Toddlerhood begins!

Okay, so The Captain has been 2 for awhile, but it's never too late to share pictures. (And some things we love about him.) The poor kid got sick right after we got back from our trip to Utah, hence the pjs in the pictures. This was definitely the happiest he was all week. And this was about the best smile I could get.

The great thing about toddlers is that I could rewrap all the awesome presents that he got in Utah and he totally didn't notice! He rather enjoyed the wrapping paper.

He did get some new toys . . . car books

puzzles

train set

which then was combined with the car books

We had a yummy dinner, which G wasn't really interested in, so we let him eat with special birthday utensils.

And the yummy birthday cake.

The 2's have been really fun so far. G is really good about playing by himself. It only took 2 years for him to not need me around every minute. I know he's only going to need me less and less in up coming years, which is why I still love his spontaneous and frequent hugs. He's learned so many new words recently. Johnny and I are constantly surprised by things he knows. We say a word once, he says it for days afterwards. Some of our favorites are:

-counting, his version is too, fee, eight, nine

-all affirmatives: yes (which has just the slightest of lisps. Very hard to imitate), hooray, otay, and huh huh

-and just recently he has started confusing the 'n' sound at the end of words with a 't', creating such gems as: runt (run), and mite (mine)

-which brings us to one of his favorite things--running. This boy could and has run for hours. Too bad he's also very sweaty. We pretty much take a bath every day in the summertime.

He hates getting water dumped on his head, but he does like baths.

He's a very good helper, he picks up many things for me when I drop them, he helps me hang up and take down and sort laundry, he throws things in the garbage, and he listens very well to instructions.

He's very observant and will notice things before I do.

He loves his specific jobs like putting his diapers in the diaper pail, putting his clothes in the laundry, getting down and putting up the scriptures, and turning on the lamp for Family Home Evening. He gets very mad when I try to do them.

And now he's giving himself more jobs like putting away the clean silverware and putting silverware on the table for meals.

He loves helping to cook, especially dumping.

And he's a great napper and sleeper (most nights).

He's been so good I'm a little scared to have another. But at least he'll be a good big brother.