{It's the Little Things} Best Friend's Birthday Party

When I started working on Myles Monthly update for 21 months, I found tons of pictures; like 100s that I hadn't shared. I didn't want to cram them all onto one post, so I figured no better time than now to share. In May, Myles' bestie turned 2. He had a super hero themed party complete with bounce house, caps, and yummy cupcakes! Of course the big hit was the bounce house and so 90% of my pictures are from that. The color is weird in these pictures because of the lighting in the bounce house and the fact that I still don't really know how to use my camera!

Singing to the birthday boy!

Getting into the cupcakes:

 He wouldn't eat any of the actual cupcake, only the frosting. And when he was done with that one, he wanted the frosting off of all the rest of them. And when we went to their house later that week he still wanted the frosting on the leftover ones. 

And Myles in his cape that Leesa made. She did an awesome job on these and the back has an 'M' on it for Myles :)

Blurry running toddler pic!

Back to linking up with Ashley over at Words About Waverly for It's the Little Things link-up!

What do your little ones do with their friends?

It's the Little Things: Daddy Time

It's Wednesday and I am pretty excited for two reasons:
1. One week from today, I am going back home for a much needed visit. I am super excited to see my family and I know Myles is going to be in heaven with all the love and attention he will be getting. He is not shy and isn't too proud to beg you to follow him around every which way he wants to go. It gets a little tiring, but it's impossible to say no to that cute little voice saying "peas" and "tea-cup (thank you)".  
2. It's is time for It's the Little Things link-up! This link-up is a much needed reminder for me to cherish the little things, as by Wednesday I usually find myself somewhere in between hot mess, beautiful disaster, and 'hey we are all still breathing, right?'. So a big thank you as always to Ashley over at Words About Waverly for hosting this get together :)

This week I decided it's about that time to give some of the limelight to the other man of the house. I recently introduced you guys to my boyfriend Mark in my first "Boys Behind the Blog" post. I am the first to admit that I do not give him enough credit. I think taking care of Myles all day, everyday is tough work, but he works even harder to give me the opportunity to be able to stay home with Myles. He is a man of 100% determination and has always reached every goal he has set for himself. He does his best everyday for our little family and I know he will continue to do so for the rest of our lives. He deserves all the respect, love, and appreciation I have, but of course I don't always show him that because..well.. I am not perfect. So here today on my blog, I am publicly declaring my greatest gratitude to him. 

Although Myles is 100% a momma's boy, he still really enjoys his daddy's company. They are quite the duo and I always have a laugh when they play together. It's the little silly things I catch them doing that make the stressful and crazy parts of my days all just fade away. Perfect example:

Corn on the cob sword fighting! One night when we were eating dinner, Myles picked up his corn and started pretending it was a sword. So of course, Mark had to join him because he couldn't let Myles just have all the fun. This went on for a good 5 minutes with lots of  fighting sound effects and imaginary 'good guy'-'bad guy' scenarios made up by Mark. 

This is Myles giving his dad the 'pound'. Mark has been doing this with him since he was born and calls it 'boom, boom'. He has been waiting a long time for Myles to do it back. He finally did it around 17 months and this is the first time I was able to catch it on camera. He even says 'boom, boom' too. Melts my heart :)

Mark always gets Myles to join him in some sort of project. Myles loves to feel like he is really helping out; he always wants to hold the tools. I got him his own plastic tools, but of course, he still wants the real ones. Because of his fleeting attention span, he usually doesn't last too long and really doesn't do too much actual helping, but he is learning. I already know as Myles continues to get older, he will keep getting more and more into fixing, working, and making stuff with his dad. I hope he learns all the stuff Mark knows and more! Future Handy Manny on our hands :) 

And lastly, just some goofing around. This is Myles and Mark at their finest! I never knew an apple could be so much fun!

What things do your kids like to do with their dad? What are the special parts of their relationship?

It's the Little Things: Best Friends Part 2

Somehow it is already Wednesday. No complaining here though because in blog world that means It's the Little Things link-up time! I am still loving linking-up every week and reading about the little things you all are cherishing! Big thanks as always to Ashley over at Words About Waverly for hosting this get together :)

I know I already did a post about Myles and his best friend Cameron, but they are too cute to not share with you all! So this week my post is Best Friends, Part 2. I love taking these two places together: they have so much fun and so do we! A laugh is guaranteed when these two little ones get together. They both have minds of their own and come up with some pretty great things. They are still more into parallel play, but it's obvious they love being around each other. I mean of course they fight over toys and such, but it's pretty rare and are over it in a matter of seconds. 

 About a month ago, we took them to the Exploratorium at the pier in San Fransisco. I wanted to take Myles somewhere fun for his half birthday and this place has rave reviews.
It really is so awesome with tons to explore and learn from. You definitely want to plan a whole day to spent there. One of the best parts is the location: it's right on a pier with a stunning view of the bay! Myles and Cameron were too young for most of the exhibits, but they did find enough stuff to keep them entertained for a couple hours. I would say ages 6+ would get the most out of all this place has to offer. If I wasn't trying to wrangle my tornado of a toddler the whole time, I would have loved to check out all the exhibits myself. Definitely a must-see for your family if you are around the Bay Area. 

Left: Myles trying to grab the light that Cameron was controlling. 

Upper right: A whole room of xylophones, each made out of different materials. Myles wanted nothing to do with the wood ones, he only liked the metal one.

 This was one of those Ames Rooms. It is an optical illusion in which the people/objects in the room appear larger or smaller depending on where they are in the room. They saw it as a big, empty room to run around in. I guess we will save the science for another day :)

I'm not really sure what this was, but the boys loved it nonetheless. It reminded me of the circus for some reason. The top spun in a circle, making the plastic pieces move around.
 Left: Myles going to check out what Cameron found.

Middle: Myles on the ground, Cameron trying to figure out what he is doing.

Right: Cameron joins Myles on the ground. Boys....

Myles very quickly found his favorite part of the whole museum: a floating ball! This was too hilarious to watch! As I've talked about before, Myles is wildly obsessed with balls. Well this floating beach ball was no exception to his obsession. He spent a good 5 minutes trying to reach and catch the ball. The cone funneled out the air and moved back and forth, so I got a kick out of lowering it towards him and then bringing it back straight up. An older gentleman was watching him and laughing. He came up to me and said that watching Myles try to figure out the ball was the best part of his trip to the museum! I wish I would have gotten a video because it really was a riot!

The weather in our area has been amazing lately: 70s and sunny in March! (Something I am so not used to, as I have lived 98% of my life in the Midwest.) One of the main reasons we moved to California was for the weather, so we try to take advantage of it as much as possible. With our rambunctious toddler, we need to option to get outside everyday or we go crazy!! When we are able to get that outdoor playtime in, it does wonders for our moods. Anywho, last Sunday was one of those perfect days and we knew it was only right to have a picnic at the park. We packed up our snacks, toys, and 'flippy' (skateboard) and headed to one of our favorite playgrounds. 

Pre-picnic nap on the bag of food, duhh:

And of course, the day wouldn't be complete without our best friends Cameron and Leesa.

They had too much fun playing together this day. Half of the time, they were following each other around randomly picking things to play on... the other half was spent wondering off on their own trying to find from trouble to get into to :) Whenever Cameron would go his own way, Myles would yell something and point at him. I couldn't figure out what he was saying at first, but then Leesa realized that he was calling him "Cammy." Leesa calls him Cammy a lot and Myles must have picked up on it. I'm guessing Cameron is too hard to say because he hadn't said it yet, so Cammy was the next best option for him :) Cameron has been saying Myles for a while now, so I am happy that Myles finally said his name back. 

 Myles was all over Cameron's push-car; he loves that thing. Myles has his own bike, push bike, and 4-wheeler, but he insists on dominating this car every time he sees it. Myles had to make this one-seater into a two-seater by cramming himself next to Cameron and then when he realized that wasn't comfortable enough, he decided to just sit on top of him!  

We also brought Myles' "flippy" (what he calls his skateboard). Cameron tried the flippy for the first time too. Both of them were so cute playing on it. Myles will only wear the helmet for a couple of minutes at a time, so we don't play on the flippy that much. (I won't let him play on it if he doesn't have his helmet on). We found this board at Toys R Us for only $10. It's perfect because it really doesn't move much at all, so he is able to stand on it and work on his balance without it moving. He has even done a couple tricks on it (pretty sure it was on accident, but hey, it still counts)! And of course, no ride on a flippy is complete without holding a football just because.

What kinds of activities do you do on playdates? Does your little one have a best friend?

It's the Litlte Things: Pet Fishy

I grew up having all sorts of different pets throughout my childhood. Being an only child, I  was completely blessed by the companionship of the animals I grew up with. I remember them all so well and have such fond memories of our time together.  Now that I have a little one of my own, I want Myles to be able to enjoy the same love and bonds with his pets that I was able to experience. We kept it easy for Myles' first pet and went with a goldfish. Well actually, we didn't really choose. We went to a Memorial Day fair and as we were walking around, a little boy came up to me and asked if we wanted his fish. I'm guessing that he won it, but his parents didn't want him to keep it, or maybe he was just being nice. Either way, we thanked him and gladly took it.

This picture always makes me think of the picture of Darla and her goldfish from Finding Nemo. Myles was 10 months old here and really didn't know what the fish was. All he wanted to do was chew on the plastic bag! Don't worry, the fish actually made it home alive and into a little bowl we we set up for him. We (or I, rather) named him Chubby Bear after one of our favorite songs. He lived a long time for a fair fish! We had to leave him at my parents' house when we moved, but we were reunited at Christmas time. He lived to be almost 7 months... One day I decided to clean out his bowl. I did my normal routine, but something must have gone wrong because this cleaning didn't end well for Chubby. The next morning he was a floatin'. It was a total mommy fail moment, but luckily Myles didn't have a clue what happened!

I had been thinking about getting him some more fish lately because he is really fascinated by them, but I just never got around to actually doing it. Well last week my dad was in town visiting for a bit and he decided that he wanted to get Myles some goldies for his water table. Part of me thought: Wow, what a genius idea but the other part of me thought: Oh no, this isn't going to end well for the fishies. I really had no choice though because I now know that grandparents get to do whatever they want for their grandchildren. So we took a little trip to the pet store and got three goldfish and some food. 

When we got back home, I filled up the table with water and plopped those fish right in. Myles had the time of his life playing with the fish. He really thought it was the coolest thing EVER! At first, all he wanted to do was 'feed' them (don't worry the cap is on). 

 He kept following them around with his finger, pointing, and showing me what he had found!
Then he got a little more adventurous and started trying to touch them. 

At one point, my dad wanted to show Myles that the fish could swim up into the top part of the table as well. So he guided the fish with his hand up to the top the table. Well apparently, Myles did not want the fish to be up there with his elephant and giraffe, so he picked the fish up with his hand and put it back into the bottom part! I could not believe he did that! ALL BOY and no fear there. I wouldn't even pick a fish up and it didn't phase him one bit. I may have a future noodler on my hands :)

Eventually, Myles started going a little crazy-boy with the water. I didn't want him to freak the fish out too much that they would die, so we took a little break to let them rest.

I have to say my dad was a total genius for this idea. It seriously would have kept him entertained forever if I didn't make him take a break. I completely recommend the fish-tank-water-table for a fun outside activity!

And of course a huge thanks as always to Ashley over at Words About Waverly for putting together this link-up! 

What pets do your kids have? What pets do you want to get for your kids?

It's the Little Things: First Ice Cream Cone

A couple weeks ago, we cooked out on the grill for dinner one night. I'm not really sure what happened, but let's just say neither of us will be trying out for Top Chef: Grill Master anytime soon. I honestly blame it on cheap steaks, but regardless, it was barely one grade above canned dog food...ugh... So to make up for it, I decided we needed to be treated to some ice cream. We took a fun little trip to max out on our favorite choices of Baskin Robbins' 31-Flavors. I decided on one scoop of strawberry cheesecake in a waffle cone. Unfortunately for me, my cone was instantly hijacked by this little guy:

I couldn't complain too much though, because I had the best time watching him have his very first ice cream cone. I was able to sneak a few bites here and there, but for the most part, he kept that cone on lock. I was totally surprised that he actually ate some of it. He is not a fan of sweets and normally won't even take a bite if I offer it to him. I'm pretty sure at first, he really only wanted it because I was eating it. Then when he realized it was something new, fun, and messy, he just couldn't give it up. I surely don't blame him!

Every couple of minutes, I had to break the cone off so that he could get to the ice cream. Otherwise, he would stick his whole face into the cone. He made a pretty big mess (as evidenced above), but he was having too much of a good time for me to dare to stop him. He even took my little spoon and started using it to get the ice cream out.  

 If you follow me on Instagram (@theeveryday_momma) then you have probably seen this video:

We all had a great time and it definitely made up for the less than stellar dinner. He made a couple other customers smile as well: It's all about the little things!

And of course a huge thanks as always to Ashley over at Words About Waverly for putting together this link-up! 

Do your kids get any sweets? What's their favorite?

It's the Little Things: The Little Gym

Life with a rambunctious, inquisitive, busy-bodied toddler is really ...ummm... well... it's just really. Honestly, no words can accurately describe how our life is somehow simultaneously both an utter shit show and a well-oiled machine all rolled up into a big ball of deep, overflowing love. Our life is a perfect disaster really and I have been learning to just go with it. It's a fine balance between keeping consistency, but also allowing Myles to experience new things. I have found that routines have really helped Myles in all aspects of his growth. His sleep, attitude, eating, socializing, and learning have all benefited from the stability and predictability of our routines.

One of our weekly routines is going to The Little Gym. Even though we've been going every week for 8 months now (sometimes twice a week), I still always look forward to taking him. I have seen him change so much since we first started taking him. Of course, he has progressed physically, but more importantly it has taught him to embrace routine and procedure. Now that Myles has a mind of his own, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get him to listen sometimes. I have been working on cause and effect a lot lately and going to a structured play time has really helped with this. 
When we first started going, he would run away with things that he was supposed to be putting away, namely balls. He also would never sit and wait for his turn to say his name and get a hi-five. Now that he knows the routine so well, when triggered by the certain songs we sing, he has no problem putting things away and sometimes even does it before the time is up! Whatever voodoo magic they use to get my son to put a ball away after only a couple of minutes of play time needs to be taught to all moms: the priceless gift of obedience :)
 

This is what Myles does if he finds anything new at the gym. He has to figure out what fun activities can be done with it. And 'fun' for him means anything that allows him to almost break a bone and give his mother a heart-attack. He would not leave this mat alone during free play. He spent the whole time rolling, unrolling, and jumping on it.

They change the set-up every week, but Myles always finds he beloved hotdog rollers to walk across over and over and over. He also loves this tire-looking-circle-thing (technical term). He likes to roll it around or get inside and have someone roll him around: of course the two things that really shouldn't be done with it. My rebel son, I tell ya!

Skill of the week: learning to stand up and walk across the beam! He used to favor the bars, but now he likes the beam best. Love my little gymnastics baby :)

IT'S BALL TIME: Myles' favorite part of class. They just dump out a garbage can full of balls and let the kids have at it. Usually Myles just finds his favorite ball and carries it around everywhere. Occasionally, he will throw it to me or kick it around, but for the most part, he is the crazy ball hoarder wondering around collecting any and all balls. 

Sometimes what you think are just little things actually make a huge different in a child's life. I love giving Myles the feeling of safety and comfort through routine; not all kids are so lucky. It really is all about The Little Things.
And of course a huge thanks as always to Ashley over at Words About Waverly for putting together this link-up! 

  Do your kids go structured play time or gym classes? Do you see positive changes from them?

It's the Little Things: Best Friends

Today, am I linking-up with the beautiful Ashley over at Words About Waverly for It's the Little Things again. Two weeks in a row; GO ME! This is quickly becoming my most favorite link-up in the history of link-ups! It's so nice to put together a post about something so little, yet so powerful. I honestly can't thank Ashley enough for putting this together: it has really made blogging enjoyable again. Whenever I go to write up this link-up post, I am just reminded of how incredibly blessed I am as a new mother embarking on this beautiful journey. Of course it has its lows, but the highs are... well no words can describe the highs.. only other mommies know that feeling!

Last week, I touched on how hard it was to make the decision to move 2,000 miles away from our families. I did not know one single person living in the city we moved to. (Mark has a couple friends and family in neighboring cities, but none in our city). It was scary, especially having a one-year old and no real support. I decided to start taking Myles to a place called The Little Gym. For the younger ones, it's a parent-child class where they work on gymnastic skills, exploring, group activities, and more. I love the place and have been going for 7 months now. It took a couple of months of going, but I finally made a friend. 

Right away, I could tell she was my kind of person. I don't find many 'my kinds of people' because I am very introverted, a semi-loner, and have a very low tolerance for BS. One day, I decided it was time, and I nervously asked for her number ;) I mean, how hard is it to make friends once you're older?!?! I dealt with enough rejection as a child/teenager! 

We texted, started having play dates with our two boys, and the rest is history! Her little boy Cameron is 3 months older than Myles, but they are seriously like two peas in a pod! More and more now they are learning to play together and it's the best thing in the world to watch! My heart melts into a puddle every time I see them interacting! I hope they stay friends forever! I am so thankful to have found Leesa and Cameron; Myles loves playing with him and I love some adult interaction! Amen!
Here are some of my favorite shots of them together:

Playing at the park:

Cameron giving his buddy a lift :)

Working on Cameron's jeep:

Superhero besties:

These next pictures are from Valentine's Day this year. Leesa's husband was working late, so she offered to watch Myles while Mark and I went to have dinner. This was the first time Myles stayed with anyone other than my parents or Mark's sister. I wasn't sure if he was going to be upset that both Mark and I were leaving, but he did not care AT ALL! It was crazy to go out and not be worried about him. I knew he would have a good time, but he took it to a whole other level! He didn't even bat an eye when we came back. No 'mommy' 'daddy'.. no hugs.. nothing. But I was just so happy to see him having fun and not worried about us.

This is a video of Myles trying to get Cameron to go play where he wanted! He kept bringing Cameron places, Cameron would leave, then Myles would have to go back and get him :) 
I die...

And lastly, my most favorite picture of all time. We had been waiting to capture this for a long time and it was better than I could have imagined!

 It really is just all about the little things...

Do your little ones have a best friend?