Happy Birfday Anders!

Yesterday was a very overwhelming day. My baby officially became a big boy and turned two. I was so surprised and pleased to see how much he really understood that it was his birthday. It made me so happy to see him be able to take it all in. All day, all we heard was "Anders' birfday." We started out the day by taking him on a special shopping trip to pick out a present with the money Grandma Larsen gave him. He is so proud of his red football. Ideally, he would have come right home and taken a nap. Since it's conveniently fall break for Daddy, Anders was especially difficult to convince that he would be taking a nap. After a couple hours of "Super Nanny" techniques, we finally succeeded! I started frosting the cupcakes for the party later that night (obviously not early enough because Anders woke up halfway through it). He was so excited to see his "birfday cakes" and kept saying, "hold one, Mom?" It broke my heart to tell him no because I knew that he really didn't want to just "hold one." He also remembered that we told him that after his nap, we'd go to his birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese (which could have been part of our nap time problem). Right when he woke up, he was pumped to go to the party at "Choo Choo Chesse." Here are a couple of pictures of Anders enjoying the gifts he got from his party guests and also some pictures of our rockin' family party at Chuck-E-Cheese!

A once-in-a-lifetime picture. He somehow gained enough courage to actually touch the mouse!

Finally getting to eat his "birfday cakes."

Ryder, prending to eat a cupcake when an adult was looking. When we weren't looking, he was actually taking the candy off all of the cupcakes. What a stinker!

Showdown between Anders and Ryder. We realize that we'll be reminding Anders his whole life, "it's doesn't matter if you win or lose..." when he's playing against Ryder.

Of course, Anders is saying, "hoo ha boy." If you've been following our blog, you'd know that he actually means "yee ha, Cowboy!"

Well, Chuck-E-Cheese was exactly what we expected. Even though it has only been open for a few weeks, it draws the same crowds as any other Chuck-E-Cheese would (if you know what I mean). However, there were about 15 times as many people there! I thought we'd waited long enough for the crowds to die down. Boy, was I wrong! Anders didn't seem to mind! Oh, did I mention that I was struggling with the flu the whole day?? That definitley added to my Chuck-E-Cheese experience.