The day your youngest child turns two, is usually about the same time that you realize that he’s getting too grown up. When I look at these pictures I know that they are becoming some of the last ones I will have where he still looks like my little baby, and not a little boy. Ryan is growing up so fast, I feel like I can hardly get a grasp on the last year of his life. His cute little personality shines through more and more each day. He is full of the funniest facial expressions, and is constantly cracking us up at the dinner table as he copies every ones mannerisms. I don’t think he knew what to think of today, when ALL the attention was on him.
During his time at preschool this morning, I had picked up a bunch of colorful balloons, and hid them in the piano room until tonight. While he was napping, Scott helped me decorate the cake, and get the table and presents all ready for him. After his nap, I brought him down to surprise him, and he was in heaven. He was completely taken by the whole balloon thing the rest of the night. I asked if I could take some pictures of him, and he immediately climbed up on the chair and started grinning for me. Pretty sure I was in mom heaven at that point. He would go anywhere I asked him to as long as he could hold, or at least see the balloons.
His birthday book for this year was called, Press Here by Herve Tullet. It is a super cute interactive book about dots, and became the theme for our birthday party. He loved his dot cake, and he was about as mesmerized by it as the balloons. He kept trying to sneak little licks of the frosting while I wasn’t looking, and would say,”Cake” over and over again to whomever would come into the room.
His little cheeser grin for me. This picture is SO Ryan!
The little girls call this his “swoopy hair” phase, and think it’s so cute. I am thinking I kind of like it too. I might have to grow the sides out again so it just curls out at the ends instead of getting all afro like on top. The only bad part-he looks so grown up to me.=(
Ryan wanted to just sit and hold the balloons until everyone got home from school and work. He kept looking up to make sure that they were still there. It kind of made me wonder if this was the first time he had even seen balloons before. We always see them at the checkout line at various stores, and he is the first to point them out to us-I guess I had just assumed he had seen and felt them up close before. Two years old and never seen helium balloons before!-I’m kind of feeling like a loser mom now.
After I had indulged myself in enough pictures, we untied them, and let him play with them for as long as he wanted. I seriously think I could have just bought a room full of balloons, and watched the smiles from him ALL night long. I’m pretty sure balloons equals pure joy in a little boys world. He was fascinated that he could let them go and they would float up to the ceiling, and then he could yank down the strings and do it all over again.
I think this look came when one of the bigger kids opened up a balloon and started sucking in helium and talking funny. I don’t know if he was more surprised by their funny voices, or completely shocked that they were taking his balloons and making them disappear before his very eyes. We decided we’d better wait until the next day to deflate anymore of his precious balloons. Or at least until he was in bed for the night and out of sight.
Ryan was really excited to blow out his candles on his cake. I think he must remember some of the kids birthdays from this summer, because even before now he was obsessed with climbing up on the island and getting the striped candles out of the silverware drawer and blowing on them. When we lit them, he got a little excited and blew them out before we could start singing the Happy Birthday song.
Luckily, he has a great older sister who acted as candle protector for us as we gave it another shot. Unfortunately, even Brooke couldn’t hold back that excited two year old breath…
…and in the end we opted to just finish out the song with no candles. I think he was just as pleased with hearing the song being sung to him again and again. When dad and mom and all of your big brothers and sisters sing to you at once-you feel like a pretty special boy.
When your birthday in this next day, you get to be the guest of honor and help to open presents for your younger brother. Even more fun when you know what the present is, and can build up the excitement for him.
Ryan is always sneaking away Austin’s soccer ball, so we found a little size one for him to kick around now.
After presents we HAD to have cake. Those little boy fingers were just too anxious to have some..
…and then took a night time walk on his other present-a new big boy tricycle that can also be pushed by dad. He was not about to leave those balloons behind with the big kids, so we took them for a walk too, and then let one of them go and watched it float into the sky as we wished one last birthday wish.
I think I wished that he would stop growing up so fast on me this next year…
…I think his wish was that we hadn’t let the balloon go and it would come back. =)
Happy Birthday Ryan! We love you!
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