Happy Birthday, Brynerooskie!

Last year Bryn celebrated turning 1:

As sequency would have it, this year she celebrated turning 2!

Her birthday weekend started out with a trip into the big city. She has been wanting to ride on the subway train ever since we got back from Africa, so this was a very exciting event. We took her to the Toys-R-Us at Times Square that has an enormous ferris wheel inside. She was in awe for about a minute, then her 2-year-old attention span was directed to some other wonderful discovery.

Ridin' the Wheel (that's what the locals call it...just kidding). I read a warning sign while we were waiting in line that advised pregnant women not to ride. Obviously I live life on the wild side.

After the toy store we went to dinner where the restaurant staff sang to Bryn, sombrero-ed her, and presented her with an ice cream sundae.

The sombrero proved to be merely an obstruction to the ice cream and was promptly discarded. I like the girl's priorities.

The night before her big day we got everything set up for a birthday morning surprise:

She spent about 5 seconds being surprised and then went right to work baking "bread, cookies, ice cream, and German pancakes."

She got to choose her meals throughout the day, but had to settle for 2nd choice every time since her first choice was cupcakes. She loves German pancakes and requested them (as her 2nd choice) for both breakfast and dinner, probably because they are nearly as sweet as a cupcake with all the fixin's.

After breakfast we opened the gifts that had been arriving from grandparents throughout the week.

Conference was watched and a nap was attempted, but she either didn't want to miss a moment of conference or the birthday excitement was just too overwhelming to allow for a nap. Either way, the birthday nap was a no-go, which moved us right along to our next birthday surprise: hunting for number 2's around the house that led to finding the last 2 on a new tricycle (Thank you, Grandad and Kim!)! We took it out for a spin right away.

The birthday was wrapped up with cake and ice cream shared with friends.

Quite a day for quite a two-year-old!

Mommy and the birthday girl

Daddy and the birthday girl

Group shot

We LYMTTCT, Bryn!

XOXO

Perception of Ingratitude

It has been brought to my attention, and rightly so, that my last post could be perceived by many to be quite ungrateful of the many cards and gifts ($) we have been given over the years. In my attempt at sarcasm (which never did anybody any good, unless you're Ricky Gervais), I failed to convey the message I was intending to send: that I, Justin Malden, am terribly uncreative when it comes to showing my appreciation and love for Jill.

Of course I am truly grateful for the many loved ones who have been so thoughtful to us and who have helped us along our way. I only wish that we could adequately repay all of the kindness and love that we have received from both family and friends.

To My Lovely Lady, Happy Birthday

Let's be honest. After 21, birthdays are kinda lame. The childish excitement is all gone and the only milestones left are 30 (blah), 50 (old), and 78 (average life expectancy). The social custom demands that we celebrate one's birth by perusing the endless assortment of "another year older" cards, cat cards, and "this sexy [person] wants to give you a present you'll never forget" cards.-------------------Edited for an offensive statement--------------------------

Despite my pessimism, however, there is one birthday that I love to celebrate: Jill's. Recognizing that there are an infinite number of events that had to take place to ensure our present circumstance, I can honestly say that the day Jill was born is one of the most important days of my life. I regret that I didn't know Jill existed for the first half of my life, but I have found reason to celebrate her life and the blessing it has been to be a part of it since the day we met 14 years ago.

I celebrate her humor, her intelligence, her virtue, her honesty, her diligence in the gospel, her dedication to personal growth, her talents, her grasp of motherhood, her beauty and her loyalty and affection as a wonderful wife and friend. I aspire to be like her in every possible way.

Happy birthday babe, glad you're alive. - Justin

Learning Time

For the past month Bryn and I have been having "Learning Time" for a little bit each day. We both love it. She is learning the letters of the alphabet and the sound each letter makes. We also review numbers and colors, and sing songs. Our special focus this month was the body, learning different body parts, etc. During March our focus will be transportation, all the different ways to get from here to there. Lucky for us, New York is a great place to study transportation. During a quick trip to drop Justin off at the train station and a short walk to the library this morning we saw: a subway train, lots of buses, taxis, fire trucks, boats, yachts, lots of airplanes, a helicopter, and lots of cars of course too. Thank you, NYC! I am so impressed with how quickly Bryn learns. She amazes me!

When I was growing up, we had a bulletin board in my house that basically looked like the one pictured below (a little less elaborate, but you get the idea). I thought it was silly that my "teacher" mom brought such a classroom feel into our home.

Now, this is what Bryn's room looks like. Hmm...runs in the family??

We traced Bryn's body and then added body parts to the cut-out throughout the month.

It's About Time?

Be honest, have you wondered, "When are those Maldens going to get back to their baby makin'?" Well, wonder no more. The baby makin' is in full force and has been for the past 18 weeks. We're expecting this beautiful* bundle at the end of July (*note the usage of the more feminine adjective beautiful as opposed to handsome...that's to imply we're having a GIRL, which, in fact ,we are!):

This is how we shared the news with our families when we were visiting them in CA around the holidays:

We are so excited for "baby sister" to be on her way. Bryn talks about the baby in Mommy's tummy all the time, and has decided that we should name her The Gruffalo. She loves that book, so although it is the name of a monster, I'm choosing to interpret her name suggestion as a transfer of her affection for the book to the baby. :)

Maybe Someday

Tonight I wanted to blog about our trip to Cape Town, back in our African days. But then I looked through our hundreds of pictures from the trip and couldn't narrow down which ones to use. So I looked into making a slideshow with them on Flickr. And the downloading was going to take for-eh-vurr. So I looked at a Picasa slide show. And it was going to make me upload every picture individually. No way, man. So now I've decided to post one picture from our trip. And tell you that Cape Town is absolutely beautiful. We LOVED it. And maybe someday I'll post more about it...

Just Can't Get Enough

I just can't get enough of my sweet Bryn lately. We have multiple factors that should be contributing to me having a more "Can't 7:30 bedtime come faster??" mindset (i.e. Being stuck inside nearly everyday for the past month with a toddler; toddlerhood in general, "terrible twos", right?; Bryn talking every single second from the moment she wakes till her eyelids close for the night (and often even during her sleep too), requiring constant answers and replies from me, often touching upon the same topics 20-25 times per day, etc.), but for some surprising, wonderful, blessed reason I haven't been feeling that way at all. I'm loving every minute of life with this little one. (If your winter attitude isn't going as well with your little ones, please don't be disgusted with this post. I'm trying to make a point of recording these positive feelings so that when the "I'm seriously going to go crazy if I spend one more minute in this house with this kid" feeling does come, I'll have something to look back on to remind me of the good times.)

This is what's been keeping us inside so much:

(our driveway)

Okay, I need to revise my previous statement...she does take a break from talking while she's looking at books, which she does a lot. I love walking into a room to find this:

This was the perch she found one morning while I was getting ready in the bathroom.

Talking to Grandma on the phone (aka Calculator)

She set the dolls up to listen to stories

One day we created this jumping pit using the mattress from Bryn's crib:

(see video at the bottom of the post for footage of the fun)

All of our time stuck indoors started me thinking about the big P.T. (potty training!). I figure if we can't go anywhere anyway, it's the perfect opportunity to be 100% potty focused. However, when it comes right down to it, one of us is way more into than the other. The other of us is actually a big scaredy pants and can think of a bizzillion reasons why diapers are better than attempting the potty training of a 22 month old. The incessant requests to go potty on the toilet by the one of us that is into it might just drive the other to take the plunge though. It'd be crazy to ignore a self-motivated potty trainee, right? (Hint: The one of us that is into this whole potty training thing not only thinks it's fun to use the potty chair on the toilet, but also to use it as a hat...what fun!)

This picture is blurry, but I love it. Oh, that sweet face...I just can't get enough of it! :)