Mr. Michael Turns 2

Michael has been looking forward to his birthday all week, talking about cake and asking me to sing him the "Happy Birthday To You song" probably close to a zillion times.  Last night we had a family party for him and I reveled in the fact that I had time to put a few special things together for him (compared to last year's party planned and executed entirely by Serg, assisted by Priscilla, Jason's girlfriend (now wife!).  I simply zoomed over from my frantic beginning of the year preparations at school and joined the party, feeling like a bit of a lousy mom).  Birthdays, even the ones where we just celebrated with the family, were always pretty special when I was a kid.  Mom's food & cake prep was always at the bidding of the birthday boy or girl and she really put a lot of love into the little things for our birthdays.  It was so fun to be able to do a little bit of the same for Michael this year!

A tiny bit of party decorating.

Michael is obsessed with trucks (particularly Grandpa's red truck), so the cake choice was an easy one.  The choice, that is.  The cake itself was quite an undertaking, but really fun to create!

Michael excitedly waits for everyone to arrive.  I'm grateful everyone's a little late so my face can cool down about 5 shades of red after a ridiculously long wait at the Little Caesar's drive through (yeah, I know, I know...I went hardcore on the cake and easy on the main dish--he did request pizza, so that's the way it goes)  ...a wait that ended in about 5 minutes of heater on full-blast to keep my car from overheating.  Yeah, fun stuff with a two-year old screaming "I want cake birthday!" from the backseat.

Michael tries a little driving to keep his mind off the fact that there's pizza and cake sitting in the kitchen that he's not allowed to touch till the family arrives.

Mom, c'mon.  Just a quick finger in the frosting?  Pretty please?

And the crowds begin to arrive!  Michael runs around the house in sheer joy (and, I'm sure, relief that the pizza and "cake birthday" will soon be his to eat).

After dinner....presents!

Finally, candles and cake!

This was preceded by a very demanding, "Mommy take a picture!"