New tricks

Malachi is keeping us busy these days. I thought I'd share some of his new tricks/habits/behaviors.

-He dances like crazy when he's excited (which is about all the time). It's adorable. His arms go up and he just marches fast in place.

-He seems to be stretching up these days. It will be interesting to see how tall he is at his two year check-up. Yes, he's almost two already! I don't know where the time goes.

-He LOVES flashcards. We have three sets now and he'll just sit and watch while we go through them one at a time, over and over and over again. His interest in the cards seemed to peek after I took away his computer priviledges. He loves to watch a slideshow of our pictures on the computer, but he became so obssessive about watching them. That's ALL he wanted to do--to the point where he would melt down if I didn't turn the computer on. So...no computer for a while. Mean Mama, I guess. I'm glad he's into the flashcards though. He can point out his hands now and signs "eat" for the picture of a girl eating.

-We're hearing more sounds from him. This weekend especially, he's been pretty vocal with his babbling. It's mostly Da and variations thereof, but we'll take it!

-He's great at petting our cat Foster now. Kevin worked with him on being very gentle, and now when Malachi pets the cat gently, Malachi claps for himself for doing such a good job. What a goober.

-Malachi is beginning to follow directions fairly consistently and seems to understand so much more of what we're saying. I love it!

-He still really enjoys his baths. The best part is after the bath, when I have him bundled up in his towel. He loves to just snuggle while we (uh, I) chit chat about our days at school and work. It's our special mama-Malachi time.

-He got a Little Tykes basketball hoop for Christmas and he's great at dunking.

-He loves when I hike a Nerf football to him. He throws himself onto his belly to watch me. So funny.

-He love ring around the rosey and playing with his new parachute.

-He doesn't like snow apparently (I'll try to upload video soon, but blogger isn't cooperating at the moment).

Onto the pictures...

We're having trouble getting good pics of Malachi these days. He insists upon having the camera the instant he spots it. Self-portraits seem to work.

Listening to some jazz at an African-American Festival. This is what we did to celebrate our First Annual Family Day.
Malachi's first real snow. We really got a lot this time, and it was a big surprise, too.

Long overdue update

Bad blogger, I know. It's been over a month. So much has happened. Unfortunately, my Grandmother (Malachi's G.G. , my Dad's mom) passed away the week before Christmas. She had been in the hospital since the week before Thanksgiving, so it had been a long, stressful month for the family. We will miss Grandma very much.

On Mother's Day last year, she was the one who finally got Malachi motivated to use a walker.

Although I already suspected as much, talking with Grandma's friends and extended family members at the visitation and funeral confirmed that she never missed an opportunity to share pictures of her great-grandbabies. She was so proud of them all.

This was our first Christmas with Malachi, and we were lucky to share it with my parents (Malachi's Grammie and Papa), my Nana and Pa, and my brother Mike and his wife Courtney and son Nate. Uncle Mike and I helped the boys make a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve day. You won't believe this (thus the picture for evidence is included), but I unknowningly bought a Devil's Food cake mix for the occasion! The boys sprinkled reindeer dust on the lawn on Christmas Eve. Cute!

The boys did really well together, in large part because of Nate's high tolerance! We had fun each day with a tricycle parade, singing "Jingle Bells." Nate would run over to Malachi and start pulling him toward the bikes saying, "Parade Cousin! Parade!" It was adorable!

Christmas morning, Malachi slept in. Figures...the one morning I WANT to get up early! He wasn't interested in unwrapping presents; he was totally content playing with the toys we brought from home. Guess we could have all saved some money on gifts!

Before leaving for Kevin's parent's (Malachi's Grandma and Grandpa), the boys made reindeer cookies with Grammie. Malachi didn't quite understand why we weren't eating the dough.

We had fun at Grandma and Grandpa's. We played at the gym and went to a science center. The science center was a blast with a fun activity area for little ones on one floor that resulted in Malachi getting soaked-he just loves water!

Lucky Malachi got Mama and Grandma all to himself one day while the rest of the family went skiing and tubing. He did a good job helping Grandma with laundry (sorry, I don't have a picture of that!). He loved Grandma and Grandpa's refrigerator covered in pictures of all his family members; we looked at those pictures OVER and OVER and OVER again. Those of you who know Malachi know that he never tires of pictures.

Malachi is doing really well. His tubes fell out (I actually caught one before it hit the floor--They're wider than you would think, and green in case you were wondering.). He is signing really well know and trying to talk more. His signs include: more, drink, eat, and me (as in "I want that. Please give it to me"). "Me" is a dangerous one. Now any time he wants something he signs me (e.g., toy, Mama's hand, Mama's dinner fork, Mama's dinner). Next lesson...just because you sign that you want something doesn't mean you always get it! :)

I attribute this new development growth spurt to a "Grandma miracle." Every time we visit the Grandma's and he gets all that extra special lovin' and attention, he starts doing lots of new stuff. I love it! Aren't Grandma's great?

At any rate, we're getting some more language from him, slowly but surely. He's said "kitty" a few times and "uhhh" for up. He even said "dance, dance, dance," a little phrase often said in our household. He dances (very River Dance like) quite often. His teachers have nicknames him "Happy Feet."

We're well into the discipline now. The main issues are throwing and hitting. The throwing gets toys taken away. Hopefully the reality of losing the toy will do the trick. The other issue is that he gets excited (like when we're greeting people) and bats at my face--lovely, right? My glasses have seen better days to say the least. We're trying timeout. No miracles yet, but stay tuned. I'm optimistic! We're welcoming other input for consideration (we just can't promise we'll listen!).

O, Christmas Tree!

We bought our first real Christmas tree! I'm so excited to finally have a real Christmas tree. Kevin and I typically travel so much during the holidays, and/or we were in small apartments, so it didn't make much sense to have one, but Malachi was excuse I needed to get a REAL tree. Brian and Kevin put it in the stand for me, and then the boys watched football while I decorated and listened to Christmas carols. Malachi doesn't seem too interested in the tree, yet. Neither does Foster. I think I'm the only one who cares about the tree, but that's okay! :)

Here is Malachi's first ornament that my mom made for him last year.

Go Steelers! Is that a mini-Bus I spy? It was a sports-filled Sunday with the NCAA Women's National Championship soccer game (UNC women won against previously undefeated Notre Dame) in the afternoon and a Steeler win in the evening. He's starting to look so grown up, I can't believe it.

Taylor Thanksgiving

Malachi's first Thanksgiving with the Taylor clan was a lot of fun. Of course, Thanksgiving morning began with a chilly Turkey Trot. He "ran" in the kids Turkey Trot. I say "ran" because despite much prompting from Daddy and the rest of the family, Malachi remained on the starting line with a great big smile on his face while all the other kiddos ran, toddled, and crawled toward the finish. Daddy gently nudged him forward, resulting in him falling down and crying (no worries, he was not hurt). The whole thing was rather funny. Here is Malachi doing his best to stay relaxed just before the big non-race.
King of the World!!! (as Daddy always says when he puts Malachi up on his shoulders)

Malachi had a great time with his cousins...

and enjoyed feeding the dogs.

Playing the piano with Grandpa was fun!

Reading books with Grandma was cool, too.

The walk in the woods was great!

Malachi and I played at the park while the grown-up Taylors played touch football and volleyball.

We had a check-up today. He's now 33 inches tall and weighs a little over 26 pounds (55 percentile for both height and weight, 92 percentile for head circumference).

Referral-versary

On November 9, 2007, Kevin and I received a phone call and a picture that changed everything...

I received a call at work at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. The secretary buzzed me and said Marianne Adams on line one. I guess because it was out of context, I didn't even recognize the name as that of our adoption case worker. I picked up, heard Marianne's voice say hello, and I knew. This was THE CALL. The one we didn't think would come for many more months. I raced down the hall to announce the news to a few co-workers, and dashed off to find Kevin at the dental school. I waited and waited for him by his locker. He saw me and knew right away...he was a dad. We laughed and cried and hugged, and then we sat down together at his computer to look at the face of our son for the very first time. It was amazing.

Looking back, it's funny how in all the pictures we received of Malachi before we met face to face he wasn't smiling. Funny because it's really hard to catch this kid NOT smiling (okay that's changing a bit now that he's entering toddler-hood, but still).

The boys donned their Ethiopian clothing and we did a little photo shoot down by the lake.

(Yes, he's running now!)

Enthusiastic Reader

Lately, Malachi has been really into his "That's Not My Truck" book (by Fiona Watt).

And now introducing "Kung-fu Panda Gone Country," the scarecrow we stuffed last weekend.

Halloween

Malachi's first Halloween has been fun so far (the festivities continue today with a scarecrow stuffing event at the park and a party). He was a dragon. Many thanks to my Mom for sewing this very AWESOME costume! Kevin was a dragon slayer (yes that's a shield made from a Pampers box). And, I was a princess.

Malachi wasn't too crazy about knocking on doors and getting candy...until he got home!