Two Years

Well, it has come - Collin's 2nd birthday. I can't hardly believe it. He is definitely acting more and more like a preschooler though, so I guess I can't say it has come as a complete surprise.

Doesn't he look all ready to head to school? One hand in his pocket and the other on the lunch box. Sweet.

Last Sunday he wanted Ryan to pull a chair over to the counter for him to see, like he does when I cook. He said, "I want watch Dada cut apples." Yeah, I'd call that one good sentence. He starts lots of sentences with "I want," "I like," "I watch," etc. It is so nice for him to actually be able to tell me what he wants instead of whining (though we do still get a lot of that) or grunting (a little bit of that sneaks its way in when he's tired too). Everywhere we go complete strangers comment on how chatty he is. My favorite was the saleslady at the JC Penney in Seattle, "Wow, he talks a lot. Does he say anything?" So I guess his pronounciation could use some work, but I understand most everything.

He loves all forms of transportation (hence his room decor): trains, cars, trucks, buses, bulldozers, diggers, "dump cars," etc. I thought this would be a good place to insert a picture of the collage Ryan made for his room. It's opposite the road wall we painted. Cool huh?

He also likes anything his mom or dad has - mechanic/woodworking tools and kitchen gadgets. I guess that should give you some hints about his Christmas and birthday gifts...

We had a little get-together at our house on Saturday night. He was sooo excited. He kept saying, "Collin, birthday, cupcake" all day. I rented two movies from the library - Thomas the Train and Elmo birthday movies. He quickly learned about blowing out candles. But I guess I forgot to tell him to wait to blow until after the song is finished.


(Pardon the sideways video; I don't know how to flip it.) After Ryan relit them twice during the song, the other kids were so cute to help him out, "NOW you blow out the candles."

I think the opening of presents was good practice for Saturday.
I think it may quite possibly take all day to get everything open on Christmas though. But he'll be the only child there, so I guess we'll have nothing better to do. He was so excited to play with everything... except for the dinosaurs that were in this box - he climbed into my lap cuddling, and said, "All done dinosaurs." Yep, still a bit of a wuss. (Though today it was the first toy he wanted to show to his friends who came over to play, so I guess he's over the initial shock.)

Happy Birthday, Big Boy! We love you.