Mr. Trouble on Feet Turns Two!

Breakfast in the bathtub (muffins!) started out a little bit rough, with some squabbling about who would sit where and when and I’m not sure what else.  The Banana was not happy, even though people offered to make room for her.  Eventually with a bit of persuading she did join in, though.

YaYa was off to the side not only because that is her usual place for breakfast in the bathtub, but also because she broke her clavicle in North Dakota and it is recovering.  During the day she wears a sling, but we hadn’t put it on for the day yet, and we wanted to make sure she didn’t get bumped.

There were bunny ears, of course.

Grandma Kathy is visiting, and hopped in for a bit too, after YaYa had vacated her spot.

We decorated the deck with our usual birthday bunting, Mr. TOF’s birthday flag, and this spectacular number 2 that YaYa made for the party.  She was unable to draw or write anything because of course, it was her right clavicle that was broken and her right arm that is immobile, and she is most definitely right handed.  But, she could glue up a storm!  The 2 is a “toucan.”  I thought it was clever of my bird loving girl.

Mr. Trouble on Feet spent the day in excellent spirits for the most part, but there were a few “moments” like this one, when he started using the markers to draw on furniture and they were removed and put behind that door right at the top of the stairs.  Despair!

Mr. TOF could ride forward facing in the car for the first time ever!  He wasn’t mad about being turned around on his first car ride facing the front windshield, but he was very angry about not being able to drive the van.

Mr. Sneaky Pants spent the morning creating this wonderful picture to gift to his toddler brother.  Mr. TOF has become obsessed with Cookie Monster.  His exuberant signing of “Cookie Monster” is the most endearing thing ever, and we all just love it.  Mr. Sneaky Pants decided to draw a gigantic helicopter painted like a cookie with Cookie Monster at the controls.  Mr. TOF also LOVES helicopters.

I spent the middle of the day baking and constructing this cake from Smitten Kitchen.  The day previous I spent a ridiculously long period of time searching the internet for the perfect summer birthday cake that would complicated enough to warrant the use of my brand new stand mixer (more about that soon) and simple enough to actually turn out, and did not involve any cake decorating tubes.  This cake turned out to meet all of my criteria, and it tasted good too!  The big kids were very excited about it when I showed them a picture of what I was making, and even more impressed that the cake actually looked like the picture when I was finished.  They are more than acquainted with my cake-making disasters of the past.

Isn’t he adorable?  I could just eat him up when he’s not throwing a two-year-old fit!

After nap, the big kidlets were crazy impatient to watch Mr. Trouble on Feet open his presents, so tear open we did.  We had picked this Cookie Monster out for him (no noise!  Just a plain stuffed animal!) and he LOVED it!  He pulled it out of the bag and started signing “Cookie Monster” as fast as his hands could fly, and then he took it all around the living room yelling, “NOM NOM NOM!” and letting Cookie Monster “eat” everything he saw:  the carpet, the chair, people’s feet, the piano.  Really, I was surprised that he liked all the presents:  a tractor from grandma, the rainbow stacking blocks, a tiny airplane from The Banana, books, pajamas.  He was excited about it all.  But he was even more excited to use the wrapping paper to decorate YaYa.  And I LOVED that, because it was the perfect thing for a two year old to be excited about.

He didn’t like that the smoke from the candle was blowing in his face.

Actually, he was not so impressed with that fancy cake, even though I thought he might go for it because of the strawberries.  He usually loves strawberries.  He spent a lot of time squishing it and rubbing the whipped cream on someone else’s chair.

The grown ups involved liked the cake, though.

After a bath, he spent the last few minutes before bed helping Dad drive the remote control helicopter.  He loves the remote control helicopter, and since we have  . . . ahem . . . a few remote control helicopters around here, Dr. Peds gave him the controls for a different helicopter that was charging at the time.  Mr. TOF loves to feel like he’s helping to do the driving.