Happy Birthday Mary Alice!

Happy Birthday, to our favorite two year old!


Here is our beautiful Mary Alice at 2 years old. Mary Alice is a bright, intelligent, independent little girl. She is bold, opinionated, and knows how to unleash her remarkable eyes to get what she wants. She is especially adept at mimicking everything she sees (particularly anything her older brother does). Mary Alice is very fond of animals and frequently attempts to cross our busy street to go visit the horses on the other side. She has a lot of fun little quirks that keep us entertained. She and John greet each other by snorting. Sometimes she growls instead of talks. Most of the day she spends on her hands and knees licking the floor and purring (because she's a cat, of course!) And she can't stand to hear people sing - she often commands us to "Stop singing... nasty singing."

Here is a look at how she has grown!

1 year old


Two months old.

Learning to talk

Mary Alice has been talking for a whole year now - and she has quite a lot to say. Trouble is, we can't always understand her. And some times she doesn't quite understand us.

For instance, when I asked her what her name was the other day, she responded

"Ayice." (Translation... Alice)

"No," I said... "MARY Alice."

"Oh... Mawy Ayice."

"Good job" says Mom. "What's his name?" (pointing to Tom.)

"Mawy Thomas."



And the current favorite "embarass the mom" game played by her aunts involves asking her to say "Dumptruck."
(She drops the 'p' and can't quite get her tongue around the 'tr' sound.)
Then she looks quizzically at her crazy aunts, who have erupted in rioutous fits, and walks off.

Togetherness

I love that these two are starting to play together so much now - even with all the mess. And, as most parents know, twice the kids means four times the mess....

Playing "work".

Zoning out to "Fireman Sam."

Henry Smiles

A few weeks back, Henry figured out how to smile - and he hasn't stopped since.





I love it!

Changing diapers

Mamma's little helper...

Tom and Henry

These two kids are getting along pretty well!

Well, Thomas gets along well with Henry, anyway.

Henry seems a bit nervous whenever the kiddos approach him.

But it won't be long before he is up and running after them.

Henry's blessing

Here are the photos from Henry's blessing. Following our tradition of blessing the kids at home, Henry was blessed on Saturday night, Oct. 23.

Henry baby.


Two of my handsome Woolcott men.


Here is our blessing circle: Bro. Rupp (our very patient second counselor in the ward), Uncle Dave, John, Grandpa Bradshaw, and Uncle Ean.



John and I with a sleepy baby Henry.

Our little family.

Our family with the Woolcott side : Grandma Christine, Uncle Ean, Aunt Nicci, Michael, Stephen, and baby Sam (look at that smile!)

Our family with the Bradshaw side: Aunt Becca, Aunt Amy, Aunt Sue, Grandpa and Grandma Bradshaw, Aunt Linsey, Aunt Teresa, and Uncle Dave.


OUTAKES

And here is the reason why the photo portion of the evening took so long (can you follow the Mary Alice?) :







Ahh... to be two again.

Halloween

For Halloween this year, we decided to use costumes from the previous years. Mostly by accident - but hey, it all worked out in the end. Thomas was originally going to be a police officer, but couldn't resist the lure of the dragon costume from last year which he found in the costume box when we pulled out Mary Alice's costume.


It turned out to be a good choice, though - because he stayed pretty toasty in all the fur, despite the downpour we ended up trick-or-treating through.

Now, Mary Alice was thrilled about getting to wear the surgeon costume that Tom loves to put on to play doctor (though it is a darn tight squeeze for him these days.) Funny part of it is that when Tom wore the costume on Halloween three years ago, he was immediately identified as a doctor, whereas Mary Alice was always referred to as a nurse. Interesting how our perceptions work.



After about 30 minutes walking in the rain, us old-fogey parents called it a night and bribed our children indoors and away from all the candy bonanzas taking place outside. Interestingly enough, we succeeded in this impossible endeavor by promising to do what we should have done weeks early - carving that darn pumpkin.

And we learned that our kids are pretty handy with a knife.

Butter knife, that is.

Happy Halloween!