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!

Daddy and Colin playing with the bubbles at Mom Mom and Pop Pop's house

Mom Mom showing him how it's done!

Colin spent half the day loving on Jasper and Solomon, the best doggies ever!

Daddy introduces Colin to the workings of the slip-n-slide. Such a great present from his grandparents!

Opening presents with his grandparents. He got pretty good at this!

Colin, I hope your third year on this earth is just as amazing as your second. I love you, sweet boy!

The Year Draws to a Close....

Colin's birthday weekend is behind us and I simply cannot believe it. His official 2nd birthday is tomorrow. This week has been filled with all sorts of insanity, which kept me busy enough to keep the nostalgia at bay. Jer and I had decided to forgo a regular birthday party this year in favor of doing something fun like a water park or night at Great Wolf Lodge. Two weeks ago, I started to second guess my decision and started looking for possible options for a backyard water slide. Colin has several little buddies and I started thinking it would be more fun to have his friends over to the house for classic cake and fun. This is when I went wrong...at that late date, I should have stuck to my original plan. Of course, once I get a wild hair, it can't be stopped. I found someone on Craigslist that was renting a giant water slide / splash park for half the price of everyone else. I contacted them and set up the slide for Saturday. I was beside myself with excitement. My family was coming anyway and now we would get to have so much fun and Colin's friends could come, too. I immediately sent out evites to the party. It was even too late for standard invitations in the mail! I should have known better...the slide turned out to be a scam and I found out late Wednesday night that we would not have it. I suppose I should be glad that I found out that early! We cancelled the party for Saturday. It was simply too hot outside to have a backyard party without water. Our HOA only allows 4 guests per resident at our pools and they are strict about it, so we decided that we would just call off the big extravaganza. It ended up working out fine and we have had a blast this weekend. Saturday was spent at the splash park, getting snow cones and swimming at the pool. On Saturday night, Ellen and Aubrey came over to bring Colin a present and hang out for a bit, which is ALWAYS a treat. This morning, we met Jer's parents at Old West Cafe in Denton, which is one of our all time favorite places. Colin was in great spirits and had a blast. After breakfast, we headed back to their house for presents and play on the new slip-n-slide! Colin absolutely adored it and the funniest part was watching Jer and Pop Pop try to use it. Pictures are coming, you can be sure! It has been a wonderful time and I am absolutely in awe that my baby boy is going to wake up tomorrow as a two year old. Below is Colin at birth, 12 months and now. Here comes the nostalgia. My baby!!