Thoughts from a Storytelling Mommy: Colin is TWO!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Colin is TWO!

It is now official...my precious baby boy is TWO YEARS OLD! Despite the slide/party fiasco, we managed to have a very special day on Monday. We met our good friends Laura and Kayrene and their respective kiddos at Paradise Pond for a morning of play and then everyone made the trek back to our house for brunch and presents. I made french toast casserole and it was beyond good! It was my first time making this particular recipe, so I was very pleased that it turned out! I generally like to taste test a recipe before serving it to a crowd. This was a make again dish for sure. The kiddos had cake and helped Colin open presents. It turned out to be such a wonderful morning...it was a rainy day, so the indoor play turned out to be the perfect plan. Once all the kids hit nap time, everyone left and Colin took a long rest. That evening we took him out for dinner at Jason's, which has turned out to be one of his favorite places to go. As far as Colin is concerned, you really can't beat a restaurant that has free soft serve cones. When we got home, we let him open up the remainder of his gifts and played the night away with all his new loot. He spent the whole day saying, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!", which simply melted my heart. Granted, he was wishing everyone from Jer to the dishwasher a happy birthday, but it was still pretty adorable. :-)

Jer was off work today as well, so we closed the birthday extravaganza with Colin's final present; a trip to the water park! We found a smaller park in Denton that has a HUGE children's pool area that was fantastic. Jer and I got to take turns riding the slides and we took Colin around the lazy river in giant tubes several times. I was shocked that he was willing to ride in our laps down the river, but he loved it! It was a perfect ending to a very sweet birthday.

My feelings on this birthday are harder for me to write about, I have so many mixed emotions. On one hand, I feel like it was yesterday that I was in the hospital having him and on the other hand, it feels like an eternity ago. For the first 18 months of his life, he seemed like a baby to me. He still took occasional bottles, was rocked to sleep every night, mostly babbled and was just a sweet baby boy. This spring he has completely changed into so much of a little boy...talking, rough housing, displaying a sense of humor, sleeping in a big bed and generally being a little kid. This is easily my favorite stage so far. Watching his little personality develop has been the greatest gift and he is so funny and sweet. Now that his words have progressed, he has stopped a lot of the major meltdowns and is much happier than he was a few months ago. He gives lots of hugs and kisses and loves to "get cozy" under the covers to watch his "shows". He has a new move here around his 2nd birthday that is so adorable that it nearly kills me. If I do something that he likes...such as give him a cookie or fresh juice or anything that he deems awesome, he says "good mom!" when I hand it to him. Not "thank you", but "good mom!". It is hysterical. Even his inflection is funny...he says it exactly like you would say, "good dog!". I could not love this baby more if I tried. :-) Finally, here are some pictures from the weekend of fun.

Running at the water park. He LOVED it!

Yea for water! :-)

This place was kid heaven.

All smiles during his birthday dinner. I love that face!!

He was beside himself to open those presents!

A shot of his goodies on the big day.

One of my all time favorite pictures! Colin, Scarlett and Ryan share brunch together during the party. They looked so adorable lined up on those stools!