Several times it snowed in Prague but they melted fast with the rain. This time though, with the negative temperatures we’re having and with no rain to compete with, the snow lingered. I was able to take the kids out to play. Caity is a certified snow-lover, but how about Adie? I was excited to let him have his first experience with snow.

Singing in the snow? It’s without doubt he loves it too! (:

We welcomed little Adie’s 2nd birthday with back-to-back celebrations. The first one was held the Saturday before his special day, with friends and the second was exactly on his birthday, spent with the family.

Birthday Part 1

He thinks he’s got super powers! I bet he wants to fly!

Blow the candles, Adie!

He received lots of toy cars!

And some more trains and tracks to add to his collection.

Getting ready to pull the piñata.

Little Jakub trying to reach the train piñata.

And it’s opened!

Happy Adie!

He was wide-awake for more than 12 hours.  He refused to nap in the morning, stayed up late way past his bedtime, and was all active the entire day.  He must have known it was HIS PARTY!

Our simple celebration wouldn’t be complete without the presence of friends!

Birthday Part 2

Trivia: Adrian is one of Adie’s two first names.

Adie was happy with the alphabet train that spells out his name A-D-R-I-A-N from his grandmother. The bookstore where I bought the alphabet trains for give-aways have limited letters; they don’t even have the letter A, but Mam bought her gift from a store in the city center that sells wooden toys. Gotta check it out one of these days.

A wooden toy puzzle from Děda. Easy-peasy for little Adie.

Prepping for the candle-blowing!

Big sister Caity cheering for Adie.

Yeyyyy!  Mission accomplished!

Happy birthday Adie! We love you!

Related Post:
Birthday preps and props

——

I had this interesting conversation with my 2 year-old yesterday. [It's STILL surreal to think that he's already 2 (2 days ago). I have to get used counting his age by years and not by months. hmmmm or I can choose both.]. It’s nice that my little cave man has learned to communicate like a real human (or at least trying to be) showing the right manners .

So while I was puttering with the PC, he took my hand and pulled me.

Adie: Come mama, come. (saying it in his very soft voice).

He stands on the kiddie table placed beside the cabinet where some of the toys are hidden. Motions me to “Open it, please“. ( rubs palms together, which is typical for Czech kids when they want something while saying please. That’s the first time I saw him doing that!)

Adie: “This one”. (points to the cabinet)

I tried to bribe him first before following his request.

Me: Hug mama, Adie. hug mama!”

Adie: Ne! (He pushes me away defiantly).

Me: huhuhu (I gave a fake cry).

Adie: Sorry. (regret plastered all over his face).

I gave him another sad look, he reaches for my head and caressed it. Whoa! I didn’t see it coming! I sure was surprised!

Adie: Sorry (he repeats and points to the cabinet).

Adie: Open it. (opens the cabinet).

Adie: This one. (he points to the book with alphabet blocks).

He settled on the table with his choice of “toy” while I was left in awe over his maturity. LOL! It only shows that kids are easily influenced by what they always see and hear. There will come a time, when he’s all grown-up, when our conversations will be serious and probably lean towards technical subject like pentair pool pumps as this boy is curious how toys or things in general work. I’d surely miss this simple talks with my innocent child.

Here’s the little tyke… pa simple lang! hehe

Breathe, breathe, and breathe some more! Yipeee! Adie’s 2nd birthday has been celebrated and the last hurrah was yesterday (which was his real birth date), we spent with family. Last Saturday we also threw him a simple party and invited our friends. So you can tell I’ve been buried deep in the heap of preparations.

I had a train theme in mind for my little tyke who adores trains (and everything else that runs on wheels) and it had my hands busy for a week, creating crafts.

Birthday invitation was of course a train with Adie’s pictures as smokes, and the wagon carrying jungle animals and a balloon with his new age! (:  Big thanks to my sister, Carey for turning my concept into one awesome invitation!

Used were scrapbooking elements from A Scraps of Our Lives/shellshok© DESIGNS.

After the invitations have been sent out, the next on my list was to make give-away bags for the kids.  I filled it with a wooden train letter representing the kiddie guests’ initials, a train picture for coloring, wax crayons and some coated rice bears.

Made the bag from scratch.

Next craft to follow was the flower pompoms for decors.  I wanted it in dark blue but that color wasn’t available.  I went ahead with pastel blue.

Couldn’t get enough of these beauties, so I made small ones for the vase.

Then came the piñata! We actually already bought one for the party, but it was Caity who chose it and it was a donkey in pink, purple, orange and other girly colors. It just doesn’t fit into the train theme I wanted. I got inspired to make a train piñata when I saw from one blog how easy that it was possible to make it. I recycled the beer box sitting out in the cold balcony.

The train banner was bought from Pro Party.  It was amusing when people started asking me if I made it too.

We skipped the party hats coz I know Adie won’t wear it anyway and let him sport this cool birthday boy badge. He looked dapper in his get-up; coin cufflinks would add an interesting appeal. Whatchathink?

I wanted to experiment with marshmallow fondant for Adie’s train cake but never got around to make it. ): He had to settle for mom’s amateur cake.

For last night’s party with the grandparents, I hurriedly whipped a name banner and set-up a throne for his Royal Highness. (:

I  had a lot of party ideas that weren’t implemented. Time constraints and availability of materials were the culprit. Maybe next time, it will be perfect.
Over and out… more birthday posts to follow.  I’m also thinking of making individual posts on how-to for the props.

A sneak peek on what’s it gonna be like on his birthday party this Saturday.

Posting for:
Wordless Wednesday
Kids in Doodles

Adie reading a picture book.

A child’s laughter is highly infectious! Last night, I was rubbing Adie’s back while he was lying in his crib to sleep and when I stopped for a little break, he started laughing. Surprised, I did it one more time. I continued caressing his back then abruptly stopped and he gave out a hearty laugh, again! This exchange went on for sometime as I turned it into a game and every time I stop rubbing his back, he’d laugh. Even M who heard us, got curious and investigated what was happening. hehe I really had a good laugh too, more of amusement and delight at his reaction. Usually kids would complain or worse, even cry when you stop this act, but with Adie, it was the opposite. He found it funny when I stopped to caress him! Silly little Adie! So, so cute!

Inspecting his toy car…

And somebody just learned a new skill! I usually close the door to the kitchen when I am cooking so Adie can’t go in there and disturb me. Yesterday, while I was busy preparing for lunch, the door knob slowly turned. Caity was at school then, and M was in the bathroom.Who else could that be?  I was thinking, could it be who I think it is? And in came little Adie, proudly smiling, waving his hand while saying “Ahoj!” OMG! This boy! He used to be fond of closing  the doors, now he’s getting the hang of opening it. Mama can’t hide anymore in her hideout.

And he’s learning lots of new words!  Earlier when I was changing his diaper, he was saying “shoes, *boty“… “boty, shoes“  He already knows these words before, but he’s smart to relate them and knows that these both mean the same thing. Sapatos, Adie. You know? hehe  Gotta start introducing Filipino in his vocabulary!

Life of a mom, tiresome yet everyday is filled with delightful surprises. (:

*boty = shoes

What’s up with this look, Adie? Hahaha!

Biker kid!

This little boy is keeping me busy! This morning, I hurriedly sneaked out for a minute or two to make my breakfast and eat, while he played with toys and stuff. It will take at least an hour to clean up the mess he made… not fair! Washing his bum and changing diapers, clothing him, ugh!  drains off a lot of my energy coz he’s fond of wriggling out and letting me catch him.  But when he gives me that adorable smile, can’t help but be amused.  Quite a handful!

Adie can get too preoccupied when he plays. With deep concentration, he’d be sitting in one corner, getting his little hands busy with what he can find around him.

The night before our Austria trip, he got so engrossed putting together legos, he complained a lot when he stopped him for his bedtime.  It looks like his making a building. (:

Adie @ 18 months.

Then today, while I was in the kitchen doing chores, I heard a busy pitter patter of steps from the living room to our bedroom, which went back and forth. I couldn’t resist the urge to peek at what the little boy was up to. Well, well, well, look what he was doing.

Busy si Adie assembling his wooden toy train. He didn’t even notice or hear me, like he had ipod nano headphones on his ears!

I left him playing there and went back to my work.  Later, when all was quiet as Adie was napping, I noticed his toy train by the door.  I couldn’t help but smile.

Good job, Adie!

Oh, and here’s another of him playing with toblerone, lining them on the armrest some few months back.

Adie at 17 months.

Wow! When I see my kids create something, I easily get awed. (: And I truly think it deserves to be documented!

Now that Caity is at school every morning during weekdays, this gives me time to spend with Adie – yep, just me and my little boy. Adie is currently obsessed with his plastic motorbike and rides it like a racer.  I took him one morning after sending big sis to school for a ride around the neighborhood before his morning nap until he didn’t want to ride anymore and asked me to carry him.

My little explorer. picking stones and handing them to me.

I showed him to throw the stones inside the holes of the  concrete block. He enjoyed his improvised toy. (:

He stopped to rest in the bench.  Tired from all that biking and running, eh?

I’m loving these rare moments when I can shower him all my attention without him having to compete with his big sis.

“Mama, Mamaaaa!” My little Adie has finally learned to call me by that. For so long he was just saying or calling “Táta” which was a bit odd considering that I am the one who’s always by his side. It actually worked to my advantage. Imagine him calling out to his dad when he wakes up in the morning! I would poke at M and jokingly tell him that his son needs him while I can still stay in the bed for more snoozing. But of course, in the end I’ll be the one to get up and take Adie from his crib. When the little guy needs me, he doesn’t call me but rather he’d come and pull me or make a whiny sound. But now that he knows the power of calling me Mama, he’s kinda abusing it. I remember when Caity was about 2 y/o, her sentences often include Mama. Once while out taking a walk, M and I counted how many times she’d utter Mama. When it got to over 20, we stopped counting. It seems Adie is following suit.

Anyway, at 18 months, Adie has 9 or maybe 10 teeth. Those molars are hard to keep track coz he doesn’t like it when we inspect his mouth. Lately he’s been naming things he sees. Yesterday, he surprised me when he suddenly said “apple” while pointing to the PC screen which was showing apples. He also said baby a lot coz Caity was playing with her baby doll. His first word is probably “ještě” Czech word for “more”. When we play with him and he likes it, he’d say ještě. Whenever we feed him and he wants more, he’d say ještě.

The following pics were taken earlier today. He had fun kicking and chasing the ball! He did a little workout too. (:

Other words in his vocabulary are (aside from Mama and Tata):
flower, ball, Caity (which sounds more like Kitty), yamyam (for food), broom-broom for car, dobre rano (Czech for good morning), o-oh (when something falls or something is wrong). ty, ty, ty! which means you, you you! (whenever he does something bad). There’s more but I can’t remember na.  It’s a joy whenever he utters new words everyday.  He already knows how to follow command like give, pick, kick, dance and understands when he’s told to go to the toilet for a diaper change, or when it’s time to sleep (which he doesn’t like a lot!). His current fave to eat is peach and he likes to soak/play in the tub!