Celebrating Birthdays

Since Alex didn't end up being the 4th of July baby I'd hoped for, we now get to celebrate two birthdays in a row, Alex's and our country's.

We started out Alex's special day by going to his favorite park.

We all lasted about 20 minutes before the heat and humidity got the best of us. So we decided to go out to lunch instead. We hit up the local Chili's.

We ate lots of food and got a free dessert since it was Alex's birthday.

Then it was back home for naptime for everyone. I love naptime. We had spaghetti for dinner, since it is a favorite of both the small children. Then it was time for presents. Alex opened a train from Aunt Andrea first and was content to leave everything else unopened. We had to force him to open the rest.

He got lots of train stuff. He was so excited about this Thomas shirt from Grandma that he wore it to bed and all the next day. He wouldn't let us take it off of him.

He got more cute clothes from his other Grandma too.

His big gift was a set of Thomas the Trains plus track.

He's been playing with it nonstop ever since. He is so obsessed with trains.

Then some of our friends came over to help us eat the cake. The cake. Yes, well. I wasn't so happy with this one. I tried all new methods and recipes and nothing came out the way I wanted. Oh well.

As Anton so kindly said, "They can't all be perfect."

But Alex didn't care. He was just excited to have cake. You see that he's still holding a train? He's even been sleeping with them.

Oooh. Fire. We sang Happy Birthday, and then it was time to start blowing.

He blew and blew and blew and all those flames did was waver a bit. Finally Daddy moved the cake up a bit.

And after a little bit of spitting, the candles went out. Hooray!

Then since we knew we would be out watching fireworks the next night, we decided to do our home fireworks show for Alex's birthday.

Everyone gathered outside and we did our best not to light the back fence on fire.

The kids all loved it and kept yelling, "Again! Again!"

So Alex's birthday drew to a close. I can't believe he is 2, but at the same time it feels like he's been 2 forever. Just 2 years ago we were bringing this scrawny little thing home from the hospital.

And now he's a swarthy 2 year old. Plus he's unbelievably cute and adorable. I could hug him and kiss him forever. Love that kid.