Happy birthday Carter!

Wow.  Monkey boy is 2.  It does not seem possible, that two years ago, I gave birth to a beautiful 7 pound 15 oz boy that was 21 inches long.  I look at him now, and it amazes me the sheer amount of growth that has taken place the last two short years.  He has the happiest personality; everyone is a friend to him.  Even if it is just an older lady in the grocery store, he will walk right up and say hi and act as if he has known her his entire life.  That is partially where he has acquired the nickname "The Mayor."  He certainly has my stubbornness.  He will not try anything until he is good and ready.  This means, that even though I know he is able to use the pedals on his bike, he will not do it until he feels like it.  And for him that meant on his second birthday.  He is just so full of life, that he makes everything better just by giving a smile.  Then when he wakes up in the morning yelling "I awake!" it starts the day off on a fantastic note.  Sure, some of his personality traits can get him in trouble sometimes.  Such as, stomping his foot and telling me no, or being so social he cannot even sit down for a book in story time.  But, I honestly would not trade any part of my monkey boy for anything.  Oh!  I almost forgot!  The monkey boy comes from the fact that he will hang off anything and climb anything in sight.  Even the 10 foot high cargo net at the park.

So to celebrate his birthday, we had a face time chat with Auntie Jess and Uncle Josh Friday night, where they were able to sing to him with us.  I also had every intention to take him to Kent Falls like I did last year, but both boys told me no.  They wanted Rockwell Park...and specifically the skate park.  I did not realize how much Carter was learning through observation...he made me double over laughing as he tried to jump his tricycle on the skate park.  Pierce had a blast showing Carter how to go down the big ramps...and I wonder why I am starting to have gray hair.

The next day, in true Carter fashion, we had a HUGE party with friends and family.  It was a camping theme party, so we had play tents set up in the yard with camping chairs.  Instead of a fire pit, we had a sand pit that had 80 pounds of sand to sit in and play with.  We also had the outside toys being used, with wiffle bat games and frisbee being played.  Dan made pulled pork sandwiches and freshly made hamburgers.  For desert I had made a chocolate pudding cake with whipped chocolate frosting.  I also melted down candy so I could make flames in the center of the cake, to represent a camp fire.  We also had an angel food cake with whipped topping and fresh fruit, accompanied by frozen smores.  Yum.  Everything that we had was exactly what Carter loves.  The only problem was that he was so busy being The Mayor, he never ate until 8 pm that night.  lol.

Now the nights are getting cooler, and summer is starting to wind down.  Time to focus on school and getting all of the lesson plans done for the month of September.  I almost have our school room the way I want it.  My random trip to Ikea last night with my girlfriend just about finished it up (That store is dangerous.  Cash only next time. )  Most of my posts are pretty soon going to be about my successes and fails were of the day for homeschooling.  It will make a great resource for both my readers and I.  Hope everyone has a great week, and I will try to put up another post this week.  It all depends on how well the lesson plans go.  :)