Jack’s Second Birthday

Jack’s birthday was pretty low key this year. We didn’t have a big party or any decorations. In fact we didn’t even wrap his presents. Hey, he’s two, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care. We’ll try to do better next year.

Grammy and Grampy  came for a visit in the afternoon, and brought him a Toy Story couch. It was very tough for Henry to understand that it was for Jack and not for him. He was like that with all of Jack’s presents. I’m sure it will be that way forever. Hannah still has a hard time when Libby get presents too.

Grandma Lauer sent a radio flyer tricycle for him, and it was a hit with all of the kids. It’s amazing how many times I have to get mad at the older kids for trying to ride it. Jack spent the day singing a Queen song about bicycles.

 

We got him this twisty road thing that cars drive on.

I decided to get all fancy with his Birthday Cupcakes. I know that he didn’t really care what they looked like, but he sure did love how they tasted.

It’s crazy how fast two years has gone by. Jack has turned into a little boy, and he is no longer my baby. He loves to play with Henry and copy whatever he does. This makes him seem even bigger than he really is. He is such a funny little boy who makes us all laugh. He likes to help put the dishes away and he loves to play with the kitchen gadgets. He is constantly moving chairs to get into things. He is going to be an amazing artist when he grows up, and I will be rich because I will have all of his beginning masterpieces on my walls and doors and windows and furniture. I am afraid for the terrible twos with this one – it’s a good thing he’s so cute.

Super Shopper Saturday

Last Saturday, we took the girls out to spend their Christmas gift cards (presents from Grandma Lauer – Thanks!)  I was not really looking forward to shopping with either one of the girls, but Steve forced me to go with him.

Shopping with Hannah is usually very stressful, because she wants what she wants no matter how much it costs, or how awful it looks. We usually end up fighting over whatever she decides to buy. So on this day I was determined not to say a word about anything she picked out.

Shopping with Elizabeth is usually very exasperating because she can not make a decision about anything. She walks around the store talking about how much she loves everything, but is unable to pick out exactly what she wants. This usually leads to me picking out her clothes for her, and then having her not like them later. So I decided that she was going to have to pick out, try on and make her own decision about what she wanted to buy.

I don’t know if it was because I went into the whole thing with a different attitude, or what, but the whole shopping experience wasn’t so bad. Hannah was a great bargain shopper and got almost twice as many items as Libby did. That is fine with me, because it took Libby twice as long as Hannah to pick out half as many things.

Surprisingly enough, Steve was a great help and made sure that Libby picked out the right sizes and found matching leggings for her. Really, it’s only because he forgot his Kindle at home and so he didn’t have anything else to do.

After we shopped, we hit The Olive Garden for lunch. I do love it there, how can you go wrong with soup, salad, and breadsticks? During lunch the girls were talking about how they wanted to get their hair cut shorter. So on the way home, we dropped into Great Clips and they got new hair do’s.

Poor Hannah, she suffers from what we like to call “The Fun’s All Over Syndrome.” She has such a melt down when it’s time to go home. I told the girls that we would take pictures of them doing a fashion show with their new clothes on, By the time that we got home she didn’t even want to change into her new clothes, but I still made her. We only got a couple of good pictures. I think we need a new camera – lately none of my pics have turned out.