Happy Birthday Alex!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX!!!!

It's official. As of 10:31 a.m. this morning, I have a two year old. I can't believe how fast time has flown. It seems like we were just celebrating his first birthday and now he's already two! Wow. It seems like when you have kids, time doubles in speed. We had a blast at his birthday party this past weekend. Quite a few people made it to celebrate his big day. So to all of you who came, thanks for coming. It was a ton of fun. Alex got the joy of having his first sleepover here. His three cousins, Lauren, Linsey, and Kate, got to stay the night thanks to my brother-in-law, Ben, trucking them all here. Alex was of course beside himself with joy at the idea of having kids here 24/7. I've never seen him so tired at weekend's end. Anyhow, we celebrated with hot dogs, chips, cake and ice cream (soy ice cream for the kiddos).Now if you see the picture of hot dogs to the right, Did anyone know that boiling a pot 1/2 full of hot dogs would end up looking like this? You can click on it for a bigger image of what it looked like. Punch-bag balloons and noisemakers kept the party alive. There were 8 kids in all here to celebrate and BOY was that a house full of noise. My brother, Jake, brought his twin kids Jamie and Linda. My friend Mandy brought her kid Wesley, and of course with Lauren, Linsey, and Kate plus Abby and Alex of course...that made for a lot of fun. Of course the whole weekend was pretty much a celebration for Alex. On Saturday we woke up and went to the Town Fall Festival. There was a parade and the kids all came away with large sacks of candy. It was fun watching them scramble to catch the massive amounts being chucked at us from the floats and tractors. We then went to my parents house where I took the kids for rides on the horses. Alex of course was much too excited to ride the horse. He would rather play with the kids, so that is what he did. My nieces enjoyed the rides very much though. I even got my brother-in-law to take a quick ride. And then much to my surprise, Josh let my mom lead him around with Alex on one of the horses when I was out taking a quick ride by myself. Then Sunday of course was the big party. After it was all said and done, he came away with a nice size loot of new toys and fun things to keep him busy. His new favorite toy right now is the basketball from Grandma and Grandpa Shaw. But the toy we can't wait to try out is the one from Aunt Mandy. She got him a great big indoor blow-up trampoline. Should be interesting. We're gonna try it out this weekend so hopefully I can post pics of that later.

Alex & Daddy at the parade.

Alex and cousin Kate before bed...I mean before JUMPING on the bed.

Alex opening his best friend the basketball...

Alex examining his new best friend the basketball...

and now Alex throwing his new best friend the basketball and nearly killing Daddy.
(I think basketball needs to be an outside toy.)

All the kiddos enjoying the playroom.

Alex is lookin' cool in his new powerwheel. (Thank you Craigslist)

And Wesley enjoyed helping his buddy Alex open his gifts.

And here we have Lauren and Linda posin' for a pic.

And let's not forget miss Abby who celebrated her 1/2 year birthday on the 11th. She is 6 months old now. Ain't see a cutie?

And before I end the big birthday blog, I'd like to make shout out to my sister-in-law. Two years ago, she drove all the way here to witness the birth of Alex only to find that she would forever be sharing this special day with him. Why are they sharing it you ask? Well, today happens to be her birthday as well so Happy Birthday Heather! I hope it's an awesome one.