Aiden turns 2!

On March 14, Aiden turned 2!  My baby is 2.  Lately, he's been obsessed with Mickey Mouse so I naturally did a Mickey Mouse themed birthday party.

Fondant is no joke.

 Unfortunately, Aiden has decided he doesn't have to smile everytime I tell him to.

 We told him he had to wait until the party to open presents, and wait he did.

It ended up being a small party between my mom, Karolyn and Jon's parents but it also was really nice to be so low key.  Aiden had a great time playing with all of his new toys.

At the age of 2, Aiden is:

-Counting to 11(after that he starts over around 2)

-Talking in little sentences like, "I don't like that(a favorite at meal time)", or "cuddle me mom!(love hearing that)", "I love you", etc.  It's hard to think of individual sentences because really he's just good at communicating what he wants.  He doesn't only have a couple of phrases he says and everyday, it seems, he's expanding his sentences.  

-Loves Mickey Mouse and Jake the Pirate or anything that Patrick has

-Has started trying to dress and undress himself

-Loves to sing

-Loves, loves, loves books

-Loves puzzles

-Loves being outside

-Knows most of his colors pretty well.  Not sure where he learned them from(most likely his brother) but one day he started saying things like, "I want the blue one!" It kind of shocked me.

-Loves learning about the letters, although I can't say he can name any on his own yet.

-My little cuddle buddy

I love this little man.  And love doesn't even fully describe how we feel about him.    I know that Aiden needs us but honestly, I think I need Aiden more. I really can't even explain what it is about him(besides the fact that he's sweet and adorable), but something about him just brings a peace to our family and,as cheezy as it sounds, he calms my soul.  

I would be lost without this little angel in our lives.  We love you, Aiden.

Hello blog...sorry to have neglected you.

So, it's been awhile and I almost don't know where to start.  I'll just jump right in and post every random picture I have.

Making forts is always a fun time at our house.  Especially for Patrick.

Aiden steals my camera on a daily basis and I frequently find pictures like this.  I have to delete a lot but really I love finding little videos he made or pictures he took.

We moved Aiden into a big boy bed(which at the time was just a mattress) because he was crawling out of his crib anyway and he always wanted to join Patrick in his bed.  He didn't transition as well as Patrick did, but now that we've been him his own actual bed, he sleeps great.

Puzzles, puzzles and more puzzles.  These boys are obsessed.

A little pinata fun at a cousin's birthday party.  Grandpa was trying to tell Aiden how to hit, and Aiden just looked around, saw everyone staring at him, dropped the stick and ran over to me.  Public attention is not quite his thing.

Also, Easter happened. :)  Really, it was a great weekend and there were some talks that completely hit home to me and were exactly what I needed to hear.  I would elaborate more, but I have a lot more to blog about so my personal journal gets to have all my thoughts instead.  This blog just gets lots of pictures.

Easter egg painting!  To say the boys loved it would be an understatement.

Patrick was our color master.  He would put one egg in multiple colors and I was pretty amazed at how the colors turned out.

Aiden had a preference for the paint brush.  It was the cutest thing ever to see his concentration in creating the perfect egg.  He's just like his grandpa.

Neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

The grandma Easter bunny(as Patrick says it) gave the boys some huge kites for Easter so between conference sessions, we flew some huge kites.  Unfortunately, the kites were so big that Jon and I could barely control them so our thoughts of the ideal kite flying session didn't quite pan out,but the boys still had fun.  Aiden kept saying to bring his down because he was worried it would fly away and Patrick was more interested in playing with his dragon on the ground...but yeah, they'll grow into them.

And lastly, jello jiggler eggs.  The boys are still really into "helping" so they were pretty excited about helping with this little activity.  Perfect way to start off our Easter holiday with lots of sugar.  I had no idea Aiden was capable of eating so much chocolate.