Don’t feel any different, not sure what people get so freaked out about.  Granted, I didn’t like that grey eye brow hair the other day, but I took care of that.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Had a good evening with Kate and Stacey and was also joined by my parents-in-law and Sarah.  Elijah was upset when he had to go to bed at 9, he thought we were partying big time.  I guess he called it right… Chinese food, Mountain Dew, cheesecake, movies, and good family and friends, that is a party.

And now, my friends, ’tis time for bed.  Busy day tomorrow.

My parents had already given K her birthday presents the week before (she’s wearing part of it in the pictures) so on the day of her birthday, we just spent some time with Steve’s family.  Nothing real exciting, just dinner and cake and some presents.  Of course, K doesn’t know yet what a birthday is, but she’s enjoying the new toys.  I still haven’t given her all the gifts we had for her, Steve says she has enough, save them.  One of them, though, was a set of 101 pieces of play food which she’s been playing with quite regularly since.  She really likes the oranges and apples – she loves round things – and these green things that look like leeks or onions or even celery with the leafies chopped off – only she thinks they are hair brushes.  It’s quite funny, she’s even brushed my hair a couple of times.  I had to pull out the 3 plastic round buttery crackers though – the first time she found them she kept trying to take a bite and ended up looking upset and confused.  So I traded them for real crackers and she’s forgotten about them.

The day after her birthday was her 2 year check-up with the pediatrician.  She is 20 lbs 14 oz and 32.5″ tall.  That puts her at the 25th and 20th percentile, respectively.  I think that’s pretty good.  Her doctor’s goal for her was 20 lbs by 2 years.  She made it!  I think she would have been heavier if we hadn’t all had the “stomach flu” – I know she lost weight on that, she was close to being dehydrated, but thankfully we beat it.  The doctor says she doesn’t need to have another check-up until she’s 3 years old.  Our other doctors have dropped off, too.  Urologist wants her to have another ultrasound in the fall, but he will be the most-often seen until her urinary reflux clears up.  However, she’s going to have an evaluation in May with Occupational Therapy (for her refusal to eat anything non-cereal-or-cracker-like) and in June with Speech Therapy (for not talking, of course).  The doctor asked if I thought she understands what I say… the answer to that is a resounding YES.  I know she does.  I can see it in her face and the way she responds as well as the way she sometimes tries to test, and yes, even trick me.

So that’s where we stand with Thing Two right now.  Happy Birthday, sweet little girl.

For the last several years, I’ve had this irrational and unfounded fear I wouldn’t live to be 29. Long story. But I made it.

Steve took me out today for a late lunch. It was really nice especially when considering I wasn’t making a big deal out of anything and wasn’t planning on doing anything. My week’s been so busy, I was actually planning on just staying home. We ate Italian and it was, oh, so good, then went around to a few stores including one where we finally got my boys some new dress shirts for the wedding next month. Matching shirts, actually. Different ties, though. Not quite the colors I would have liked, but Steve is actually very picky! The pastel green that he has worn before… he’s only done that under duress.

And at current count there are no less than 80 wall posts from 80 friends wishing me a happy birthday on Facebook. Just really nice to know that people care enough to take even just a little bit of time out of their day…

There were a few people missing but most were able to make it and we had a nice evening of pizza, presents, cake and ice cream. Elijah picked out his cake months in advance and was really excited about it. Blue and orange with a big Star Wars picture. Steve pointed out that it was “dark” – aka, the Dark Side – but I can’t help it if the kid loves Darth Vader! For his piece he just had to have Darth Vader’s face and for her piece, my niece just had to have “people,” so she got two storm troopers. The little things make them happy. :)

From us, he got all 5 of the Star Wars movies that he was lacking, on DVD. Sounds expensive but I made out like a bandit, as they say. I was able to get Episode I on amazon.com used for next to nothing and I had credits on swapadvd.com to get Episode III for nothing. Episodes IV, V, and VI are a box set but it was cheaper because it doesn’t have the added stuff that they put in later, and the cases are those thin small ones. Who cares as long as the DVDs play, right?

From me he also got a Spiderman blanket. He picked out the pattern several months ago, I guess he was a little left out that I was making blankets for K and for other babies. But then again, even though he’s never carried a “blankie” in the traditional sense, this kid loves his blankets. He has been known to pile them on at night. Often I pull some off when I check on him. He likes to bring them out to watch TV with, too, sometimes even in the summer. So I thought this would be a good one for that. I’m still not finished, though, I am going to go until I run out of yarn. I started with a pound of each in red and blue. I just ran out of time before his party.

Then from his aunts, uncles, grandparents, and a special set of family friends, he ended up with some birthday money, 3 of the “regular” Transformer toys*, two large Transformer toys that don’t transform but make a lot of noise, temporary tattoos, adorable set of PJs, a Nerf dart gun, another bubble gun (he keeps breaking them and my sister keeps buying them!), etc. It’s hard for me, at the moment, to even remember everything. It doesn’t help that he absolutely TEARS through his presents until they’re all open, and then shows just how excited he is about all of them. I’m going to have to stop taking video of him opening presents because he looks like he’s only mildly entertained by everything and just wants to move on to the next thing. But he is really excited about everything he got (except the PJs, of course), he just doesn’t show it until later when he can play with things. Even now, several days later, he’s still jabbering about everything.

* Regarding the Transformers, he actually ended up with two of the same one. Because of the way he tears through presents, I didn’t realize it at the time and by the time I did, they were all open and the packaging long gone in the trash. I made a comment to Steve that we should have paid attention so that we could have exchanged one for another one he doesn’t have and E said, “No! I like them both!” And it’s true, I’ve noticed that he is playing with them both, doesn’t seem to bother him that they’re the same bad guy!

It turned out to be a great evening and I’d like to do it more, but I don’t want people to have to feel like they have to buy him something every year. His grandparents always get him something, and so do we, my brother often does, but, really, I don’t want to spoil the kid! We will just have to find other excuses of having both families together in the future.

However, we had a good day. My father-in-law and I made hamburgers and he grilled them up, they were yummy. When my mother-in-law ran out to the store, I had her grab a red velvet cake from the grocery store. I got some raised eyebrows at that one but, really, it was too hot to run the oven, I was too busy to make a cake from scratch, and really, it was pretty darn good, who cares if a bakery made it? So K had her little “1″ candle in the little red velvet cake and we carted it all outside since it was cooler out there and the lighting better. I gave her a little taste of icing, she shuddered and spit it out. That was the end of that.

So, welcome to one year, K. I can hardly believe it’s been that long. (And hopefully Daddy will be finished with the roof SOON.)

Tonight, though, we all went out for a sit-down dinner and then we drove around a bit looking for nature (and did find 5 deer), then to the store for Elijah to spend his $30. He has more money than that but the rest is in coins so we left it for another day. He’s been filling this can in the hopes of going on a shopping spree.

So he chose this motorized backhoe thing and a Mater Lego set.

Which brings me to my next point.

I. Hate. How. They. Package. Toys.

Can’t they just put stuff in a box anymore? I’ll even deal with Styrofoam if I have to. Best, yet, for something like this, though, would be the thing unboxed, unpackaged with a price tag attached!

I mean, first I had to rip open the box — that took a good amount of time right there. Then I had to wrangle the toy out of the box where it was still attached to cardboard. I then had to remove two heavy duty twisty tie things, a zip tie, and actually remove twelve — TWELVE! — screws from six — SIX! — extra plastic pieces to get the stupid thing off of that cardboard and get it to operational status! Then there was the cardboard guy who was sitting inside the cab with a piece hanging out stating that most figures of such and such size could sit in there. Even that was a pain to get out.

Through it all, however, and oh, very surprisingly, Elijah stood there patiently, looking all melt your heart cute.

The Legos though? He opened that box, Steve helped him with the plastic bags, then Elijah had it all put together by looking at the picture of the box, all before I had a chance to even enter the room.

Well it could have been worse, I guess. Elijah could have been two years old again, screaming the whole time that he wanted the toy that was taking Mommy 30 minutes to remove from the packaging…

And now, for random purposes none other than the fact that I adore the frogs, here are some scrapbooking pages I did yesterday:

The end!