 Even though he was a bit of a stinker, I think he made a pretty cute Olaf.

 He quickly became completely fine with the costume when he realized he was getting candy for it. He also didn't mind all the attention and requests for photos. He created quite the stir, and as usual he ate it up.

We trick or treated in the Woodlands which is kind of like mini America here in Singapore. It is sort of the host for Halloween for the whole island. I read online that people who live there were expecting to give out candy to 7 to 10 thousand people. Can you even imagine?!

Here are a few photos to attempt to illustrate what the streets were like.

It did start raining which was actually kind of nice. It meant it wasn't too crazy hot and it also meant the kids were ready to be done before too long. We headed back to our friends' house who were nice enough to feed us and then the kids disappeared upstairs to the toy room that's about as big as our entire apartment ;) and entertained themselves for a couple of hours before we headed back home on the bus. I think the toy room might have been their favorite part haha.

As far as Halloweens go I'd say this was a pretty good one. At least we weren't covering our costumes with bulky winter coats. :) Happy Halloween!