My Second Birthday; finally, the pictures...

...and there are a lot of them. Ok, I'll start from the beginning and give you lots of pictures with commentary along the way. This is the invitation that apparently brought people to my house. Mama did it; I don't know what she was thinking. I look spastic.

I woke up from my nap and found this on the coffee table. Weird, huh?

One of the first to arrive... Yamma R! But she wasn't early enough to remember to bring the punch bowl. Doesn't she look nice?
And of course, as always...my daddy! Not happy about the missing punchbowl, I guess.

Me and my mama. I'm her favorite.

Stopping to consider things. A few people are here, there are balloons and banners. What's up?

Yamma R. and Carson. It turns out that this chair that Carson is in was one of my birthday presents. It's a giraffe lawn chair! It's super cute and I like it so much. I use it a lot. But Carson likes it a lot too. When he comes over he uses it as much as he can.

Baba D. and my buddy Carson and me. Handsome dudes!

Mama put out a good spread. Here's me begging a bit off of auntie mimi's plate.

Mama gave uncle dodo the camera and he's being artistic. This is through the ears of my rody horse. Mama and I went shopping this morning and picked this up. It was my birthday present from mama and daddy. I think you'll see a picture of it later.

Oh, yeah. I've got my juice and I've got my yamma D. It's all good.

Why does mommy Kristin look so serious? It's a happy day!

And here are yeate-yamma and auntie barbie! Two of my very favorite Vernonia-ites.

Ok, get ready. It's time for cake! Cup-cake! Mama made bunches of cupcakes for my party. I guess first I have to blow out the candles. That's weird...I thought I remembered just one candle at my last party.

Blowing out the candles...with absolutely no help from anyone...I think.

Did you know that after you blow out candles you get to have cake? Mama made yellow cake and chocolate. For the party, I chose yellow. I had already tasted the chocolate. Mama made chocolate zucchini cupcakes for some reason. She let me have one of those chocolate ones the day before and I took one bite and left it behind the sofa. Fortunately no one saw it. I don't want mama to feel bad since she made those ones from real ingredients and the yellow ones were from a box.

I sense that someone's watching me.

Good cake.

So, you may notice now that I am now in a different shirt. I made such a mess of the other shirt, with the yummy yellow cuppy cake, that mama made me change. So now I'm in a nicer collared shirt which I think is what mama wanted in the first place. So now I'm opening Carson's present, which is...drumroll...!

...a musical instrument set! Because I liked my music class so much. That reminds me. Mama is trying to sign me up for a "munchkin dance" class at the parks district. Sounds like low rent to me.

And another thing I got was a huge huge box of mega-blox from yamma and baba R. I love making huge towers. Yamma R. also gave me a bag that was super heavy. Mama took the ribbon off and let me look inside. I was stunned for a second, then I said "MONEY!" Yes, it was a bag of coins that she had been holding on to for a really long time. Daddy took it to the bank last week and sent it to my college fund. But before that I got to play with it a lot. Which was great fun.

Auntie Chris and Yeate-Yamma on daddy's side came all the way from Seattle for this shin dig. I don't know what shin dig means but it has a nice ring to it and it sounds appropriate. Here is my Auntie Chris holding my little buddy Gunnar. Gunnar's mama and daddy Jason and Kim have known my mama and daddy for a long time. But I have only known Gunnar for about six months. 'Cause that is how old he is.

I had a few more pictures to post but something weirded out on the blog server and I lost them. And I don't feel like going to find them. But overall it was a really nice day and we all had such a nice time. We had family and neighbors and friends and lots of food and cupcakes and there were lots of grapes until Carson and I had at them.

So I guess you didn't see another picture of my rody horse after all but it's a purple horse that I can ride and bounce on and fall off of. That was my birthday present from mama and daddy.

Mama's present to both yammas was one of my handprints. She made three the week before my birthday. They were cute and elegantly stunning all at the same time. We think the yammas liked them.

Special people came, like Gunnar and his mama and daddy, and my yeate-yammas and yamma and baba (R&D) and my Grannie Cindy from Bend and my neighbors and uncles and aunties and mommy Kristin and Carson and more. I think mama and daddy said "no gifts please" on the invitation but a lot of people ignored that which was a-o-k with me. I got super good books and other fun toys and contributions to my college fund which made mama and daddy happy. Thank you everybody and I'll see you soon.

Hi again.

Phew! This has been a wild few weeks. I had my birthday party on the 12th, the day before my actual birthday. Then, the next day, when I actually really turned two, mama left on a trip for work. She has just been back for a few days so I didn't have a chance to get at her laptop until now.


Daddy hid the birthday pictures somewhere so as soon as I track them down I'll put up a good long post on my party.

So, mama left on that Sunday, then daddy took me to yamma & baba D's house on Wednesday and I stayed there until they got home on Saturday. Why didn't they take me with them? I would have been very good. I hear Las Vegas is very child friendly. Anyway I had a good time with yamma and baba and I was very good and didn't have any challenges at all except I didn't want to take a bath in their big scary tub.



Mama and daddy and I have been having a very good time. We've all been in a super good mood, except for mama who has had a lot of work stress and gets cranky with daddy sometimes. We've been having fun together though; Uncle dodo had his birthday yesterday and I got to go with mama and daddy and dodo and yamma & baba R to dinner at a fancy grownup restaurant named Kells.


This Kells place had an elevator which was very fascinating to me. I wanted to go over there all the time. While mama and I were waiting for everybody else, I was flirting with the waitresses and waiters. One of the waiters went by and went into the elevator. I was watching him very intently. Because he was in the elevator. He waved at me and I waved back. As the door closed, I said "bye bye, daddy". Boy, was he surprised!

Then I had fries for dinner. And a few bites of chicken. Oh, and milk with a straw. Yamma kept giving me milk even though mama and daddy said no because I would wet my bed if I had milk too late. Yamma just said it's ok and kept doing it until she was forced to stop. Guess what happened last night? Yep, I wet my bed. Mama thinks yamma should have to come over and do the laundry.

Mama took lots of pictures tonight to make up for the lack of new pictures lately. She caught me playing peek-a-boo with the shower curtain. She said "one, two, three", and I popped out!

Then she said "one," and I said "mun, dew", and she said "three!" and I popped out!


You can't see me!

Change-resistant

I have lots of things that I like. And when I like something I really like it. My bath! Food! Juice! Mama! Shoes! Book! My green jungle pajamas! Money! Daddy! My orange camo jacket! Sometimes the things that I like have to go away sometimes though. And that stinks. Mama brought home a new toothbrush a few nights ago. The only problem was that I really liked my old one.

Don't get me wrong, the new one is really good. It has the Baby Einstein lion on it. And I really really like the lion. I smiled and waved hi to it when it was still in its package. But I started getting concerned when mama dropped my trucks toothbrush in the garbage and took the new one out of the package. She tried to use it on me and I wouldn't let her come near me with it. I ran into my bedroom and stuck my face in the corner. It took two days before I'd let her brush my teeth with it. Sometimes change is rough.

So...I mentioned a while ago that I was not using the binky so much at night. And it went well for a while; I didn't even ask for it. But lately I've been wanting it for nappy and for nighttime sleeping. Tonight, mama and I read two books and I wanted a third. But it was late and she said no. So she let me take the book into bed with me and I asked her to turn on my birdies. I propped myself up on my elbows and flipped through the book a little. Then mama turned to go. I called to her and said "bee!" She thought I wanted another blanket (it was nice...). But no. "Bee!" "Way!" (and I pointed toward the door). She thought I wanted her to leave. But no. "Bee!" "Way!" (and again I pointed toward the door). Then she finally got it. My binky was in the bathroom and she went and got it. Ah! I was happy. I took my book and tucked it under my arm. Night Night!

What kid doesn't like spaghetti?

Yes, me. It's me.

Yamma and Baba R came over on Sunday. Uncle Dodo was here too. Mama made spaghetti with a homemade meat sauce. It smelled pretty good but I had to politely decline on principle. The principle being that I don't eat dinner that's not macaroni & cheese.

Unfortunately that meant that I didn't get any dessert. Mama made brownies with little chocolate chips in them. I really wanted some and asked uncle Dodo but he said no. And I asked mama but she said no, too. I didn't throw a fit or anything though. They had warned me that if I didn't eat my dinner I wouldn't get dessert. And it was so.

My crib animals

I woke up this morning and had a nice talk with my crib animals. It was extremely animated and insightful. We were talking about my dream which I can't remember now. This morning Harrison (that's my teddy bear) was telling me that my dream was implausible which just isn't nice.

When I wake up in the morning, when I open my eyes, I see one or the other of my crib animals and immediately say "hi-iiii". Lately I have my bear (Harrison) and my red monster (Wimbledon) and my big rabbit which mama says is scary and hasn't given a name.

It's nice to wake up with friends. For a long time I really didn't care about having any of my animals in bed with me. Harrison's been in my crib for as long as I have. But then about a month ago right before bed, I asked mama to put Wimbledon in bed with me too. She did and I tucked him under my arm and went to sleep.

Then about a week later I asked for my bunny.

Then a few days later I wanted my green monster (Trilby). But he kicks in his sleep so I don't ask for him anymore.

I really like these guys though. There are two books that remind me of them. I have a book about Professor Wormbog and the Search for the Zipperump-a-Zoo, which used to be Uncle Dodo's. There's a part in it where the professor is looking for that zipperump-a-zoo in caves. There's a cave monster on the page and it reminds me of Wimbledon so when we get to that part I always ask mama to get Wimbledon and he sits next to me for a while.

There's another book I have, my First Prayers book. There are some nice prayers and poems; one of them is about being kind to animals and on that page there's a painting with a bunny rabbit in it. When I see that bunny rabbit it reminds me of my bunny and so I always ask mama to get him for me. He's really big though and there's no room on our laps for him and the book so he sits on the little rocking chair next to us while we finish the book.

Nice.

Giraffe on my table

Sometimes I just don't feel like eating dinner. It helps when I have a friend to share it with. About a month ago, mama figured this out and now I sometimes have dinner with my giraffe friend.
Tonight we had greek chicken and potatoes that mama made with lots of garlic. I didn't really care for it but giraffe seemed to like it. So then I took a few more bites.

Then the giraffe wanted to eat some of my dessert, vanilla yogurt with blueberries. Yum! I was really good and shared it. Even when daddy tried to just feed me a bite, I made sure to redirect it to giraffe first so she could enjoy it too.