Edwin @ 2 years!

TODAY Edwin turns two :D

Edwin is just the handsomest little love.
He gives hugs constantly, and says "I love you" to EVERYTHING. The other day we were on the freeway and a semi-truck was driving next to us. We took an exit, and the truck kept going. Edwin waved and said, "Bye, truck! Lovvu!" (love you)

He enjoys yogurt (rogrit), bananas (banalalas), and basically everything I'm eating. He likes trucks, trains, airplanes, toy cars, legos, and knocking things over. He likes to climb, run at people or furniture and go "boom!" and roll around on everyone and everything.

He is a neat freak and always wants his hands washed. He doesn't like messy clothes, or messes in general. He is really good about picking up trash and helping me with the laundry, the dishwasher, and dinner.

Edwin enjoys going to story time at the library each week with me, Gram, and Kate.

showing Gram where to go :)

He doesn't like to sit on the rug with all the other kids, but he always wants his hand stamped, and he will sit on my lap until craft time. This picture below was from the week that we read stories about mice, and the kids got to make little mouse hats:

Edwin is much more imaginative at this age than Kate was. He will tell me that he is going to work, and when I ask where he works he says, "School!" I say, "What do you do at school?" and he says, "Teacher!" and then says, "Bye, mommy! Lovvu! Go school!" (I love you! I'm going to school!)

He also loves "cooking" in his play kitchen and tells me he is making waffles for me all the time :)

Don't be fooled, though. He still has his rough days:

Edwin's speech has been excellent the last couple of months. He can form great little sentences and communicate clearly what he wants. He knows all of our names, and can count to three. Edwin knows some of his alphabet and most of his colors, but I'm not in a rush. :) He picks up a lot from Kate.

Edwin is down to one nap a day, just mid-morning at 11am. He still sucks his thumb when he is really tired, and his blanket MUST be with him at every bedtime.

Lately Edwin has mixed up our nighttime routine by insisting that we sing, "I love to see the Temple" before prayers. He calls it, "Temple Song". He tries to sing along with me (which Kate never does, as she is typically just more of an observer), and it just melts my heart when he knows the next words coming up. I especially love the line that says, "I'll prepare myself while I am young" and Edwin says loudly, "YUM!" hahaha. Sometimes we just sing one verse, and sometimes Edwin asks for two. But always at the end he will quietly say, "yaaaay!" and then fold his arms for prayers.

Edwin does look for the temple whenever we drive up to the school. Since our temple is on a hill next to campus, he will point it out when we drive by. "Dere it is! Hi temple! Lovvu!"

My favorite things about Edwin are his soft baby cheeks and his little toddler tummy. He has the biggest blue eyes, and still wants to snuggle me and be held as much as possible.

He is very steady on his feet, although the clumsiest little kid. He can run around and jump a little, but he never watches where he is going and so he trips and gets bruises on his head quite often. I love that he still has so many baby features, but I'm sure that by the time he is 3 next year, he will slim out and grow up quite a bit. It's exciting, but also makes me sad. I wish he could stay small and snuggly forever!

The best part of Edwin's personality is his LAUGH. He giggles madly at Kate and Margo more than anything. No one can get him laughing as hard as Kate can. I just love his crazy inhaling giggly laugh! I was able to catch him on video the other day laying down in the kitchen and laughing while he watched Margo eat:

To celebrate this little man's birthday today we had Gram (my mom) and our good friends Scott and Jordan over for cake and presents :)

Yeah, I have no idea what's up with Kate's "lobster claws"

It was really low-key with just popcorn, chips, cake, and ice cream. We did a little airplane/cloud theme.

Jon made the model plane to go on top of Edwin's cake, and I made his birthday vest with airplane fabric.

Edwin made out like a bandit with his birthday gift haul!

We are so grateful to all the friends and family who brought and sent gifts our way. Edwin was a pro at tearing all the paper off the presents. He was obsessed with the Larabars from the O'Keefe's,

and his new church shoes from Grandpa had to be worn immediately!

Jon and I gave Edwin his very own mini Book of Mormon with his name printed on the front.

He seriously would not let go of his Larabars.

The hardest part of the day was that he woke up from a nap about 30 seconds before his little party, so it took him a while to warm up to the idea of pictures. Or people. Or clothes. I don't think he was really sure of what was happening when we turned out the lights and sang Happy Birthday!

*no airplanes were harmed in the making of this picture.

After cake, I wanted to take the kids outside for a few pictures and to blow bubbles, because it looked like a nice partially-cloudy day! Wrong. I forgot we are in Rexburg, I guess, because it was deceptively FREEZING and windy. We were outside for about a minute and a half before the kids (and especially me!) gave up and came back inside where it was warm :) In that minute and a half, though, the kids RAN around in circles on the grass, and I was so glad I snapped this picture. To me, this perfectly sums up their relationship:

We were also able to get a family picture :D

Thanks, Jordan!

The best part of the day was just watching Edwin be happy and seeing our family playing together.

I asked Edwin to say "cheese" and this is what I got ;)

Kate gets more and more goofy everyday :) Just today she started striking a pose every time she knew that the camera was on her.

Legos!

 

At the end of the day we had waffles for dinner (at Edwin's request) along with some country style hash browns and a mushroom egg scramble. Then we did Edwin's hand and footprints,

and watched The Weekenders (also at Edwin's request) before going to bed.

Happy 2nd Birthday, little man! We sure do love you lots and lots. :)