TWO

How old are you Andrew?

By the end of his four-day birthday celebration, he was a pro at holding up two fingers.  This was on the morning of his birthday.  Jarod and I went in his room and sang him happy birthday to wake him up.  We made such a big deal about how special this day was and how old he was and we sang to him about 10 times throughout the day.  He ate it up!   It was so cute watching him laugh and smile from ear to ear.  He was just beaming with excitement!  He was most excited about his animal cupcakes since they involved his favorite thing in the whole wide world...tractors! 

After a special breakfast of scrambled eggs, we had some friends over.  Thursday mornings I get together with some good friends for a prayer group.  We all bring our kids and they play together while we talk.  After group, Andrew shared his cupcakes with Emma, Claire, Blaise, and John.

I let Andrew play with the leftover cupcakes.  He gave the sheep and pigs a ride around the table and stopped every once in a while to take them off the trailer and put them back on.  He must have thought the sheep needed a good sheering because by the time he was done, they were missing quite a few marshmallows!

After dinner we had our family celebration which of course involved more singing and more smiling and laughing.  We got him a Thomas the Train set.  He has one Thomas movie that he asks to watch everyday.  He loves watching the trains, trucks and construction vehicles (big surprise!).  So when he opened his train set, oh boy was he excited!  We actually had wrapped another gift for him to open but he was so mesmerized by his trains that he didn't even notice.  Guess we'll save that for the next birthday!

And like a good brother, he didn't get too upset when Dominic wanted to play along.

Oh Andrew, you seem so old to me.  How did you get to be such a grown-up-little-boy?  You are in the 99th percentile for your height which makes you seem even older than you are.  You are a stubborn, strong-willed, spirited boy with a one-track mind.  This makes it difficult to parent you, but it also gives you such a unique and fun personality.  You like to act goofy and imitate dad.  My favorite is when you roll your head around in a circle after seeing him stretch his neck. 

You love your animal train puzzle and of course your favorite thing to do is play outside.  You are obsessed with lawn mowers.  There have been many times when I've lost track of you outside only to find you in our neighbors garage trying to push his mower.  Yesterday you were outside in the cold with dad for an hour and a half walking right along side him while he was mowing the lawn.  Anytime someone within a two block radius starts his mower, you know about it and it only takes you a minute to run from window to window to find out who it is. 

You are not talking yet but you are getting very good at sign language.  You can sign for the words more, all done, drink, please, thank you, cereal, cracker, help, horse, shoes, and socks.  I know you'll start talking soon.  I can see the wheels turning in your head when you try to sound out words.  I just hope your first sentence is "Momma, I love you".  Is that too much to ask?  

Thank you for being you. 

You have definitely made these last two years an exciting adventure!

Happy Birthday!