Alex's first hamburger

I don't make hamburgers very often (I hate touching raw ground beef) but this weekend I had a craving and we busted out the grill. Alex enjoyed them way more than I ever thought possible.

First, he played peekaboo with ketchup all over his hands. The boy got messy quick.

Then he used the ketchup as hair gel. He has a weird fascination with putting stuff in his hair so of course the ketchup naturally ended up there.

He did actually eat some of his hamburger, too. I was just glad some of it made it to his mouth.

And he loved it!

 Then out of no where, he decided to rub it all over his face.

 I guess it was just that good. He had ketchup everywhere, pieces of hamburger bun stuck in his eyelashes and he was so happy about it. He thought he was the funniest boy ever.

Oh how I wish this photo wasn't blurry but you get the idea. Needless to say, it was definitely bath time after dinner.

And I can't leave Brendan out of this. While he was no where near as messy as Alex, he was cracking up the whole time watching him, which made Alex even more enthusiastic about rubbing ketchup all over himself. I swear, half the crazy things Alex does is because Brendan thinks it's funny. Brothers are funny like that. And awesome.

The secret life of Alex Near

I look back at how much I used to blog when it was just Brendan and I feel like Alex has been jipped a little bit. I blogged just about every little thing that was related to Brendan and poor Alex has only had a handful of posts devoted to him and I've missed so many of his milestones on the blog, so I'm trying to rectify that from here on out. This one's all for you, Goober!

• He's a climber now. He's figured out how to climb up onto our kitchen chairs and uses them to look out our front windows. Here he was enthralled by the garbage men. I've got to watch him all the time now because he will climb on ANYTHING and he gets into a lot of trouble.

• He loves to throw things away and I have to check the garbage cans before emptying them. One day he took every single magnet off the fridge and threw them away. Picking 26 alphabet magnets out of the trash was not fun. But on a good note, he does throw away his dirty diapers for me now!

• When he wants something, he says"nah-NAH" in a very high-pitch scream while pointing at whatever it is that he wants.

• He says a handful of words like "nite-nite", "look", "that", along with the usual "mama", "dada" and "bye-bye" and it's so awesome because at this age, Brendan was not willing to say anything.

• He LOVES apples. He chomps on them until everything but the area where his hand is holding it is gone. It's amazing. He even almost ate a stem a couple of times.

• He has learned how to nod his head now.

• He thinks it's funny to whack people with a drumstick or other hard stick-like objects. I don't know what to do about this one because so far all my disciplining hasn't work and I'm frustrated. I'm not sure how to break his love of hitting people. 

• He hides things in my cupboards all the time. I'm constantly finding toys, old sippy cups and random objects in with my pots and pans and tupperware.

• He loves playing in the fridge, which does not make me happy because he has broken countless eggs and made countless messes. But it's still adorable to see him so happy in there.

• He's definitely got my sweet tooth. If he sees candy, he will scream until you cave and give him some.

• He has a strange obsession with dark rooms or closets. One of his favorite things to do is to close himself in a dark bathroom.

• He loves to eat chapstick. I can't even count how many of mine he has devoured.

• Whenever he sees Brendan's preschool bucket out, he must grab it and play with it which makes Brendan quite angry.

• He also loves to stick his fingers in my lipstick tubes. I don't wear lipstick much but my options are now limited since he's ruined several already.

• He sleeps with his thumb in his mouth. Brendan was never a thumb-sucker so I was delighted to see that Alex is, and I still think it's the most adorable thing ever.

• He's the most adorable 17 month old ever. Even though he drives me crazy most days, I still love him more than words can express. My favorite time with him is just before I put him to bed at night and we spend a few minutes in the rocking chair together. His little head on my shoulder, his hand sometimes patting my back too, and the kisses he lets me smother him with make those quiet moments my favorite.

It's time to party!

Back in January, we had Brendan's birthday party (a few weeks after his actual birthday to give people a rest from the holidays).  We decided (mostly me) that it would be an Angry Birds party since that is Brendan's favorite game. Here's the invitation I made for him-

Brendan loved it and was thrilled to get to give them to his friends.

A friend told me that Sam's Club had an Angry Birds cake so I enlisted the help of another friend who had a membership so I could pick one up for Brendan. It was WAY cooler than I expected. Thanks again, April! The party wouldn't have been nearly as awesome without your help!!!

 And even more unexpected was how delicious it was. I think I ate half the cake myself.

 I am not kidding.

Brendan, of course, loved it and when it saw it he cried because we couldn't eat it right at that moment.

When the kids arrived, it was time to get the party started. We played several games to get things going-

 We first played Pin the Nose on the Pig, which was fun despite some kids trying to cheat- including my son. He was quite angry that he didn't win.

They all did a little too well and it was hard to choose a winner (the winners got Angry Birds fruit snacks that I found at a random store at the mall) because they all wanted a prize.



The second game was a the biggest hit of the party though. I made bean bags with the red, yellow, and black birds on them using iron-on transfer paper so they could toss them at the piggies, which were just giant cans with pictures of the different pigs. They were worth different point so whoever got the most points won a small Red Bird key chain. There were also some tears over that prize. Maybe I shouldn't have done prizes?

The last game (which I don't have pictures of) was Pass the Pig, which was basically just Hot Potato played with a plush pig toy. That one didn't hold their attention very well but hey, it was all I could think of. It was really hard to think of three Angry Birds themed games!

 After the games, we had cake (finally!) and the icing stained our fingers and the kids faces. Alex's poop was green for 2 days after because of it and it was a pain to clean up all that frosting that inevitably got all over the place but it was so good, it was totally worth it.

The present opening was a bit crazy (nine 4 and 5 year olds are really hard to control after cake!) but check out that awesome present Brendan just opened. A Fart Machine! I swear he has never laughed so hard and he had way too much fun "hiding" it by Chris to make it sound like he farted.

What a fun day- though we were all exhausted by the end! Brendan has such an awesome group of friends and I'm so grateful that we've gotten to know them and their families. I feel very blessed for where we're at right now. And I'm even more grateful that I have another year until I have to plan a party again! Phew!