Birthday Boy

March is the absolute best month to have a birthday. I might be a little bit biased, but I've noticed that all the best people (except Christian and Kate of course) were born in March. James turned 2 this week. I can't believe how fast the last two years went by! I've been asking James for a couple of months what he wanted to do for his party and his answer would usually sound something like this, "Football party, football cake, football walls, football ceiling, football presents, football candles, and footballs." 

The night before James' birthday I made him a football cake and stuck it in the fridge. The next morning when he opened the fridge and went nuts! He loved it and kept wanting to eat it. Every half hour or so he would open the door and peek at it. He would have eaten the whole thing for breakfast if he had his wish, but I was a mean mom and made him wait until Christian got home from work and after we had eaten dinner. We told James that he could pick any restaurant for dinner and he picked Red Robin. Christian and I debated if we should tell the waitress it was his birthday. Our dilemma was that neither of us is a big fan of getting sung to in public, but we thought for sure James would love it. Finally we decided his delight would outweigh our embarrassment. Boy were we wrong! I wish I would have started filming James when they started singing, but I only caught the last few seconds. If you can't tell from the video, he was not really impressed. Kate on the other hand loved it. At least one of the two was happy.

 

 We came home and sang Happy Birthday with just our family and the cake which made him a much happier boy. Please excuse my singing, I've still have tonsil voice.

 

 James took off a couple letters with his fingers before we got the cake cut.

  

 The inside of the cake was red, like any good football cake would be. 

Then it was time for presents. 

Two days after his birthday we had a football party with Kaylee, Gavin, Wesley, Hailey, Josh, Blake, Lisa, and their moms. We had football decorations, yummy food and cupcakes, and a pinata filled with fruit snacks, all requested by James. Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures. Here's a blurry one. 

 And here's a picture of the football pizza, pre-baking.

Lucky for me my friend Mindy took some really cute pictures of my kids with her nice camera. This was my favorite: a young Romeo and Juliet.

 Here's my beautiful Kate.

And how can you not love this face?????

A couple of facts about my sweet 2 year old:

1. He has a really good sense of humor. He started laughing before he was two months old and he never stopped.
2. He gets happy with his whole body (he bounces with joy) and gets mad with his whole body (he shakes with anger).
3. He wears his heart on his sleeve. You almost always know how this boy is feeling.
4. At about 18 months he started saying, 'Ninga Ninga no no' when he wanted to say no. That phrase never disappeared, but now he added in 'Ninga Ninga Yes Yes'.
5. He's working on being potty trained. He successfully goes a couple times a week, but is just not quite ready to be diaper free yet. 
6. He loves footballs.
7. He LOVES books. He loves to ask you to read a 'couple books' (as he brings over a stack of ten). Sometimes I get distracted and he demands, "Say the words!".
8. He has a serious sweet tooth. He can hunt down sweets better than anyone in our house.
9. He loves his sister. Even thought they fight on occasion, they really are best friends and he is a little lost when she isn't around.
10. He loves nursery, especially his teacher Sister Hreinson. He comes home and tells me, "Mine teacher says oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah." And then he laughs.
11. He's really good at wiping boogers on my shirt.
12. He loves baseball, basketball, golf........basically anything that involves a ball. My favorite is when he says, "Mine playing golf" and then slam-dunks a football into the basketball hoop. It's kind of a combination sport.
13. He loves to go for walks.
14. He loves his gymnastics class. However, this last week was bug week and he was not a big fan of that. He refused to touch any of the plastic bugs and kept asking, "Why?? Why is it bug week? Why?"
15. He loves to snuggle. 90% of the time when he's grumpy I asked him if he wants to snuggle and it usually make him feel better. Also, every day after his bath, I wrap him up in a towel and he snuggles with me for about 5 minutes. He calls it 'nuggling'.  The only time he's not a big fan of snuggling is when he can't reach his belly button. He still sucks his thumb while playing with his belly button. If he has a bulky jacket on he panics and says, "Can't get mine BELLY BUTTON!!!"
16. He loves story time and calls the librarian Ms. Elenor 'Snelanor'. 
17. He like to count things, but can only go as high as three, then sometimes he'll pick up 7, 8, 9, 10.
18. He likes trucks almost as much as he loves football.
19. He adores his grandparents and talks about them on a regular basis.
20. He is a really good kid and we love him like crazy.