Happy Birthday Will!

With all the commotion surrounding Sawyer's birth I haven't had a chance to write about Will's 2nd birthday. Will turned 2 on the 17th and celebrated all week long. The night before his birthday I put up some balloons and a happy birthday sign after he went to bed. Bryce also set up the pop-up Thomas the Tank Engine play tent I got for Will using my lexisnexis points. The tent was in the living room right at the bottom of the stairs. When Will woke up in the morning he was standing at the top of the stairs so I told him to come downstairs and see what was here. He started down the stairs and apparently thought I was talking about the pack of swim diapers that was sitting on the bottom step because he stopped to look at those for a while. Then he finished coming down the stairs and spotted Thomas. He got a big smile and said "Thomas!!" and ran over to check it out. I kept telling him "Happy Birthday Will!" but Will kept saying "Happy Birthday Thomas!"...I think he thought we were celebrating Thomas' birthday. He figured it out by the end of the day though.

That evening I ordered some pizza (or "cheapa" as Will calls it) and bought a little cake from Wal-Mart and took Will up to my grandma's house for a little birthday party. My cousin Liz and my brother Kyle came to join in the celebration. Will was a little overwhelmed by all the presents. After he opened the first one he had no interest in opening anything else...he just wanted to play with what he already had. It took about an hour to finally get everything open and I don't know what he liked most. My grandma gave him some toy trains which he was very excited about and his Uncle Kyle gave him a Mr. Potato Head which he is enjoying. He also got a little lawnmower that blows bubbles when you push it (he had been envying the neighbor's for months). He made out pretty well in the present department! His favorite part of the evening, however, was blowing out the candles on his cake. We sang "Happy Birthday" and he blew the candles out all by himself and then was asking "Again? Again?" so we relit the candles and did it over. He wanted to do it again, but we decided twice was enough for one night. That evening when we got home Will was playing with his new toys on the floor in the family room and singing "Happy Birthday to Will" over and over again.

We had already scheduled a birthday party with a few of the neighborhood kids for the Saturday afternoon following Will's birthday, so when Sawyer made his surprise appearance on Thursday morning Bryce decided to just go ahead with the party anyways. I was still in the hospital so I didn't get to see it, but Will got a Thomas the Tank Engine cake and had more pizza and swam in his little kiddy pool and got to open his Thomas themed presents (more things I got for free with my lexisnexis/Westlaw rewards points) from mom and dad. Bryce took care of all the festivities (including getting the house cleaned-up before and after the party) and even made goody bags for the kids. What a good dad.

What Will got for his birthday: (I thought this might be interesting to look back on in 20 years)
* This includes presents from mom and dad, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends.
1. 2 new church outfits
2. bubble-blowing lawnmower
3. Thomas the Tank Engine play tent
4. 3 Thomas the Tank Engine books (Happy Birthday Thomas, Stop Train Stop, Thomas Goes Fishing) --> these are the ones we had taken out of the library that Will was so in love with
5. baseball glove, ball, and tee
6. baseball pitching machine
7. Thomas' Sodor Celebration dvd and Thomas Songs of the Station dvd
8. semi-truck (actually this was a Christmas present but Will had lost interest in opening presents so we just saved it for his birthday)
9. monster truck (broke within 1 week)
10. Mr. Potato Head
11. Set of train cars
12. Train track and another set of cars
13. Floor puzzle
14. $1 (Will loves "monies")
15. Remote-controlled race car (we still need to get batteries for this)
16. Sunglasses/cell phone
17. Coloring book/crayons

It is hard to believe that a year ago Will wasn't quite walking yet and now he runs nonstop, talks up a storm, knows his numbers up to 11, his alphabet, his colors, his shapes, sings songs, and gets into lots of trouble! Happy Birthday Will!!