TWO

A weekend of celebrating TWO! How fun! The festivities began on Friday, Gavin's second birthday. We went to dinner at Logan's, enjoyed some peanuts and good food. Gavin's favorite- a birthday "Yee-Ha" shout out. And...a rare moment...a family photo. I think Gavin prefers to sit in a booster now instead of high chair. He really is getting big! So, it's not the ideal family photo. But it's harder and harder these days to capture everyone looking at the camera!

Saturday was THE party, complete with "Cars" everything! Brad and I stayed up until 1:30am on Friday night (well, really Saturday morning) baking and decorating the cake. Quite the project! It took an emergency run to Meijer at about 11:00pm for more red food coloring. My first batch turned bright pink. I tried to save it by adding black - bad idea - it turned purplish pink. No boy can have a purple/pink McQueen cake, right? Brad graciously saved the day! Thank you Meijer for being open 24 hours AND for stocking Wilton food coloring! In the end, the cake wasn't the exact shade of red I had envisioned, but it was close...and better than pink!

So, we went all out for decorations. I think I blew my party budget this year with a few little extras. But it was SO worth it to see Gavin's face when he woke up from his nap to a fully "Cars" decorated house. He was in awe, requesting "touch it" to all of the decorations and the cake. The three hours spent on the cake and additional hour or so decorating the rest of the house was worth every minute! It all looked pretty cool!

Balloons were a favorite, as usual.

I just like this photo - a somber quick shot of Gavin. It's so hard these days to capture him on (digital) film. He's too quick and too interested in grabbing for the camera so that he can look at the pictures. This was a rare moment.


Gifts, gifts, gifts and more gifts. Thank you to all of our wonderful family and friends for all of the very thoughtful gifts. Books, new toys, learning games, some clothes for the summer...this boy is blessed! And so is our living room that just two years ago was consumed with baby gear. It's been overtaken with little boy things now!

Uncle Andy showing Gavin one of the Mater/Lightning McQueen rings from the cup cakes. At first, Gavin thought the rings were candy. Ah, not in the mouth...thought we were over this stage!

And one of the sweetest moments of the day. Gavin's cousins Lexi and Ava ("Va" as Gavin calls her) handmade birthday cards for Gavin. I am saving them,but also wanted to capture them in photos as a longer lasting memory. Here is Ava "modeling" the cards and other little pictures. The one in the top right is from Lexi (7 years old). I love the little Rapunzel looking girl. The bottom right is from Va (5 years old). The yellow little girl is Ava and the turtle-looking green boy is Gavin. So cute!

So, two years! I'm tearing up. The time has gone so quickly. I was thinking back to Gavin's first birthday and all of the difference a year makes. He was just barely walking on his first birthday last year. Now he runs, jumps, spins...dangerously at times. His vocabulary has exploded. He had just a few simple words in his vocab a year ago. Now he can repeat virtually any word he hears. He talks in two to three word sentences now. He understands abstract concepts like big and little, high and low, in front and in back, up and down, the list goes on. He's learning manners like "please", "thank you", "you're welcome"...though he does not use them consistently.

At some point, I will document his favorite phrases/words. I need to write them down during the day so that I don't forget what being two was all about.

This next year will be filled with more milestones. More blogging and documenting our happenings. I'm looking forward to it!