Ayden's 2nd Birthday party was today. He was so excited about everything going on at the house, he refused to take a nap (cried & talked in his room for 2 hours). That made for a cranky boy (and a cranky mommy). Because he was the center of attention all night, he was actually very well behaved, considering. I even got him to put on the Nemo hat long enough to take a picture!

He opened lots of presents, with some help from Mommy. I think we'd all still be there watching if we'd left it up to him. He even took the time to read each card!
Thanks to the Boers in Texas for our cool new Cowboys gear! Grandpa wanted to steal the blanket. I think you can tell by the look on my face that we are THRILLED with the keyboard from Stockton :) With all of the buttons on this thing - he went straight for the one that turned it on. Amazing! Or, maybe he's a genius and can read the word "ON"???
And thanks to Grandma for the cool Nemo cake. It turned out great - so great Ayden had to take a little test while he was waiting for the candle to be lit!

He actually blew the candle out on his own - with only a little spit covering the cake!

Here he is buried in all of his new gifts!

Happy Birthday to my big boy. It's a good thing birthdays only come around once a year - I'm exhaused!!!

Pre-Halloween partying

We went to a costume party last night....here we are ready to go! Ken was a nerdy accountant and I was a Go Go Dancer. When we got to the party, someone asked if we were Beauty & the Geek. We hadn't thougth of that! We had fun with our little monkey!

What a Day!

Ayden's 2nd birthday was quite a day!


Birthday Party #1 - I sent cookies, Nemo hats, and a camera to day care. Here he is with all of his friends. Apparrently, he refused to wear a hat :(

After we got home, he "helped" me frost some cupcakes. It was so cute and kept him occupied while I was able to frost all of the cupcakes.
We let him open one present - it was a doctor's kit.



Birthday #2 - We headed to John's Incredible Pizza with Grandma, Uncle Matthew and Aunt Dominique. (unfortunately, the only picture I got with grandma was of her trying out dance dance revolution, since Ayden wasn't even in the picture, I didn't thinkg she'd appreciate me posting it) The lighting in there was awful, and no amount of red eye reduction would help some of the pictures, so just overlook the psycho eyes.

We all had a blast, but I think Daddy and Uncle Matthew enjoyed the games more than Ayden.

Ayden with Aunt Dominique on a motorcycle. Notice how much fun Ken is having in the background (the game was broken and worked for alomost 1/2 hour without using any credits)

He absolutely LOVED the little train-roller coaster. It went way faster than I expected it to and I was afraid Ayden would start crying, but he laughed and giggled the whole time.


He even conviced Uncle "Matt Matt" to take him another time.


We bowled a couple of frames...

And it all ended with a little ice cream cone!

Wow - he was exhausted....When we got home and I took him out of the car, he said, "Jammies, where are you?" It was the cutest thing ever!!

Well, now we get to prepare for party #3 with the family on Sunday.

Happy Birthday Ayden!

My baby boy is two!!! It's crazy how fast time has gone by!

His 2-year pictures have not come in yet, so this one from yesterday will have to do. He wasn't being very cooperative, but I thought he looked so cute!

Here he is one year ago...

And two years ago - just a few minutes old....

Happy Birthday to my big boy!!

Apple Hill

One of the best things about living in Northern California is being so close to fun things to do. We headed up to Apple Hill - a popular destination (we know it's popular based on the hoardes of people there on Sunday)

We started out at a stop that had a pond and pony rides. We waited in line for the pony rides, but when it was our turn, Ayden was too scared to ride - oh well.

Then, we headed to the pumpkin patch. Ayden has been talking all morning about getting "puntins." When we got there, we were a little disappointed....

The pumpkin patch was having their "blowout sale" - obviously because they had NO pumpkins left. Ayden didn't know the difference. He had fun pulling the wagon around and finding small "puntins" he could pick up. And, we got the pumpkins for $1 apiece.

Daddy was quite a trooper considering he HATES crowds of people. He found a spot to sit with Mr. Scarecrow. I tried to get Ayden to sit here for a picture, but he was too scared of the scarecrow and kept burrowing in Ken's lap, then my camera battery died, so that spoiled the moment.

Next, we headed to another farm that had a train ride and big pond. Here are Ken & Ayden watching the geese as grandma waited in line for the train. Yes, it's a backpack/kid leash....Don't judge - he's a runner and there were tons of people everywhere!

This is by far my favorite picture from the day. I took it by holding my hand on the other side of the fence and just snapping. I got lucky with a great picture!

Here are Ayden and Grandma on the train....it went once around the pond....woo hoo! But Ayden enjoyed it, so I guess it was worth it!

We ended our trip with a slice of yummy apple pie! It tasted as good as it looks!!

At least someone in our house likes to do laundry

So Ayden kept saying a word tonight that we couldn't understand. We let him do what he wanted to see what he was saying. Turns out he was saying "laundry." He dragged the step ladder from the kitchen to the laundry room, then went upstairs, took laundry out of the hamper and put it in the basket. By the time he came back downstairs, I had the camera ready.

Our day of aviation

We were headed out of town for SF to see the Blue Angels and other Fleet Week stuff. On our way out, we noticed smoke from a fire that looked pretty close. Being paranoid, I convinced Ken to drive to see where it was and how close it was before we took off. While driving around, there was a helicopter with a bucket that was dropping water on the fire. We kept trying to figure out where they would be getting the water from.....turns out, they were getting the water from the lake in our neighborhood. We drove back home to find this:

There were cars parked up and down the street in front of the lake

Our neighbors, as well as people from surrounding neighborhoods were all over the place, everyone was taking pictures

It was pretty cool to watch - Ayden was totally excited - he kept yelling "Helicopter, Helicopter" but of course, his pronuciation isn't really spell-able.

After that excitement, we headed to SF. Here are a few pictures from the Blue Angels

It was a little loud...Ayden alternated between yelling "plane" and "boat"!

With Daddy

With Grandma & Frank

It was a busy day!!

Dancing

I think he inherited his dance moves from Ken...