He's 2!!!

Jackson turned 2 today! We love this boy so much! Last night i blew up a bunch of ballons for him to wake up to and decorated his highchair with them... he pulled the balloons off right away to play with. (there are a lot of pictures in this post)

Here we go! 10:24 a.m. and exactly 2 years old! what a stud-muffin with that cheesey side ways smile. We went to the zoo this morning. We had just gotten into the "oceans" area when it was time for the picture.

Jackson specifically wanted to see the elephants, giraffes and monkeys. Its all he talked about the whole way there. I'm so glad the weather cooperated so we could go this morning.

Jacksons friend, Liam joined us this morning. I love these two together. They are the blonde haired, blue eyed boys. And hey get along really well. Next year we'll actually plan a party so more friends can join us.

It's a test week for bryan but he made sure to get home today so he could bbq hot dogs as per jackson's request, open presents and eat cake with us.

Yup, we got him a tricycle. He hasnt figured out the pedals yet, but it will come. He adores it!

Can you see that tiny smile peeking through the hoop as bryan sets it up? grandma and grandpa schaalje got this for him.

I made Jackson a basketball cake. He was so mad when it was tiem to come inside and stop playing with the basketball and tricycle. He actually started crying at the end of happy birthday because he wanted to go back outside. But as you can see, he got happier when he saw that his cake was decorated like a basketball.

Then he got a little sad again so we let him hold a basketball while he ate his cake.

Though i had aimed the camara right, but oh well. Here's our little family on jackson's birthday.

And at the end of the day you know he had fun because he's wearing his new pj's, sitting on his new bike, holding his new basketball while watching his new movie. aw!

And for anyone interested in jackson's 2 year old talents, i am pleased to say that he is talking up a storm and even saying short sentances like "mommy do it" when he needs help and "jackson do it" when he wants to be independent. He knows all his colors and we're working on his ABC's. He knows about 3/4 of the letters and a few sounds. And he loves to point them out to you on anything. He likes to pretend to count, though counting to ten sounds like " four, five, seven, nine". We're working on it. Jackson loves to color and build "giants" with his blocks, and obviously loves sports (basketball and football mostly). Jackson also loves reading- yay! and knows almsot every animal and the sound it makes. His favorite thing to do in the car is find airplanes in the sky... he is honestly amazing at this. Half the tiem you thinkhe's fibbing but when you ask him to point to it, low and behold there is a tiny speck of an airplane in the distance that he has spotted. And one mroe awesome thing is that he is finally starting to eat veggies! hooray! he likes, carrots, green beans and broccoli.

Bryan and I love this little man so much and cannot wait for him to be an awesome big brother (which we know he will be). That's right, only 6 weeks to go!