2nd Birthday Weekend

We had such a fun weekend! Friday afternoon my parents drove up, and managed to get to Kansas City just before Joseph's bed time. He freaked out when he saw them walk through the door, and immediately told Papa to "sit down," grabbed one of his kid-sized Little Tikes chairs for Papa to sit on, and proceeded to play trains. Of course, this meant he didn't get to bed anywhere near on time, but we didn't mind. He was having too much fun playing!

The next morning, Joe and I were getting ready to meet my parents for a train expo, and we realized it was really quiet downstairs. I sent Joe down to make sure Joseph was ok, and this is what he discovered:

 Joseph has figured out how to open the pantry door and pull down the boxes of cereal. Usually he'll just pull the inner bag out of the box, drop the box outside the pantry and wander around the house with his hand in the cereal bag until he tires of that one and heads back to the pantry to grab the next box of cereal. Saturday, we're not sure what happened, but this face tells it all:

He was pretty proud of himself!  Joe got the space cleaned up and Joseph dressed so that we'd be on time to meet my parents at their hotel. The train expo was being held at the American Royal and we didn't know what to expect, except for the promise of lots of various scale trains set up on display and a train for kids to ride.

We were inside for all of two minutes when these two paired off and headed to check things out.

We took in all of the sights, comparing the various train models and looking at lots of booths for stuff for dad's train table.

 They also had a few vendors specializing in kid trains, namely Thomas and Chuggington. Joseph got a huge kick out of those! One vendor was selling Thomas parts and tracks at 20% off, and had a number of open box items, so we picked up a few hard to find track pieces and a couple fun train cars for the birthday boy.

After the show we grabbed a quick lunch, then headed back home to put Joseph down for his nap. While napping, I worked on making his birthday cake. We decided to do a Dumbo themed birthday, since it incorporates the circus train and his love for Dumbo. The downside to doing a non-mainstream Disney birthday, however, is the lack of related birthday items. So he picked out some circus plates and napkins (since they had an elephant on them) and I set out to figure out how to make a Dumbo cake.

I decided to try doing a frozen buttercream transfer, even though I've never attempted anything creative when it comes to cake decorating. Essentially, you take an image, tape it to a cutting board with wax paper over the top, pipe frosting on the outline of the image, and then fill in the image with colored frosting. Then you put a layer of frosting over the entire top of the image that matches your cake frosting color, and freeze. I let it freeze overnight, praying that it would work out.

Turns out, it worked great! My final image doesn't look as good as it did when I peeled the frozen frosting image off the wax paper due to two unforseen issues: 1) the top of my cake wasn't nearly flat enough, so when I tried to press the image into the cake, I managed to smear a bit of color onto Dumbo's face. oops 2) apparently the cake plate top I used was about 1/2 inch too short, so when I put the top on, it pressed into Dumbo's middle. I asked Joe to take pictures early in case it all melted together, and he discovered the issue when Dumbo had a dime sized section of belly left stuck to the cover!

 All in all, I was really pleased with how it turned out. I added some M&Ms as a border around the base to add some color and called it a day.

Saturday evening Ashley, Mikael, Jen and Elliot drove up, and the whole group went out for pizza. We got home late again and rushed to put Joseph to bed so we could set to decorating the house!

 We also hung some balloons outside his bedroom door, and had loose balloons floating around the living room. He's a big fan of balloons!

Sunday morning I got up early to make breakfast. I had seen a delicious looking recipe for Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake online, and decided I had to try it. Joseph still loves blueberries, so I figured it would be a hit. And it was! Of course, he decided to pick the blueberries out and then eat the cake, but it was good to see him dive in and eat it.

While we were getting ready for Mom, Dad, Jill and Gary to head over to the house, I also made some "big top" cupcakes with little flag "J" toppers. I had planned on having cupcakes just in case the cake didn't work out, so we didn't really need them afterall, but hey, you can never have too much cake at a birthday party, right?

Joseph awoke to Joe and me singing him the Happy Birthday song, which he loved. Then he caught sight of the balloons in the hallway and scrambled to be put down so he could check those out. Saturday night Joe put together a mini trampoline Grandpa Joe had sent Joseph for his birthday, and he left it in the middle of the living room. Joseph squealed when he spotted it, ran over and immediately started bouncing. I wish we had decent pictures, but this was the best, least blurry of them all.

 After a few minutes of bouncing, he'd turn around, fall down and catch his breath while laying flat on the trampoline. Then he'd get up and start bouncing all over again! This toy is going to be great for wearing this kid out. :)

We set a loose start time of 11am for the party, and Joseph started opening gifts the minute my parents walked in the door, starting with a circus train set and a motorized James engine.

He was really excited about playing with the new toys, but also realized that there were more wrapped presents on the table and kept asking for more. Then he'd get another present to open. What a great game!

I had remembered to pull out the birthday crown I made for his first birthday, and Saturday evening my mom helped finish sewing his birthday shirt and the number 2 for the crown. We told Joseph he needed to wear the crown to open presents, and he was happy to oblige!

Ashley, Mikael and Jen got Joseph a fun tunnel and pop-up tent that quickly took up about a quarter of the living room. Papa even climbed in the tent to "chase" Joseph down the tunnel.

The next present up was a great chef's hat, apron, marble maze, finger paints and Kool-Aid packets from Aunt Lisa, Uncle Dan and the cousins. Since we'd told Joseph he had to wear his crown to open presents, he wasn't thrilled about wearing the chef's hat, but left the apron on for the rest of the morning!

And for a kid who's never even tried Kool-Aid, he was really excited about those little packets!

Mimi and Papa also got him a bumble bee backpack. The great thing about this bag is the attached kid "leash." Which he hates.

 And the matching rain hood. Which he couldn't figure out.

Mimi and Papa also got him a couple of books and lacing cards.

He's a big fan of reading and loves getting new books. Of course, he quickly found a spot in Papa's lap to check the books out.

I snuck one of our gifts in at this point; a Dumbo book! I was surprised at how difficult it was to find one that had more pictures and less text, but finally found one (in a clearance section, no less!) on Friday morning, just in the nick of time.

Next up was a gift that was almost bigger than him, from Nana and Papa. It took him a while to get all the paper off, but he was thrilled to discover the adjustable height basketball hoop inside!

Joseph recruited Uncle Mikael to put it together and couldn't wait to start shooting hoops. After just one day, he's already figuring out how to chess pass the ball and starting to try actually throwing the ball at the hoop, instead of just running over and dropping it in.

The last gifts before stopping for lunch and cake were a height growth chart, Mega Bloks set and a singing birthday bear, that he absolutely loves.

Check out that face! It sways as it sings, and the light comes on the candle "flame." Apparently he remembered blowing out the lights on the Christmas strands with Joe, as he tried to blow the flame out. We didn't even pay attention to this little clue that he'd get a kick out of the candle on his birthday cake...

We planned a circus style meal, complete with hot dogs, brats, popcorn, animal crackers, pretzels and Cheetos puffs (they're a Joseph favorite and Aunt Ashley approved food). It didn't take long before Joseph spotted the cake on the table, too.

He was so excited about it! And he recognized Dumbo, which made me really happy!

Pulling the cake close to let him try to blow the candle out. It took a few tries, but he got the hang of it.

I opted to give him a sprinkle covered cupcake first, and that's when we realized that one round of the "Happy Birthday" song wasn't going to be enough. His eyes lit up when everyone in the room sang to him, and he'd quickly request more after we finished. I lost count at how many times we sang!

After a few bites of frosting, Joseph pointed to the candle and asked for more. I figured, what the heck, and that started about 10 sessions of lighting the birthday candle and Joseph blowing it out. He couldn't get enough! Joe grabbed the camera and managed to snap this great progression - check out Joseph's expresion in the last picture...

 so proud of himself! I served up the cake, which I'd made as a two layer checkerboard cake to add to the fun. By the time we wrapped up lunch and let Joseph play for a bit longer, it was definitely naptime. He really fought it, but finally crashed once everyone left and the house got quiet.

When the birthday boy woke up an hour and a half later, he was confused about where everyone had gone. Luckily, he had lots of new toys to distract him. We knew he enjoyed himself, but the most rewarding, sweetest thing this little kiddo did to thank us happened as Joe was putting him to bed. Most nights, Joe reads him a few stories and rocks him a little before putting him in his crib. Usually Joseph will rest his head on Joe's shoulder and cuddle up a bit. That night, as he was resting his head on Joe, he mumbled outloud "happy JoJo..." a couple of times, gave Joe his goodnight kiss and went right to bed. Such a sweet boy!

Thanks to everyone who helped make Joseph's 2nd birthday such a sucessful day!