Jack's Birthday Extravaganza!

Well, Jack is officially two years old now! We're trying to teach him to say, "Two!" when people ask how old he is. For his birthday we took him to the mall to throw pennies in the fountains, which is something he loves to do.

Here he is saying, "Yay!" after he got a penny in the water. It's the simple things in life that make it great, eh?

He rode the carousel at the mall with his Dad, too. There isn't much terribly close to our house that we can do for him. At least we have the mall!

His birthday landed on a Friday this year, so we decided to celebrate the next day, Saturday, so Dad could be home all day to play. We started by filling the basement with 72 balloons!

He ran through over and over again, kicking and throwing the balloons all over the place. Woo hoo!

Then we opened presents. One of his gifts was a toy tool set, which has a drill that really spins and a hammer. He got excited once he realized his drill was just like Dad's drill. We recently hung his whiteboard on the wall while he watched, so he went over and tried to drill holes in the wall, too!

Once he figured out how to use it well, he loved it! He's getting very good at drilling the toy screws in and out of their holes in the toy tool box.

He also got a very cool easel from Grandma and Grandpa Culwell. He thought it was a climbing toy at first, but we showed him that he can draw on the paper. Soon we'll break out the paints, too, but for now he can use crayons, markers, or chalk!

Jack loves this show on PBS, SuperWhy, so we got him an action figure. We thought it would be his favorite present, but he was a little scared of it and wouldn't play with it at first. He doesn't like noisy things, and this particular toy makes a lot of noise! After a while, though, he got over his fear and now likes to play with it. He calls him, "Ah-La," even though his name is Whyatt. Strange.

We baked cupcakes for his birthday cake, figuring they would be easier for him to eat. We practiced blowing out candles and explained that on his birthday, he would get to try again.

All the practicing paid off and Jack was able to blow out his candles all by himself! He thought it was pretty cool.

Then we told him to eat his cupcake... Instead of picking it up like a normal person, he decided to eat it like this. He hates getting his hands dirty and will try most anything to avoid it. He'll stab just about anything with a fork so he doesn't have to use his hands. Since we didn't provide him with a fork, he had to get creative.

Apparently he doesn't mind his face getting dirty, though! At least he liked the cupcake. He seemed to really enjoy his birthday celebration. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating his first birthday!

Here's a shot of the cute outfit Grandma Marshall sent for Jack's birthday. Cool and comfy!

We love you, Jack, and we look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you. Happy Birthday!