HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Chase turned 2 years old on Wednesday!  He is just such a sweet little boy now.  It just blows my mind to think that he is two and all the new things he's into now and what a little personality he has developed in this short period of time.

First to start off this post, I will go into his birthday party which we had on the 25th - his original due date. 

The weather was trying to tick me off most of that day by threatening rain, but we moved the party up an hour and that decided to be the best plan ever as I will note later!  When I woke up that morning, I hadn't really thought the party would happen because of the weather forecasts, but when we ultimately decided to forge ahead we had no more than 5 hours to get everything ready.  That included going to the store, making homemade cupcakes, straightening the house, organizing and putting up all the party gear, buying Chase a birthday present (we are awful with giving presents to each other in this house!!), and ordering and picking up the food.  We were exhausted by the time people started showing up!

I didn't really have much of a theme this year.  I guess if anything it was a "ball" theme since that is one of the few words Chase says.  The ball theme then turned into a bouncing theme and before I knew it, I decided to buy a bouncy house, a bouncy "pool", and 900 plastic balls!  Here's a picture of the day they all showed up on our front porch!

Here's our invitation

Chase gets red really easily when he gets just a little hot, so we had a little "pre-party" in the backyard before most people showed up, so when we came back inside for pizza and cake, Chase was RED!

Here he is being really sweet and shy when we started singing happy birthday to him.

I didn't get a picture of any lit candles because Drew blew them out as Chase was reaching for the cake! 

These are my homemade vanilla bean cupcakes.  They were very good, but VERY sweet.  The gumball on top represents the "ball" theme.

Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying the bouncing and the balls!

Chase had a great time at his birthday party!  He got lots of great presents and he is thoroughly enjoying all of them!  He received a (toy) workbench with a power drill.  He loves pulling the nails out of the table and putting them somewhere else on the table!  He got a new DJ keyboard and loves making all sorts of noise with it!  He got a shopping cart filled with fruits and veggies.  He loves to push the cart all over the house and pick up each piece of food and show them to us over and over again.  He got a tricycle, which he loves to ride even though he can't reach the peddles yet!  He got a Captain America doll and movie, a Mr. Potato Head, a fast Buzz Lightyear car, Toy Story books (which he is fascinated with!), dart guns, a talking Cookie Monster, and some spending money from Great Meme and Pops.

By the time the party was over, Drew and I started deflating all the stuff in the backyard and no less than 20 minutes after we brought everything in, the tornado sirens went off!  Like I said before, moving the party up one hour was the best thing ever.  Even after all the threats of rain, it was warm and sunny the entire time - well, until the tornado sirens!

Almost immediately after the party, I had to go out of town for work for three days, which meant I was going to miss seeing the birthday boy the morning of his actual birthday.  I was ok with this as long as I got to be there for his "birth moment"!  It was awesome.  I just love acting like a fool as soon as the clock turns to be 5:00!  Drew was able to be there with me this year since he was in class during the birth moment last year!  We clapped and cheered and sang happy birthday to Chase.  He had the biggest grin on his face the whole time.  I think he thought we were crazy!

Here are some pictures of Chase in his birthday suit on his birthday that night.

This afternoon we had Chase's 2 year well baby visit.  We chatted with Dr. Owen about Chase's random red spot on his arm that all the daycare teachers worry about so much, his speech or lack thereof, and food options.  The red spot is not a big deal (as I expected!).  Dr. Owen is recommending Chase for TEIS, which we expected going into the appointment.  I'm looking forward to it and seeing how a professional would evaluate him.  Chase now has no food restrictions so I suppose we could allow him to eat shellfish and peanuts, but I'm still so scared!!  I asked Dr. Owen if we could try peanut butter in the doctor's office at a future date and he said we could.  I think I'm definitely going to take him up on that one!  I was surprised when he didn't think I was crazy when I asked that.

2 year stats:

Weight: 32 lbs 13 oz (90th percentile) - up 3 lb 10 oz from 18 month checkup
Length: 37" (97th percentile) - 4" longer than month 18
Head: ??cm (65th percentile)

At the visit, they weighed Chase fully clothed for the first time and they weighed him on a normal scale.  That didn't really work out very well, and we resorted to putting him on the "baby" scale because he was hopping up and down on the regular one!  He had his iron levels tested (with a finger prick), got his last vaccination for a while, and got the flu shot.  He was upset with us by the end of the appointment!