Miles turned 2

December 30th, we celebrated Miles 2nd Birthday.  It was such a fun day all about him!  We started the day with his birthday breakfast-- a chocolate croissant.  I decided to sing Happy Birthday to him and let him blow a candle out at every meal.  He LOVED it!!!  Gavin wanted to make Miles a cake for his birthday so we spent the morning in the kitchen.  The boys had so much fun mixing and baking and decorating.   Brooks called Miles around lunch time to wish him a Happy Birthday and Miles was thrilled.  We've been trying to teach him how to show the #2 with his hands and he's getting better and better at it everyday.  He even thinks he can show Brooks through the phone.  The boys got some play dough sets for Christmas so we spent the afternoon making creations and shapes.  It was fun!!  Miles had a blast making snakes and bears and apples (random, I know).   I decided since everyone was still dealing with jetlag that Miles birthday was the perfect day and excuse to not make the boys take naps.  We literally played all day!!   

For dinner, I made one of his favorite meals, but since he didn't get to nap he was struggling to stay awake by 6pm.  Poor kid sat in his chair and within minutes was out.  We tried waking him up a few times and getting him to eat something, but he wouldn't budge.  The only idea we came up with was to put his cake in front of him and "force" him to wake up.  It worked!  A lit candle on his cake did the trick!  He was all about the cake.  Since it was his birthday I figured who cares about eating actual dinner and we just let him eat cake.  We wanted him to be awake and alert for presents, too.  He got so excited to have us singing Happy Birthday to him, he asked for us to sing several times!

Miles got to open lots of presents from us and from family.  He was excited to open all the gifts!  Art supplies, Mickey Mouse fire truck, clothes, cars & trucks, and a new backpack for school!  He was ecstatic.  My parents got Miles a BBQ pit for Christmas and mailed it to us months ago.  In all the hustle for Christmas, we forgot to take it out and set it up for Christmas morning.  We decided to let him open it for his birthday.  The pictures below will show how excited Miles was to see the big BBQ box come out of the mailed box, but he was more interested in those styrofoam peanuts.  He was certain there was something else in there.  He was so persistent he even got Brooklyn and Gavin interested in finding goods in there.  To their dismay, the box was empty so we got them all involved in putting the BBQ pit together!  It was a fun family project and Miles loved his BBQ pit!!!!

 

I can't believe it's been 2 years since we welcomed Miles into this world.  It's been amazing to watch how much he's changed over the last 2 years and how he's growing into his personalty.  Last year, I remember thinking how Miles was a calm, easy going, laid back child and now he's a fun, wild, outgoing, spunky kid who keeps us on our toes and always guessing.  We're loving watching him come into his own and figuring things out in life.  He makes us laugh everyday and always has a smile on his face.  He looks up to his big brother and wants to do everything Gavin does.  He adores Brooklyn and has just recently started wanting to take care of her and tending to her!  It's cute!  

**On a side note, we moved Miles into a big boy bed back in August when we needed the crib for Brooklyn and he's done great in the bed.  We've had a rail on his bed since then and Brooks thought it'd be a good idea to take the rail down now that Miles was 2.   I was sooooo not ready for this, but he's loving having a bed JUST like Gavin's!  You can almost tell he's proud of the rail being gone!  It's cute.  

*** We also took away his pacifier right before we left Saudi in November.  It was a quick moment decision and Miles did AWESOME with it.  We cut the tip of it just like we did for Gavin and let Miles throw it in the trash.  He did it then let Brooks put him to bed and that was the end of it-- literally!  Our little boy really is growing up.  Next up for Miles-- potty training!