Greyden's 2nd Birthday!

If any of you read my post of Greyden's first birthday (you should have since it was only two months ago), you'll remember that he isn't exactly a fan of cake. In fact, he's downright scared of it. Sometimes I wonder if he really is my child. Since he was going to have an audience at his party, Kevin and I decided to ease him into the whole birthday cake thing this year. On his actual birthday (2 days before his party) we went to the grocery store and bought a practice cake for him. He seemed okay with it at first.

  

He was REALLY okay with it when those candles were lit. We lit and blew them out about 47 times. Then came the part where we encouraged him to take a bite. Yeah, not so much. (As he pushed the cake away being meticulously careful not to actually touch the frosting.)

 


We gave up. And relit the candles. And blew them out. And I ate the cake. Darn. No sense in making him do something he doesn't want to do, right?  


His actual birthday party turned out well! We did a Thomas the Train theme since having a two year old boy means that lately we live and breathe that quirky little train.



My Thomas the Train chili toppings holder

  

Greyden's favorite part of the night was obviously the presents. Because he needs more toys, right? It took him all of 4.3 seconds to catch on to the fact that there were toys under all of that wrapping paper. Game on.

We even skyped in Aunt Kerry and cousin Addie to witness the destruction. 

  

Then it was time for (dum, dum, dum)............the cake. I would LOVE to say that this cake is my own creation, but that's not completely true. I baked the cake from scratch and made the butter cream frosting, but I made mom decorate it. I just don't have that kind of talent patience. I did make sure to carefully oversee the project (over her shoulder) though.



When we put the cake in front of him, I thought we might stand a chance. Then I realized he was focused on the candles only.  Light, blow out, light, blow out, rinse, repeat.

 Yup, as soon as we suggested he stick a finger in it, he tried to get down from his chair.  

 

He obviously didn't stick around long enough to watch me cut it open. If he had, he would have devoured it. I mean, who can resist a cake that looks like this? 

I wish I had taken a picture of the pile of gifts he received. Although I guess it wouldn't matter since, even after amassing a ton of new toys, he ended his night engrossed in my salad spinner.

(While I have your attention, I'd like to take this moment to point out that Greyden would also like a new crock pot and a cast iron griddle for Christmas.)

While I'm posting about Greyden's birthday, I can't forget about Kevin! Since his birthday is 3 days after Greyden's (and therefore completely insignificant) I decided I should do something for his birthday too. When I told him I wanted to make him a cake, he told me not to bother because he didn't like cake. Yet, the cake I made him was completely gone by the end of the night. Hmmm.

Greyden is Growing Up!

As time goes on and Greyden and Emerson grow up, I find that I don't always have time to capture their cuteness on my blog. Instead I jot notes on my phone, then don't do anything with them. So in an effort to catch myself up, I'm writing a totally random post.

My first born baby is growing up! It's amazing the things that he is picking up. When I had Emerson, mom came down to help me take care of her. As we were heading out the door one day, mom picked up my purse to hand it to me. Greyden ran over to take it from her while telling her, "no! Mommy's!" Then he brought it to me. I had no idea he'd even noticed it before. He's also told Kevin "no! Mommy's shirt!" when he's wearing one that we both have. Since he's picking up on so much, we've had to be really careful about what we say and do around him. I hadn't put much thought into the breastfeeding thing and what he would think and how he'd react when he saw Emerson doing it. The first time I nursed her in front of him, I had my answer. As soon as I was home from the hospital, I was feeding Emerson when Grey came running over yelling "Back! BACK!" (this is what we say to the dogs) "No bite mommy!" Yes, we explained to him that mommy is feeding sissy, and she's eating, not biting. A few times since then he's asked if "baby sissy bites mommy?" but hasn't seemed too concerned. Then last weekend I was just finishing nursing her and Greyden asked me "Sissy all done biting Mommy?" So maybe he's still a little confused.

He's definitely turned into a toddler over night though. Suddenly everything is more difficult. For example, diaper changes. We used to be able to convince him to come with us to his room so that we could change him by telling him that mommy or daddy was going without him. Now he just tells us "okay! Bye!" He's also become very opinionated. Everything is "no singing, daddy", "no talking", "come, mommy" or "sit down". And god forbid you don't do it. You'll probably witness the tantrum from hell. If he's not giving orders, he's "fixin" things. "I fixin?" or "Daddy fixin?" And sometimes it's an order, for example when he brings you something (like two halves of Daddy's glasses that he had found on the nightstand) and tells you to "fix it". Yes, we're working on adding please to the end. Everytime someone says ow, he also asks "okay?" We've come along way from Greyden's first word of dog. Of course his favorite toddler word is "NO!" Actually, in the last week it's become "NO WAY!" I love daycare.

Now that he's talking and repeating everything we say, we have to watch ourselves. No more asking Emerson if she wants some boobies. Nor can we make up words to songs and nursery rhymes that we don't know. Well, we still can, but we just have to make sure they're not inappropriate . (Have you ever noticed that it's much easier to make up inappropriate words to songs rather than sing the real words?) We've had some issues with pronunciation of certain words. For awhile "fishies" was "shitties". Kevin even tried to teach him to say it properly by saying "fa-fa-fa-fishies". All he got in return was "fa-fa-fa-shitties". He pronunces bear like "beer", which, the first time he said it, prompted Daddy to freak out and tell him "shhhh! Don't let your mommy hear you say that!" The newest pronunciation disaster is the word "bucket". He seems to be convinced that it starts with an F. Kevin and I have done everything we can to get him to say it correctly, including saying "buh-buh-buh-bucket". I'm pretty sure that's going in one ear and out the other, considering this morning he told me that his dump truck had a "buh-buh-buh-fucket".

Greyden is taking the whole new little sister thing incredibly well. In fact, he seems to adore her. Whenever she is in her carseat and starts to cry, he reaches over and holds her hand.

Greyden wanted a picture with his "beek ponekin" as he calls it. We have to go to the side light window and look at it multiple times each day.

This is what happens when I turn my back for two seconds.

Luckily he was just going in for a kiss. :)

Busted

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Today is my baby boy's 2nd birthday! Since it fell on a Thursday this year, we're waiting until this weekend to have his party. But I couldn't wait until then to give him a shout out and say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Sunshine!

Baby Sissy showed up to get him out of his crib this morning, which he loved. No, seriously. He wouldn't let me take her out of the crib and piled all of his stuffed animals and blankets on her lap so she could play.

Good morning Big Brother!

We have some serious bed head going on.

Once we got up and dressed, we took him out for a birthday breakfast at Cheryl's Place before daycare. Papa and Nana had stayed the night to watch Emerson while we took Grey trick or treating last night so they got to come along too!

Dippies take serious concentration

I think he liked them, because he made this face with every bite he took.

A note from our waitress who celebrated her birthday yesterday!

More birthday fun to come soon! Stay tuned!