Elliot Thomas Quong-Charles

Thanks for all the reminders that Elliot’s 2nd birthday was over a month ago and we still haven’t posted the photos.  Wait no longer….here they are.   And if that’s not enough for you, check out Marti and Sanaz’s photos on their Flickr site.  We weren’t trying to hide them from you or anything.  We just needed some time to take a breath and come to grips with the reality that we have been parents for over two years now and that our baby really isn’t a baby at all anymore.

This year we decided to have a “Where the Wild Things Are” birthday theme, focusing mostly on the Wild Rumpus part of the book.  For those who don’t know, Where the Wild Things Are is a classic children’s book about a little boy named Max who has a vivid imagination.  One night he was sent to bed with no dinner for misbehaving and he imagined an entire world growing around him where he was king in the land of Wild Things.  Elliot also has a very vivid imagination (has he told you about the ladybug on the ceiling?), but more importantly, he likes a wild rumpus where the wild things get their wildness on.  In that spirit, we set up the back yard for hooting and hollering.  We had a carboard fort, a vat of bubbles, a pinata (courtesy of Bear and Rux…thank you!), musical instruments, and lots of dress-up clothes (which explains why many of the adults in the photos are wearing tacky 80′s animal prints).  Our friend Felice (whom Elliot calls “Police”) made the most delicious blueberry ricotta mini cupcakes, I made organic jell-o jigglers and we invited a whole slew of kids and grown-up friends to come and get crazy with us.  We had a blast.

Elliot’s actual birthday (February 2nd) fell on a Monday, the day after his party.  Following tradition, Uncle Neil and Auntie Suki, as well as their new addition, Sean James, came over for veggie tacos from Magnolia cafe.  This is the meal that Neil lovingly fetched for us on the night that Elliot was born (and Suki’s first meal after Sean was born, too), and we have marked it as a sacred meal, only to be eaten on Elliot’s birthday.

After our guests left, and after washing up, we got ready to get in bed to mark the very moment of Elliot’s birth (9:05 pm).  We read a book called On the Night You Were Born, which was given to Elliot (before he was born) by my cousin, Chaz.  At exactly 9:05, Thomas snapped this photo:

It’s a bit out of focus, but still pretty cute.

Here’s a video of Elliot with his aunt Sanaz. He’s really into screaming these days. At least it’s happy screaming.

And this video only features Elliot at the very, very end. If you can sit through Kate and Matt crooning, you’ll see Elliot gets tired of it as well and gongs them.

And, a picture to leave you with: