Happy 2nd Birthday, Gaven!!

It's hard to believe that it was just 2 short years ago, today, that Gaven joined our family. I can't remember what things were like before he was here. Here he is, not even a day old at the hospital. He still has those eatable cheeks, chubby little hands, and beautiful eyelashes to accent the twinkle in his eye, but the thing I love most about my little boy is that he STILL loves to cuddle. He's a paci taker and a blankie lover and when you mix the two, it makes for lots of lovin' from my youngin'. People often ask us how we can get him to nap on us at church (since it starts at 1pm). My answer to that is, all you have to do is put his blankies on your shoulder.

We let him open his presents Sunday night. He was supposed to get his cake that night, too, but when Mom ruined the whole batch of frosting with the wrong food coloring (and didn't have any more sugar to make any more), he had to wait until his actual birthday, today, to have his cake.

I'll preface this by saying that I tried to post a picture of him opening at least one gift from each family member that couldn't be here... which is everyone. I figure since they don't get to watch him open, the next best thing is pictures... so sorry for the redundancy... I know, you can only look at so many pictures of a 2 year old opening presents.

As I've said before, the kid LOVES Elmo, and this is a little Elmo game from Nanu and Papa.

I just loved his tongue in the next picture... it also gives you an idea of how jealous we all are of his eyelashes!!

He sure liked THIS one from Nanu and Papa!

He's been carrying around his cow flashlight from GrandPapa and GrandGrandma Mann all day today!

Doodle Pro from Grandma and Papa Train. We were outside playing basketball today when I realized Gaven had gone inside by himself. I came in to check on him and he was sitting down, drawing on his Doodle. (Not pictured yet: Grandma and Papa got him a seat to go on the back of my bike, which is still in the works, but I'll take some pictures of our first ride. :-)

I wish I would have taken a picture of the color of the original frosting (Jason called it mauve). While I was fretting over the purple frosting color, Gaven came into the kitchen and stole the little bowl I had set aside and made orange for Elmo's nose and ate it. It really must not have been meant to be last night!

Take II, tonight:

Gaven's reaction when first seeing his cake:

Blowing out the last candle

His Happy Birthday outfit from Auntie Sabra:

In case you ever wondered how you should cut an Elmo cake... Just ask the children what part of Elmo's face they want to eat. Can you guess what my children picked??

That's just not right looking!

I forget that when you upload videos, they post them opposite from the way pictures post... so these videos are actually backwards. If you're going to watch them, watch the last one first.

We love you to pieces, Roo, and life hasn't been anything but better since you've been here. Happy 2nd Birthday, Buddy!