Joshua turns 2!

Kind of hard to believe that Joshua is two years old already. He started wearing undies regularly a couple of weeks ago and his vocabulary has really skyrocketed, so it's not that hard to believe, but I don't have babies anymore! (Although that lack will be remedied shortly.) The boys are so fun right now. They play together, at the same activity, which is a boon for me. I get to sit and watch (and mediate).
Joshua loves dinosaurs and after looking through the kids' cakes cookbook Laura gave me, Joshua decided on the dino cake. I decided on a red dinosaur, which in retrospect, was the worst idea I've had in a while. Trying to get the icing red instead of pink was a real challenge. And when I finally got to red, there was so much dye in the frosting that no stain stick will be strong enough to fix all the kids' shirts. Oops. But it's fun making cakes. Joshua's delight and the kids climbing on the table to get close to it made it worth the effort. I also learned that when making a cake found in the "challenging" section, one should follow the directions and not take short cuts. Lesson learned.

I also realized after putting on the nostrils, that a red dinosaur cake with a big head looks like Clifford, the Big Red Dog. Oh well. The boys like Clifford, too.

We had 8 toddlers over. Thank goodness for good weather, because they all played in the backyard for most of the time. The picture above is of the three oldest kids, who decided they wanted to pray again, after the blessing. So sweet, until they started yelling at each other about who was going to pray first. "I'm going to pray!" "No! I am!" "No! Me first!" Nice, guys. The party was fun, if a little challenging for me because I waited until the last day to make all the food and the cake. But I have such wonderful friends, they cleaned up the kitchen for me, put all the food away and even cleaned up the boys' room which exploded with toys not long after the party started. Thanks Robin, Michelle, Nat, and Juli!