Jack's day of birthday fun

By the time Jack's actual birthday rolled around, he had partied hard, bounced in a bouncy house, opened a LOT of presents, and eaten his weight in cupcakes and cake.  But the 19th of February was still a ton of fun.  

He started the day by modeling his appropriate t-shirt wear.

He really looks ridiculously tall in that photo.  He's not that tall.  John asked if he was wearing skinny jeans and I said "how dare you!"  Still, he looks pretty cute.  We headed off to music class where he banged a tambourine while everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him as Pop Pop and Grammy observed.

Now, because it was a special occasion, and because his Pop Pop has quite an affection for ice cream, we headed to Baskin Robbins for "lunch" to celebrate.  Jack really has only had ice cream a handful of times (5?) but I know he LOVES it.  With a passion.  Like his mommy.  I let him choose his flavor, suggesting good ol' vanilla or strawberry or chocolate.  But, making me proud, he pointed defiantly to a flavor called "World Class Chocolate" which was white chocolate mousse ice cream swirled with dark chocolate mousse.  Good choice.  He was ready and I wasn't surprised when he dug in with gusto.

And I mean, GUSTO.  YUM!!

 

He was very pleased with himself and didn't seem to mind that his special "I am 2" shirt was covered in chocolate.

 

In the end, he seemed very satisfied with his tasty lunch.

   

I tried to get a nice pic with his visiting Grammy and Pop Pop to commemorate the occasion but he just wanted to get down and RUN.

 

And run he did.  He was having a great time.  And on your 2nd birthday, you really should be happy, giggling, and covered in ice cream.

A Medley of Songs

Here is Jack the other night at bedtime.  A little wired from his birthday cupcakes and ready to sing.  It's a medley of his music class songs followed by a muddled rendition of "happy birthday".

24 Months Old!

There's my two year old.  Of course, this is the first photo shoot in a long time where I couldn't get him to smile or laugh at all.  He wasn't in the mood.  I may have picked a poor time to do it (when he was tired) but oh well.  He still looks handsome and cute.

For the record, his special "I Am 2" shirt has crazy stains on it because he had just enjoyed some chocolate ice cream.  I thought about changing shirts before the photos but decided to keep it.  For posterity's sake...let it be known that Jack enjoyed a giant bowl of ice cream on his 2nd birthday.  

Of course he was completely distracted by the numbers on the clipboard ruler.  He couldn't be bothered to look at me but that's okay.  

I'm not sure if I'll keep doing this every month but I would like to keep up the series.  Maybe this third year of his life I'll switch to every other month.  So we're not done yet Jack!

I feel like I should probably do a "year in review" post but I don't quite have the time yet.  Until then, happy birthday buddy!!  

Birthday party for a 2 year old boy

This past weekend we had a little birthday bash for young Jack.  I thought it would be a little house party but I may have gotten pretty excited about the occasion and somehow ended up with 40 adults and 20 toddlers.

Most parents seems to pick a theme for their toddlers but most of those kids are in love with princesses or Mickey Mouse or Thomas the Train or Diego and Dora or dinosaurs.  Jack isn't really obsessed with any character.  He likes Elmo well enough but his true love is the alphabet.  Letters.  A to Z.  So I decided to try to incorporate some letters.

I made these little flags and mason jars as decoration.

 

 

And of course I had to finally use all those pictures I took every month of Jack. Two years of photos really look pretty neat all strung together.

 

 

And then for favors I decided to write the kids' names on these sand pails and fill them with bubbles and a whiffle ball. Turned out pretty cute I think.

  

Of course, what really made the party was the bouncy house. It's amazing how much kids love those damn bouncy houses. But it was money well spent.

 

 

Jack woke at 5:45am and then jumped for about an hour by himself before the party started. Then another hour of party craziness and jumping so he was exhausted by 11:30 and needed some peace and quiet. Luckily daddy was there to read him a book in our empty bedroom.

  

Once he settled down and we realized we had a short window available, it was cake time! Everyone sang happy birthday and Jack took it all in stride.

 

 

He was just waiting to get his hands on some cake. He had been talking about cake and cupcakes all week. The kid has a serious sweet tooth.

 

About 20 minutes after cake time and while all of his guests were still present, Jack decided it was nap time.  In the middle of the party, right there on daddy's shoulder.  

 

All in all, I think it was quite a successful party.  Everyone seemed to have fun and there were no major temper tantrums or meltdowns.  Here are the rest of the random pictures from the party.  Happy 2nd birthday Jack!!

Aunt Julie and Jack taking a break on the counter

cousin Johnny in the bouncy house

Violet enjoys some sweets too

Cousin Hank loves balloons

Uncle John and Hank

Hydrating after a long day of jumping

Daddy and Jack running through the balloons

Aunt Julie with her nephew

Jack and his best buddy Nicholas

Kevin and little Violet

cousin Christy, Aunt Leslie, and the birthday boy

Violet can't believe how high Jack can jump

our family with our big two year old boy