Birthday Boy

It's hard to believe that Spencer is 2!!!!!!!! We had a great time celebrating with all my siblings who are in town, Kevin making it back just in time to join us. We've certainly hit the "terrible twos" but I can't imagine life without our happy, talkative, energetic, precious son. It melts my heart when I see him folding his arms for prayer or when he says "Thanks, Mommy" when I hand him something he's asked for, and all the tantrums and power struggles don't seem quite so bad anymore. Thanks everyone who joined in our celebration and for being so good to us and our little family!

He was getting pretty zoned so I didn't get any good smiles, but he really did have fun with everyone and loved his fun new toys.

Spencer was more interested in playing with the party hats than wearing them, but Neil made up for it by putting on a few extra ones.

For Spencer's first birthday I broke all American tradition and fun and did not make him a birthday cake. My main motivation was that I didn't want him to have all that sugar, and though we still keep desserts to a minimum for him, I decided to be a good sport and make him a cake this year. I decided on carrot cake, because it sounded delicious to me and I could at least feel good about there being some good stuff in it along with the sugar. I even attempted to make it look cute by cutting it and frosting it like a bunny, as you can see. Well, all my guilt for not having a cake last year melted away when Spencer didn't even try the cake. All he wanted was ice cream. But for posterity's sake he'll at least have a picture with a good-0ld-fashioned birthday cake, even if he's not smiling.