Happy Birthday, Nathan!

I am going to try to not cry as I type this: my little baby is now officially two years old. I don't know how it happened. I do know that two years ago today, this little creature made me a mommy and nothing will ever be the same now. And that every day I love him more.

I love him, and I like him. Everyone should be so blessed to feel this way about their kids.

We spent Nathan's birthday in the most low-key way possible. We went to church in the morning, then Nathan spent the afternoon napping while Mark and I worked a little bit in our new "office" downstairs, then we opened a few presents and had some dinner and birthday cake.

Besides the rockin' awesome Thomas birthday balloon I got for him yesterday (doesn't take anything fancy to please a two-year-old, I promise!), Nathan also got a new truck to play with (thanks Grandma!), and spent most of the evening unable to part from it -- it's a car carrier. Yes, it's a truck that holds cars. He was kind of beside himself, as you can imagine. And as you can see in this picture (that's the face he makes when he says oooooh it's a big truck; I'm so glad Mark got it on camera, even if it wasn't intentional! this face has become one of Nathan's funny everyday moments). He had a ball loading his cars and trucks and yes -- trains! -- into his new car carrier.

Nathan also got an assortment of non-toy gifts (we really try to keep the toys to a minimum, though we know it will get harder and harder as he gets older) including money for savings. Our families are so generous with our little boy!

Anyway the whole day was much less eventful than last year's celebration (no black eyes!), and overall a very pleasant and stress-free day.

And I am proud to say that this year's giant cupcake also worked out much better than last year's version. I wanted to make it into a colorful rainbow cake, but I didn't have a lot of confidence. Well, it turns out I did fine. I used gel colors and a sour cream/cake-mix recipe (for a thicker batter so the different colored batter wouldn't run together), and then bought icing in a can for easier decorating (I wanted it to actually look like a cupcake, not just a mound, and it worked... and I will never go back to regular icing) and I think it looks really neat!
For more pictures of Nathan's birthday (including photographic evidence that I'm really the one who made this cake!), click on the birthday boy, below.

by mgoetts