2 years old!

• Gwynn is an official 2 year old now! When we ask her how old she is she says “Two!” and tries to hold up 2 fingers.

• She loves to sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed.  She will occasionally wake up in the middle of the night and refuse to sleep in her crib.  We have a king-size bed, so it’s not cramped at all with 3 of us in there!
• She is being put in time out more frequently and even in public. We went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and she pulled some towels off the wall and ran away from mommy.  We found a wall and she stood there while we finished looking at what we needed. She knew she was in big trouble and didn’t misbehave again (that trip). 

• Gwynn keeps learning new words. She amazes us everyday with the things she knows!
• She is still in diapers. Now our plan is to have her potty trained before the end of July…we’ll see how that works. 
• She’s becoming more picky about what she eats. She typically wants treats more than real food. She’ll eat fruit at lunch and dinner and then want to skip anything else. She usually asks for a popsicle after all meals. Luckily the popsicles we have are made from apple juice and not much more than just ice so indulging her isn’t going to give her diabetes.
• Gwynn has started leading us around. If she wants to play outside she’ll grab one of our hands and lead us to the door. If she wants a popsicle she’ll walk us to the freezer and put our hand on the freezer door.
• Gwynn is learning to sing along to some classic children’s songs. If we sing the alphabet song and stop at a letter, she’ll usually fill in the letter correctly.
• Her fine motor skills are greatly improving. She’s started using a more appropriate grasp (still not tripod) and she’s even imitating a circle after we draw one. She’ll occasionally imitate horizontal and vertical lines too. We think she’ll be able to write her name by the time she’s two and a half!
• We’ve really started to work on color identification, but right now everything is “Blue!”
• This summer, Gwynn’s been to mommy’s school a lot to “help” get things set up.  She loves to draw on the dry-erase board and jump on the trampoline in mommy’s room. She also loves to run up and down the halls, look at the “fishies” and play with the water fountain.

Fourth of July

As is our normal routine we went to Grammy’s house for the 4th of July. We eat, swim, and then head out to watch fireworks. This year it was rainy and cold so we didn’t get to swim. :-(

Talkin’ about fuel injectors and grillin’ meat.

Discussing French braids and kittens.

Uh oh, she’s on to me.

Luke will happily sit with just about anyone as long as he’s getting fed.

Gwynn eating a cookie – sprinkles first.

Nom nom nom!

“What…was that impolite?”

Aunt Sherry would have been fixing Luke’s hair if he had any.

(notice the bag of food)

Luke loves riding on daddy’s shoulders. Daddy is worried he’ll forget about Luke and go under a doorway.

It wouldn’t be a party without Disney Jr.

Luke fell asleep before the fireworks went off so mommy took the opportunity to eat some homemade ice cream.

Gwynn also fell asleep before the show, but that didn’t last long.

I’m not sure if it was the sound of the fireworks or the smell of food that woke him up.

We got a bit of drizzle right before the show started.

Luke was very interested in the show when it began.

Gwynn loved it!

Gwynn kept pointing at the fireworks and saying, “Whoa!”

Uh oh, a little too much for Mr. Luke.

Fun times.

Making cookies

We were going to Grammy’s for the 4th of July so we decided to make some cookies to take with us! Mommy went all out and bought the “break and bake” kind…we’ll make some homemade cookies with Gwynn one day.

Even though all she had to do was put them on the cookie sheet, Gwynn loved it!

She loved watching them bake too!

Luke was patiently waiting to test the cookies when they came out of the oven.

Time for sprinkles!

The finished product.

Gwynn thought they were delicious.

Isn’t he cute?

Gwynn’s 2nd Birthday Party

Gwynn turns 2 on July 5th, but since that date would conflict with the 4th we decided to move her party up a week. It was Mickey Mouse themed because that’s Gwynn’s favorite show.

Mommy spared no expense.

The spread.

The Cake.

The dessert area.

The “Minnie Bar.”

Quite the spread huh?

Best dip around.

Courtesy of Jersey Mike’s.

Handmade utensil thingamijiggers.

Party favors. Daddy does not approve of the idea of party favors. The character names are pretty cool though.

They sell Mickey shaped cheese, but don’t tell anyone. We’d prefer they think these were cut by hand.

Pluto’s Punch*

*pure grain alcohol with food dye

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog!

We even got a bounce house. The kiddos loved it.

Emerson enjoyed himself since he loves Mickey too.

Emerson thinking about heading into the bounce house.

Just some of the party goers. Notice Evie is feeding Gwynn a cookie.

Some of Gwynn’s schwag. She made out like a bandit.

Mickey themed entertainment on the TV for when people came in from the heat.

Another view of the party.

Mickey ears for everyone!

Disney ears even for an anti-Disneyite.

Cornhole was the game du jour.

Daddy demonstrating proper form.

Uncle Jeremy needs to work on keeping his arm straight.

Time for presents!

Kate and Evie helped out.

Kate was the most gung ho about the presents.

Luke was not impressed.

More goodies.

Gwynn got a doll house and lots of things to go in it which she loved.

Time for cake.

Can’t  forget the ice cream.

Grandma was the official cake-giver-outer.

Gwynn sat in Grammy’s lap for her cake and ice cream.

Emerson liked the ice cream.

After eating as much food as possible the only reasonable thing to do is go inside a hot bounce house and jump around, amiright?

Grace loved it!

A circle full of silly girls.

Gwynn made some trips into the house, but not this time.

Posin’…

Gwynn passed out pretty good after eating her cake and ice cream.

Once she woke up and got a change of clothes she got her second wind.

Grandma reading Gwynn one of her new books.

All in all it was a lot fun. Next year probably will be a bit scaled down though…Mommy went a little overboard.

Thank you to all of our friends and family that shared in Gwynn’s birthday with us…we had a great time with all of you!!