Isaac Turns TWO and Alli visits!!!

It is amazing how quickly the time flies...it seems like yesterday that I was home on maternity leave with Isaac and all of a sudden we are celebrating his SECOND birthday! I can't believe it, he is such a little boy and no longer our baby. He even started potty training -we have had the potty sitting in the bathroom for a little while now and he likes to sit on it for a little while every night, but we have only had a handful of successful missions. Starting last week he has asked to try every night and since we started the reward system (a chocolate chip for every success) we have been consistently successful! He's a little too smart for us though, he has figured out that all he has to do is sit down and let a few drops out and he gets a reward, so he has been breaking each bathroom trip into several "successful missions" to ensure he gets a few chips for each one!!

The birthday celebration started on Friday when Cesi and Grace (Lussa's mom) took Lussa and Isaac to lunch after their music class and got them a big piece of cake to share (it was Lussa's bday last week). Isaac cried when we sang happy birthday at the beginning of the week when my mom was here, so Cesi was determined to practice all day and by the time they got home Isaac was singing it to himself over and over (and over and over...). Great job Cesi!!

We started out the morning of his actual birthday with a special treat, Isaac helped me make a big mess in the kitchen in an attempt to make chocolate chip and banana birthday pancakes. The process of making the mess was much more fun for Isaac than eating the pancakes... oh well, one day we will get this child out of the single digit percentiles for weight!! (note - at his 2 year appointment, he finally reached the 5th percentile weighing in at 23.6 pounds) We then had several happy birthday calls on Oovoo - the one in the picture is with Jen, Max and Isaac's cousins who were the first to sing to him.

After that Bill finally returned from California on the red-eye to make sure he didn't miss any of Isaac's birthday (what a good daddy!) and he and Isaac went for their ritual Saturday morning coffee and muffin run. After that, Papa Rich and Mom-Mom arrived to spend the day and we all had a nice lunch before Isaac's nap.

Isaac napped for almost 3 hours (murphy's law) and we had to wake him up to get to his birthday party in time. He's usually pretty grumpy when we wake him, but all I had to do was mention that we were going to see Gymbo the clown and he perked right up. (case in point-- see the picture of him kissing Gymbo below - and note Lussa looking on jealously in the background!!) We managed to get out of the house in relatively short order and had a great time at his Gymboree birthday party.

Having just returned from California late on Saturday night, the Andersons were total troopers and made their way to DC just for the day on Sunday to make sure they could get to say happy birthday in person to Isaac. I have no idea how they were holding their heads up, but Isaac couldn't have been happier to see Grandma, Grandpa and Ray-Ray, and to get another round of happy birthday, more cake AND presents!!

Here's Isaac playing with some of his new presents -- sorry for all the naked pictures, Isaac insists on being naked to go on the potty, and then it takes a little while to convince him to get dressed again :)

Finally, we had such a great time with Aunt Alli who was here to visit from Thursday - Monday night. She was unbelievably helpful and patient jumping in to help me with Caitlin and Isaac while Bill was in California. The kids loved playing with her (well Caitlin loved sleeping on her, Isaac loved playing with her). She even slept in my room and got up with Caitlin and I several times throughout the night -- hopefully we didn't push her childbearing plans back too far :)
We had lots of fun with Alli, and were very sad when she went back to Colorado on Monday.