Look who's Two!

Karl turned two today!  Hard to believe my little man is that old already.  He didn't really understand that it was his birthday, but he was very excited about his cake.

A side note about cakes - our family favorite is Grandma's Chocolate Cake (thanks, Mom) with Strawberry Mousse frosting (thanks, Holly).  And I wish I could do a monster truck cake for every birthday - just heap a bunch of crumbled cake on a plate and call it good.  (The frosting has to be refrigerated due to the whipping cream in it so we just added that to each plate as we served it.  Plus, it's pink and doesn't look anything like dirt.)

The only problem with putting a monster truck on a vehicle-obsessed child's cake is that he cries when he's not allowed to pull it off ahead of time.  That happened just after this picture was taken. 

Car mat birthday present.

Karl ate his entire *huge* bowl of cake, frosting, and ice cream in about 5 minutes. 

Nora joined us at the table. 

Karl at age two:
* loves anything related to cars: he likes to point them out in books, in photo albums, on the street.  He plays with his Matchbox cars all day, lining them up, putting them into things, driving them under the couch...
* He can say a few words: mama, dada, ball, duck, dot, and one sentence: "Dada 'unting." (hunting)  He can also say "goodnight moon" and "wash" and "monkeys" but if you don't already know what he's referring to you'd never have a clue what he's saying. 
* He LOVES to look at photo albums.  I'm enjoying reliving some of my past with him on my lap.
* Goodnight Moon is his favorite go-to-bed book.  After that, anything with vehicles.  
* He is short.  He is still wearing some 18 month clothes.
* He is rather accident prone.  Besides a chipped tooth, he has had multiple cut lips and other bruises and cuts on his face from running and falling headlong. 
* He is a sweetie, with the terrible twos just starting to show themselves.
* He likes things to be a certain way.  He'll bring me scraps of paper or fabric from the floor to throw away.
* He loves his green blankie. 
* He still uses a Nuk at night and nap times.  When he's mad or has been told "no" to something, he runs upstairs to grab his Nuk from his crib. 

There's probably a lot more I could say about this sweet little boy.  We just love him!