Happy Birthday Keller!

I can't believe my baby boy is two years old! Well, officially his birthday isn't until Wednesday, but we had his birthday party today, so our family and friends could drive and celebrate with us. The party didn't start until 2 PM but Keller refused to nap the entire day, I was mentally preparing myself for the meltdown that I was sure to come because of the missed nap. Only, he never had one. Keller was such a good boy all day! Lots of picture follow, so brace yourself.

Keller is very into Toy Story right now, especially Toy Story 3 and he loves Buzz and Woody both. Just like the kid, Andy, from the movie, I don't think he could pick a favorite. So I had two giant Toy Story balloons that K carried around with him all afternoon. At one point we wondered why we even bother with toys sometimes, it's the simplest things in life that catch his attention.

At one point Buzz managed to make an escape and floated to the top of our 15 foot cathedral ceiling. As Jed so expertly put it, "Buzz is really escaping to infinite and beyond. There is no way to get him down." Keller just kept staring up and saying "Uh-oh Buzz." Luckily, Uh-T (Uncle Tanner) was on hand and he rescued Buzz from the ceiling and saved the day.

Here's a pic of Keller's bday cake.

Before we had cake, Keller opened all his presents. He was slow to get the hang of it at first and I had to help him and show him how to take the paper out, but he soon caught on and it was paper mayhem from that point on!

He got these dinosaurs from Dinosaur Train from my parents. They are so cool! When you push the buttons on their tummies and face them toward each other they talk to each other and interact!

A John Deere tractor from the Fords. He took time out of unwrapping to play with this for a few minutes.

Look at all the cars! We are already dreading stepping on them in the middle of the night!

 Keller quickly got the hang of unwrapping. Of course, once he did get the idea and was really having fun at it, the presents were all over! Luckily enough ( I guess), Christmas is in 2 weeks and he gets to do it all over again.

After presents it was time for cake and ice cream.

Keller even blew out his #2 candle on his cake.

 Usually this kid digs into ice cream, but one of his presents was a Woody and he refused to put Woody down for even a minute, so he completely forwent eating his cake and ice cream and just watched everyone else. Silly boy.

Knowing how much he likes Woody, I -mistakenly- bought a cowboy hat at the party store yesterday, thinking Keller would want one just like Woody. Haha! Yeah right. He hates the thing!

But he loves that Woody.

Another big hit was this stupid pop up play tent that was, of course, Toy Story themed. The directions said it popped up easily and takes shape, and folds away just as easily. Really?! That's why is took 4 people 15 minutes to get the darned thing to stand upright. I didn't get too many pictures of them working on it, but it was so funny!

 However, the fact that it wasn't assembled correctly didn't phase the birthday boy, and he continued to climb in and out, in and out.

 Finally! It was all fixed and working right (Thanks Josh!) and this quickly became Keller's new favorite toy. I think he would probably sleep in it if I would let him. He just sat in the thing and giggled and giggled and giggled.

And somehow he even managed to squeeze his balloons into the tent!

And finally, we are so blessed to have two such great friends in our lives. Josh (the tent fixer) and Heather. We spent far too much time with them, yet we never seem to grow tired of each other.

 I only single them out because they brought their eight-week old daughter Saylor to the birthday party. She was perhaps the biggest hit of the the day, as I think she made the rounds in everyone's arms at least twice. (Well, everyone except Jed. He isn't a fan of holding her because  he knows if he does he is going to get baby fever as bad as me, and he isn't ready for that yet).
Somehow, my dad ended up with her the longest though. He has such a special touch with kids and can't get any baby to fall asleep in his arms.

Keller even loves her and decided at the end of the day to give her a kiss. I missed the kiss but he loves to just go and look at the "BB". Perhaps he'll be ready for a sibling soon.

All in all, it was a pretty fun, even if exhausting day. It's hard to believe our little buddy is going to be two on Wednesday. He is at such a fun age, and I marvel at all the wonderful things he learns each day.