Dallin is TWO

Dallin turned 2 years old on Monday, May 18. 

We had a lot of fun celebrating!  

We kept things simple. Dinner was at Applebee's to try their new menu. While enjoying our yummy food, we talked about Dallin's birth, milestones, and reflected on how Tanner also turned two in this house and how weird it would be if Dallin had a baby sibling right now since that's what it was like when Tanner was two. 

Also at dinner, we talked about some of Dallin's new habits and interests: 

• He loves climbing, dancing, jumping, and running. He likes to try new physical feats, and doesn't seem to get scared about falling or getting stuck. He loves the jungle gyms and ladders at the playgrounds. When he falls, he often grunts, "Ow!" and then keeps going. The only times that he really cries about getting hurt is when Tanner tortures him.
• DJ has always loved to cuddle and stroke our skin, and lately he is fascinated with the moles on our faces. Your read that right. Facial moles! He touches and pokes them and says "mole? mole?" 
• Anytime that we ask him to do something, Dallin says "Okay" in the sweetest voice, and then he does what we asked him to do! A few times, he hasn't understood what we requested, but he still went and did something for us. It's pretty funny.
• He repeats himself a lot, kind of like a broken record until we repeat back to him what he is saying. Responding to his question or comment isn't enough, he likes us to repeat back what he is saying.
• Dallin's favorite TV show is Peppa Pig. It's a British cartoon show on youtube about a family of pigs. I can't figure out why he likes it so much, but he begs for it every time I sit down at the computer. Luckily, it's a cute show, but we get the little jingle stuck in our heads all the time.
• Dallin brushes his own teeth. After I apply the toothpaste, he sucks it all up, then brushes all around his mouth and teetch, climbs up to lean over the sink, spits out a bunch of air (because all the spit and toothpaste was swallowed). Then he turns on the faucet, rinses out his brush and wipes his mouth with some water, followed by drying his hands and mouth.
• Lately, DJ gets really excited about sticks and collecting as many as he can hold. He gets so excited about finding a stick on the ground, you'd think he found a hundred dollar bill.
• He is a good example to Tanner when it's time to pray. Dallin, more often than Tanner, will bow his head and fold his arms. Instead of closing his eyes, he makes a scowl. It's so hilarious. He can say prayers when we tell him what to say, and there have been a few times when he says his own thoughts and we can understand him. 

Dallin loves his pacifier and keeps track of it really well. I know there is lots of debate out there about pacifiers. For our family, they are a must! I'm so glad we have used them and that my kids are able to be soothed by them. In fact, I'm fine if he uses it for another year. I don't worry as much anymore about how he'll give up the paci because Tanner had his until he was 3+ yrs old, and then he gave it up cold turkey all on his own. So I'm not worried about Dallin. He uses it mostly when he is tired or needing comfort. He talks a lot with and without the paci in his mouth, and sings a ton, so I am not worried about the paci interfering with any kind of speech issues, either.

Speaking of speech, Dallin has a large vocabulary, and it grows everyday. I feel like he has always used verbs in his speech more than Tanner did as a toddler. (For example, his first words other than mama and dada were Go and Look). He is combining three and four words to make sentences. Some popular ones we hear are "No, Tanner! Legoame. Tieeme out!" (Let got of me. Time out!) or "Hold you, mommy?" He also says stuff like "nack pweese. appoh." (snack please, apple) and "Daddy work? Tanner pway? Mommy cooking. Dallin!" and "kick ball, mommy. kick ball high!" or "look me, made! pwaydoe! tuhtoe! tuhtoe!" (look at me, what I made with the playdoe! A turtle, a turtle!)

Conversation while trying to take these pictures-
Me: Dallin say, "Birthday!"
Dallin: No! No buhday, no pitures!

Dallin also is a little singer! He sings lots of songs, but his go-to tune is Twinkle Little Star. Sometimes he sings on just "do" or "oo". Sometimes he makes up all his own nonsense words. Sometimes he tries to sing the real words (winkoe, winkoe wittoe tar) and other times he makes up new verses (digging, mommy, digging, mommy OR Tanner fast oh Tanner fast!). He also loves to sing March with Me, which is the tune of Skip to My Lou. He learned the singing game from the family music class I teach. About a week ago after dinner, he led all of us to this tune on the back porch. He made sure all of us were marching and then spinning and then clapping with him. He sings the word "march" with an extra R to it. It is the cutest thing. "MaRch, maRch, maRch uh me!!" He also hums the entire tune near perfect into his kazoo.

(They really liked the tablet that Applebee's added to every table in the restaurant. I'm not sure what to think about that!)

After our dinner, we came home for cake and ice cream. Jeremy made the cake for Dallin, with homemade frosting. It was super cute and simple. Instead of just singing Happy Birthday and letting Dallin blow out the candles once, we did it three times, just for kicks. He LOVED blowing out the candles each time. Dallin actually calls candles "buhday" because he thinks all candles are for birthdays. We also sang every birthday song we know during cake time and through out the day.

Great job on the cake, Jeremy!

Presents were simple. Dallin loved his birthday balloon from us. He also got some nice presents from his grandparents. When he opened the grandparent gifts, he carefully pulled away a small piece of the wrapping paper. Then, he took the piece of paper to the garbage can. He did this over and over until the present was unwrapped. It was so cute and very considerate! 
I think the balloon was his favorite. He was very protective of it all week, and wouldn't let Tanner touch it at all.

So happy!

We put a lot of thought into Dallin's birthday project. After brainstorming several ideas, Dallin "said" that he wanted to make music instruments for his cousins! So during the morning of his birthday, Dallin and Tanner painted toilet paper rolls for the rain-sticks. The boys worked really hard at it!

After cake and ice cream that night, all four of us worked on making some music shakers out of old spools of ribbon. Earlier, I filled the spools with rice. As a family, we worked to decorate them. Dallin and Tanner drew on paper, I cut out circles from their drawings and Jeremy glued the drawings onto the spools to make them look cute. It was a fun family project. We made about 10 of these! 

Over the next week or two, I made and collected a few more things for the music packages. Aren't these homemade tambourine rattles AWESOME!? I'm pretty proud since this was my own idea. I'm sure someone on pinterest could one-up these. But I don't really care because I came up with it on my own, they make great sound, can be played more than one way, and it didn't cost me anything to make them.

Eventually, this is what the contents of the packages looked like! It's complete with dancing scarves, ribbons, and wands. Conductor's batons, kazoos and a little song collection of notated children's folk songs on card-stock. Also included are the homemade shakers, rattle, mini rubberband guitar and a kit for making your own rainstick (those are the paper towel rolls that the boys painted). This particular package also had a game called Match that Sound, where the child shakes each egg and listens to find its match. I filled one pair with rice, another pair with a few beads, and another pair with cut up straws. Jeremy made fun of me for shipping boxes full of recycled trash, but I hope my little nieces and nephew didn't see it that way.

We are so blessed to have Dallin in our lives!!! He is loving, happy, determined, helpful, easily content, creative, goofy, and silly. He loves to be on the go, enjoys any activity with a ball, and likes digging, dancing and drumming. He doesn't like to smile for pictures, but he smiles a lot for me! 

Dallin seems to be the embodiment of our family motto "Don't worry, be happy." He is our DJ, Dal Pal, and my little Love Bug. I tell him almost everyday that I am so glad he is my son!!