Happy Birthday Pickle!

Nicholas started his 2nd birthday by waking up Mommy and demanding attention. Pretty much like his actual day-of-birth. In this case, he was up before 7 a.m. and wanted breakfast. So Mommy and Nicholas spent some quality time together making a special breakfast treat - Monkey Bread!

The whole family spent a big portion of the day shopping for bunk beds for the 3 'big kids,' so the birthday celebration was delayed a bit. Here are photos from the celebration.


Elmo and his merry monster band. happen to think it's just wrong to stick a candle in Elmo's head, so I make some extra cakes. (Not to mention it allows me the opportunity to practice my cake decorating techniques. I'm quite the pro at stars now, hence the "2 layer" candle cake so I could work on my border skills.



Nicholas, ready for cake! He was really excited to see Elmo. I don't think he really understood it was a cake until later.



It took him two tries, but he did really blow out his own candle. What a cutie!



Interestingly enough, Nicholas had no interest in opening his present. Once he got it open and saw "a guy!" he was much more interested. He proceeded to play castle for quite a while. I was happy that he liked his present.



The age old "how tall are you" tradition is a bit different for us. Instead of using a growth chart or a door jamb we have a special measuring 2x2 that has each of the kids' names painted on the top. Nicholas tried to crane his little neck up and up to look taller, it was pretty cute. Nicholas at age 2 is approximately 2 inches shorter than Daniel was at his 3rd birthday. This could be the year that Nicholas surpasses Daniel in height.