The Month-long Celebration of Munchkin's Two-ness

Give me another year, I'll fill out Daddy's swim trunks!

Wow, look who's two! Tyto! What a big milestone and how else to celebrate such a whopper than to have a month-long celebration (going on longer because he still sings happy birthday to himself). One of the things we do traditionally is to take a photo of Tyler in Daddy's swim trunks. You can compare it to last year's photo, where T's feet didn't even emerge from the fabric.

That right there should have been party enough, right? Who doesn't enjoy comparative photos? But no, we went all out and had a bash up the street at the ArtZone with our friend, Alek, whose birthday was three weeks before Tyler's. The boys and their friends were able to paint, decorate wooden airplanes and clay fire engines, play in the mud/water room, mash dinosaurs into the purple goop, play dress-up and hang in the treehouse and fingerpaint with shaving cream. Thank God we didn't have this party at our house! For more party photos, you can click here. Oh, and for comparison's sake, this year Tyler really liked his cake. Instead of crying and pushing it away, he asked for seconds!
Tyler and Alek blow out their candles (with a little help, of course). Can you eat Thomas the Train candles?

A week after the party, Aunt Cathy, Uncle Kevin and Cousin Katie came to watch Tyler while Mama and Daddy went to Bermuda on a little work trip. To say he was spoiled is an understatement. Aunt Cathy came armed with loads of books, new cd's games and other fun stuff. Cousin Katie came armed with her youth and energy and had Tyler running from the Manhattan Pier to the Hermosa Pier (unbelievable!). He raked it in, too. He got his first pet, a beta fish he named "Cutie-pie," (who sadly was not so cute a week later when he went belly up), big boy undies and other cool stuff. What a lucky dude!

Show us your Otter Pop blue tongue, Tyler!

One of the best things about being older is that Mama is not the sugar Nazi she once was. We've even been known to eat marshmallows right before bedtime. Now that we're two, we really like to have an Otter Pop right after we wake up from our nap. Green is our favorite color, but we're learning to like pink, purple and orange as well.

Grandpa demonstrates a fireman's proper hose/noodle-holding techniques

Once Cathy, Kevin and Katie went home, it was time for Grandpa to pay Tyler a visit. Tyler was smitten with Grandpa from the first second he came in the door. Normally not so keen on strangers (not that Grandpa is a stranger, but he hasn't seen him since last February), Tyler took to Grandpa like a duck takes to water. He usually stays right by my side when someone new enters the house, but he was at the door, waiting for Grandpa to come back in the house with his things. We'd been telling T that Grandpa used to be a fireman, and you could tell that made a big impression. He took Grandpa by the finger and led him all around the house - showing him his choo choos, ambulance guys and how he sautes in his kitchen. We did a lot of fun stuff with Grandpa including:

A trip to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. Can you spy the two blue-eyed Swedes amongt the pumpkins?
We got our first tricycle on the morning of our birthday...

And Grandpa gave Tyler a firehouse where the firemen can sleep and make pancakes, oh, and occasionally rescue someone...

And we went to the Manhattan Beach Old Town Fair where we got to sit in the real fire truck!

And now that all the birthday excitement is over, we'll just have to get back to our ordinary life of...

Playing at the beach with Daddy and going for walks while looking for fishing poles!

My Slacker Mom

I'm so cute, who wouldn't want to document my every move?

Okay, so who wants to trade moms? Mine is a friggin' slacker! It's been over a month since she's updated my blog and dang it, I've been busy! She laments with these lame excuses that she's "too tired" or she has to "throw up again," but I can see through her thinly veiled and pathetic excuses. She's just lazy! She says there's a "baby" in her tummy, and it's making her need to lie down and "chill out" more than usual, but puleeze! I don't see any stinking baby in there. That tummy is flatter than before because of all the vomiting she's doing - jeesh! In the meantime, I've been busy, let me tell you. I got a couple more teeth, my vocabulary is increasing exponentially, I can run without tripping over my own two feet (most of the time), and I had a birthday (mom says she'll document that one herself - about time!). So I just wanted to post a few photos for my fans, to let them know I am still alive and doing well, please write and I'll drag mom's weak butt off the couch to read me your letter or email.

My buddy Alek came over to design our birthday invitations. I really got into those body paints!
I got my second "official" haircut - I'm quite the pro at this now.

Mom took me to the aquarium, that whale could fly, amazing!