Birthday birthday

Today, I had this conversation while Joseph and I were riding the bus made of chairs and blankets to Grandma's house.

"Bus cake."
"That's right! You had a bus cake for your birthday! How did it taste?"
"Dat der. Candles."
"That's right! Your cake had candles on it."
"Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you."

And it reminded me that I should talk about Joseph's birthday a few weeks ago.

Like other kids his age, Joseph recently turned two. We decided to keep it kind of low-key, but it ended up being a pretty fun-filled day as it was.

We started with presents. We decided that instead of wrapping them all, we would cover some with blankets, put some in pillowcases, and wrap the remaining ones.

We marked the blanket covered presents by stuffed animals so he would know where to look.

And the aftermath! Lots of puzzles!

Then, he and Kevin went to a nearby parade while I took advantage of the cooler morning weather to make the cake. When they got back we hurried over to a barbecue/pool party where we were the only ones there for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so I never caught the perma-grin Joseph had the whole time he was in the water. Every time he stepped a bit further in and got colder and wetter, he would just giggle in delight. It was hard to get him to go.

After his nap, we went to a nearby creek to throw rocks in the water. Although he was as excited about this as he was for the swimming pool, he was down to business here, and it was hard to get a smile.

Ready to drop a rock in

Best buds

He kept going for bigger and bigger ones

I can't blame him for wanting to throw so many rocks in. Look at that splash!

It was really cold water. But it was really hot out, so it worked great.

When we were about ready to have dinner, we realized that we had forgotten to buy candles or balloons (although, conveniently, the streamers were still up from my birthday as well as our March party, since we never take decorations down on principle). All Joseph cared about when it came to his cake was candles, so Kevin ran to the store to get some. Meanwhile, I worked on decorating the cake. As Joseph mentioned today, it was a bus cake. To say he loves the bus is an understatement. If he ever gets upset about something, say, his milk is in the wrong color cup or something and we encourage him to "use his words" to sort out the issue, his immediate response is usually "ride bus outside." Wakes up in the middle of the night? "Ride bus outside." When we do ride the bus, he likes to walk down the road a bit to watch it come. When he sees it at the end of the road, he starts to shriek and laugh with excitement. It's pretty great. And then once he's on the bus, he's usually pretty stoic until we're off. Then, "Ride bus again?"

He actually couldn't tell what it was until I told him repeatedly. It's okay. Like I said, he cared mostly about the candles and tried to eat them as soon as Kevin brought them home. I think he thought that was the point of candles. (Candy, candles, same thing, right?)

Then, after dinner (he wanted pasta, raisins, and crackers), it was time for cake!

He liked it. Especially the frosting.

And, just like that, we had a two-year-old!

We sure like him.

(And, if you're curious, here are some videos. The first is him trying to sing the Happy Birthday song. The next is the time we put a bonfire on his cake and expected him to blow it out [who knew two little candles could look so epic on video?]. And the last is some birthday prep we did about a week before his birthday. It has taken us about til now for him not to say "almost two" when we ask how old he is. And no, I don't feel bad for doing a bus cake instead of a dinosaur or ice cream cake)

Hooray for Joseph!