HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK!!!! Part 3

Very much like mama - Jack likes to celebrate his birthday in a lot of parts. I often refer to it as my birthweek rather then my birthday (December 10 - only 193 shopping days left!).

So after we got home from work we ordered Jack a nice birthday pizza. After birthday pizza we opened gifts (Jack calls gifts "surprises". Actuallly he call them "another surprise please". He may be greedy but at least he's polite.) Daddy got him a crane:

(Holding this space for a picture - I know I have one but I can't seem to find it!)


And a tank:


Yes that's right a TANK. It's motorized, has lights that flash and when you push one of the buttons it shakes and says "We're taking fire!". What a cute gift for a 2 year old, no? Shoot 'em up Jack, shoot 'em up. Jack has been informed that the tank shoots out rainbows and sunshine. Mama never would have made it in the Army. His Daddy did make it in the Army and was a tank guy (I know I am saying that wrong) when he was in. He drove them ... fired them ... fixed them .. even lived on them in the field for rather long stretches of time. Jack's play tank has a little door on the top where the driver would go. If you open it up and say "what goes in there?" he'll answer "Daddy!". It's quite adorable.

Mommy got Jack a "Bob the Builder" dvd. Jack calls him "Bob Builders". I'm pretty sure he thinks that is his last name. I also got him a motorized Catapillar bulldozer. He ended up getting every motorized Catapillar truck that they make. Odd thing is that they only make 4 of them .. and he got all 4. No duplicates. One frome me and 3 from friends at his birthday party. He LOVES them. We have a whole construction site going in the family room. Sometimes Jack whistles and shouts out "Hey chickee bay-beeeee" when I walk by.




After surprises it was cake time.



We sang ... he blew out the candle .. I tried to get him to eat the cupcake (even did a little cupcake eating demo for him. The sacrifices I make for this kid!)... he shouted "NO thank you. Sing AGAIN. Sing again PEASE". So we stuck the candle bakc in the cake and sing AGAIN we did...



Tried to get him to eat the cupcake again. No dice. He just wanted us to sing. And sing again we did. Three more times. I finally had to eat the cupcake myself to make it stop. Sacrifices!

After that it was birthday bedtime. But the birthday was far from over. Next up - the family/friends party!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK!!!! Intermezzo.

Guess who's back????

It's TAD the yearly birthday frog! Or as Tad prefers to be called, "the artist formerly known as the monthly birthday frog"

Oh how we've missed him so.



No, Tad has not taken any recent trips thru the dryer. The child really is as big as he appears! Before we know it these two will be headed off to college. "Tad the weekly keg party frog" had quite a ring to it, no?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK!!!! Part 2

After the festivities at home this morning Jack and I (his daddy had meetings to attend this morning) met Mima and PopPop at Silver Diner for a birthday breakfast. He insisted on bringing his truck balloon both in the car:



and in the diner:



He's just SO proud of that thing.

He also insisted on sitting in the booth like a big boy! Up until now he has always used a highchair. Out of nowhere today he suddenly freaks out about sitting in the high chair - and proceeds to sit in the booth with no problem at all for the duration of the meal. He's all "MOM! I'm TWO ferchrissakes! High chairs are SO zero to twenty-four months!".



Tonight we'll be dining on pizza for dinner - Jack's favorite. I also made some funfetti cupcakes for dessert. Everytime we've brought up Jack's birthday in the past week Jack will say "Have cake??". I have a pretty good feeling he's not going to eat it (he's not a huge fan of sweets) but hey - that just means more for big mama.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK!!!!

What a birthday it has been already!

Here is what Jack saw when he first woke up..



I hear him laughing and calling my name so I go in to get him out of the crib. I'm promptly greeted with a big birthday boy smile and a shout of "MAMA!". I, of course, launch into a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday". Smile disappears. Jack looks at me like I am a monster with three heads and immediately starts crying. American Idol - here I come!

Once I stopped singing he calmed down and we went into "daddy's bed" (yes it is my bed too - but Jack insists on calling it daddy's bed) for milk and a few more surprises!









LOVED the balloons. Wasn't such fan of the donut. He ripped off one piece, fed it to his daddy, then wanted nothing more to do with it. Odd as that is the exact same donut he eats everytime we shop at the grocery store. Guess he doesn't like it unless he is at the grocery store riding around in the "cool car" cart. He's so particular this kid! NO idea where he gets that from (says the girl who had to SEE butter in every single square of her breakfast waffle when she was little or she refused to eat it.)

I also scattered more balloons and "Happy Birthday Jack" signs all around the house.

As you can see below, he did this with every balloon he found. He'd look through it and then say "Oh mama - it's dark! It's night time!".







He's the cutest balloon head EVER!

More to come ....

Happy Spring!

Okay long story - but a few weeks ago Jack decided that he really does NOT like school after all. And while we know that eventually he will have to go and eventually he would get "used to it" that time is not now. We liked the idea of the place and like the idea of the socialization - but when it comes down to it our little man is just about the sweetest, smartest, most social little almost-2-year-old on the planet! And if he's not enjoying school right now then we see no reason to force him to go. If we were in a situation where that was our only option, well then it would be different. But luckily we have another option called "Mima". She was of course more then willing to accept the little trouble maker back into her home full time - so we made the decision to ditch school, or as Jack now calls it "NO school, okay? NO school please. NO thank you school. Okay?".



I've made a new years resolution (No I'm not late - I'm following my work's fiscal year that starts in May!) to try to get back to posting in the blog at least on a weekly basis. I'm gong to start with the great back log of pictures I have that have been accumulating since, oh I don't know, CHRISTMAS! Hopefully within a month or two we'll get back to real time.

Here is Jack, Mama (appearing here as a drunken linebacker. WHY do I look so wide!) and jolly old Saint Nick. I apparently thought Santa was HIL-arious. Jack - not so impressed.



Fast forward to Spring (don't you wish January, February and March really went by that fast?) and here is Jack and the Bunny! I didn't take Jack to the mall this year as the Easter Bunny was scheduled to make a school visit. Here they are when the bunny first walked into the classroom. At first glance it would appear that young JGif is being a bit stand-offish. What you can't see is the rest of his class cowering in the corner crying. Jack took it upon himself to do some introductions ("HI BOO-ney. I Jack!") and make the bunny (er, BOO-ney) feel welcome.



After that we all went outside on the playground for an egg hunt. If you know me then you most likely know that I am a wee bit (understatement of the year) competitive. The second we get out there I'm all "JACK! There is an egg! GO! GO! Show some hustle! Come on boy this isn't nap time!". Jack of course completely ignored me and headed straight for the jungle gym. After about his 5th time down the slide (WOOK mama! I go fast. WEEEE") he finally spotted an egg and picked it up. He then proceeded to walk right over to the Easter Bunny, put the egg in his big bunny paw (Here you go BOO-ney. Thank you!) and then head right back to the slide. Ain't he thoughtful? Whose kid is this? Lucky for him I was there. I filled his basket with eggs myself - somewhat to his teacher's dismay. (sidenote: I swear I didn't body check little Connor. He completely walked into my already jutted out hip. And the boy is three AND big for his age - he should be able to hold his own anyway!)



I'll leave you with that for now. I have some more pictures of our adventures in Jackland from the past few months but they are mostly on my home computer. I'll attempt to get to some of those tonight. Until then I say Adieu.

PS:
JACK G WILL BE 2 TOMORROW!!!!!! I REPEAT - 2 TOMORROW!!
HOW can that be possible???
HOW!
No really - how? Email me.