In the Blink of an Eye

Roland turned two years old on Saturday. I no longer have any babies, only toddlers and crazy boys. I find this both sad and exhilirating. Roley is the sweetheart of the family, although he has recently discovered the joys of screaming for no reason. He adores his older brothers and is completely infatuated with our dog, Bella. He is even sweet to Mom & Dad most of the time & will give kisses. Ro-Ro loves balls and cars and anything train related. I swear he could watch Thomas for hours. He's still pretty attached to his Minky-Moo blanket and holds it while he sucks his thumb. He's been a little bit slower on the talking that his brothers, but his vocabulary is increasing steadily and we're starting to understand what he's saying most of the time.

Here he is the morning of his birthday. The brothers often sit with their blankets, sucking their thumbs, and watching cartoons early in the morning. You can see his sippy cup of milk, which he calls "cars." He always asks for "cars" and could go through 8 cups a day if we let him. All the sippy cups we use for his milk have pictures from the Pixar Cars movie. So he never says milk, just "cars."

Saturday was also moving day for Roley's Autie Candice & family, so we had Jaycee over to play all morning. These two love & hate each other. Just like siblings. I think they will be very close growing up and it was fun to see them ride on the glider together - that's a new skill for Ro.

After an early nap - we started Roley's birthday party. We planned a fun-filled afternoon for our family of five to enjoy. We started with a late lunch at Chick-Fil-A, which is everyone's favorite. Roley followed the cow mascot around the restaurant, loved the play place, got balloons & cow presents, and ate tons of chicken & Oreo shake.

From there we drove to McCormick Ranch Railroad Park, where Roland was in heaven and just ran around crazy saying, "choo choo! choo choo!" We rode the big train (Alden & Emmett rode in the cattle car!), and the carousel, and checked out the extensive playground for a while. All the boys really liked to room full of model trains too. Then we had Roley's birthday cupcakes and gave him his present - a new lawnmower! He was always running around the backyard with the old, garage-sale one we had, even though it had lost two wheels. We figured it was time to upgrade.

For a final treat, we took all three boys to the dollar theater to see Planet 51. It was Roland's first time in a theater and he did pretty well. We got home just in time for bed and to exclaim what a fun family day it was. I'm really glad we chose to do this rather than a more traditional birthday party for Roley. We love him so!