Josh is Two!

Warning: Super Long Post

This last week Josh turned two. On his birthday David made him blue pancakes for breakfast and we got to go feed Dicey (Celeste's dog) for them while they were on vacation. Josh loves "Dice Dice", but was pretty sad when "Lef" (Celeste) and "PooPa" (Cooper) weren't there for him to play with. That night we had a family birthday party and Josh had a great time blowing out the candles 3 times and eating cupcakes and ice cream. Then we went to another party, this time to welcome home my friend Sandi from her mission.

Josh with his blue birthday pancakes (yes he still wears a bib...I think I'll keep him in one for as long as he'll let me).

I saw this idea for ice cream cone cupcakes on the back of a cake mix box. They turned out pretty cute even if they were flat ice cream cones...I guess they are Thrifty ice cream cones. :)
Josh seemed to like them!

We didn't get any still pictures of Josh opening presents and blowing out candles, only videos that I don't feel like editing and waiting for them to upload.

We had a little pool party for Josh yesterday with a couple of his friends and cousins and had a great time playing in the pool and eating corndogs, cake and ice cream.

I was trying to think of something fun to do cake-wise. One fun thing about Josh is that he LOVES cards. We have some old Uno and Rook cards that he has been playing with for the past several months. He'll pick them up, put them down one by one on the couch, pick them up again, come and hand them to me one by one, take them back, put them in a box or cardholder or slide them under the TV (annoying), and generally entertain himself for quite a while with these. So, I had an idea to decorate his cake like an Uno card. I've never attempted cake decorating, but my friend Kimmie was kind enough to let me borrow her supplies and little instruction booklet and gave me a few tips.

Here are some pictures of the party and the cake:

Does it look like an Uno card?

Josh with his cousins Karalee, Spencer and Bryant

Enjoying a corndog

He had to have some help blowing the candles out. He tries to blow, but doesn't really get much air out.

For his birthday David and I gave Josh a baseball glove and ball (he's not into them at all yet) a couple of Sesame Street movies and some cards. He played with his new cards all day long on his birthday, pretty much, so at least we know one of our presents was a hit! His Great Grandma Orr gave Josh some alphabet magnets, which didn't get opened until the day after his birthday, and now he has been playing with them almost non-stop (thanks Grandma!).

"I did it!" He spelled such a long word I can't even pronounce it. What a smart boy (he must take after his dad)!

I can't believe how fast my baby boy is growing up...he learns new things every day and he often makes me laugh out loud! A few of the things that make Josh great:

• He knows most of his letters and numbers and colors. Thank you Sesame Street, Uno cards and alphabet magnets!
• He can pretty much count to 12 on his own. After that all the "teens" start tripping him up.
• He says "Eee-ahh" when riding a real horse or a Daddy/Mama pretend horse.
• He says "Eww Dross" when he sees something that looks yucky (or pretty much anything that is wet).
• He argues with himself. When he first started talking one of his first words, of course, was "No". He would say that when we would try to make him do something he didn't want to do, and so we would always respond with "Yes". Now he will say the "Yes" for us..."No yes no yes". It cracks me up.
• When he can't find me or David right away he'll say "Mamy/Daddy, where are you?" (I can't figure out how to spell it like he says it, but it's really cute.
• When he wants me to pick him up he says, "Ma ma ma jew" (Mama I wanna hold you).
• Since Josh started learning to talk David has been teaching him to say, repeating one word at a time, "Daddy is the best". I recently started having Josh say "Josh is monkey". A week or so ago Josh came up with "Daddy...is...the...best...bunkey (monkey)". Too bad David wasn't there to hear it, because that one was great.
• He still calls Mary "Baby". I've tried several times to get him to at least say Mary, but to no avail. Tonight during dinner we were trying again and were unsuccessful at first, then started breaking the syllables up. We finally got a "Mar-baby" out of him. David and I started cracking up, then Josh did his fake laugh because we were laughing so hard. Good times.
• He is a great big brother. He'll often come and tell me when he hears Mary crying after she's woken up from her nap. He loves to kiss and hug her goodnight, and throughout the day, for that matter. Not that he isn't a little rough with her sometimes. He hasn't bitten her for a coupel of weeks, so hopefully that stage is over.
• He gives the best hugs and kisses, and usually isn't afraid to give them to anyone. His hugs always have the "ahww" sound effect.
• Mom's kiss will make pretty much anything better. I love that!
• When he gets excited he'll clap his hands and say "Yay" really excitedly.
• When he finishes something he's been working on he yells "I did it!"
• He is as skinny as a rail, but super strong. He can now reach our top counter (the bar) and is getting way too adept at pulling himself up to the regular counter and reaching things on it.
• Josh is definitely a high energy little boy...he rarely walks anywhere, and when he gets really excited his legs go up and down more than forward when he runs.

I'm so blessed to be Josh's mom, I love him so much and am so grateful that Heavenly Father has entrusted me with him! Here are some more fun pictures of my sweet boy: