And Two Years Later...

Super long post for Super good reason. Jared's officially two!!! Wow how the time flys! Last year for Jared's birthday I wanted to decorate a cake and have him dig in. But... I didn't realize how close his birthday was and it crept up on me and I didn't have time. I even forgot candles for his one-year-old birthday!!! We ended up putting a scented candle in the center of the cake.

This year I was prepared thanks to some ideas I got from the magazine Family Fun (love the magazine and recommend it!) I started making some of the items earlier this week and put them away for Saturday. The first cake I made didn't work out. Chris tried taking it out of the pan and lets just say I didn't think frosting could get that mess back together! Jared enjoyed the batter though:)Our second cake turned out lots better. Some cake still stuck to the pan but frosting did the trick this time:) After finishing the cake Chris said I'd better not continue doing this when they get older cause then they'd expect it. He didn't know if it was worth the time. I must admit it took a whole lot longer to do than anticipated but I totally think it's worth the time especially for a birthday! And Jared loved it so the payday was worth it even more.
Jared loved all his presents, some a little more than others. His absolute favorite was the Thomas the Train set; thanks Grammy M. Chris and I got him a big Tonka dump truck that he had loved playing with up at the cabin with his cousin Katie but he wasn't as excited to play with it considering the other competition.
Jared has loved trains for awhile now. He loves to watch a particular video on youtube. It is the most boring, long video you'll ever watch but I am embedding it to this post because this post is about Jared:

Now to cap off this Jared post I'll include a few Jared moments:

I am consistently telling Jared to look at me whether it be because he's in trouble, to explain something to him, or just to see his cute face. The other day in the tub he lined all his "rubber ducky" friends along the side of the tub, turned them facing the wall and said, "Look at me!" and proceeded to turn them around to look at him.

One day I needed something in Jared's room so I left Spencer in his bouncer and Jared was playing. While back in Jared's room I could hear Jared laughing. Often Jared laughs when Spencer sneezes or gets the hiccups. It made me feel so happy thinking they were already getting to be buds and bonding. As I walked out my warm fuzzys soon disappeared. Jared was bouncing Spencer in his bouncer and Spencer's head was bouncing about 3-5 inches off the cover with every bounce.

I've started bathing Jared and Spencer at the same time because Jared loves to help and often gets wet enough to have his own bath. Now the only problem is Jared wants to get in Spencer's bath. After I take Spencer out I let Jared play for awhile. He loves it!

Jared is starting to get over this recent fear of the toaster but it's taken time. Jared loves toast and one time he wanted to watch it "cook". We got a chair by the counter and let him watch. The toaster beeps and then pops out. Well Jared does not like the "PoP". The first time he jumped into my arms. The next few times Jared would hear the beep and then grab Chris or me before the toast could pop up. Now he's getting to where he can stand by himself without our assistance but those first few times were quite comical. Also along the same lines I was using the blender this week and Jared thought it was cool. He moved a chair over and tried to hit some buttons. It took him several tries to succeed at pushing a button hard enough and when he did it half surprised and scared him and again we had a jumping, scared Jared.

We've been trying to teach Jared to say excuse me when he burps or toots. He's been doing pretty good with burping but I don't think he gets the tooting. But one day when going to the bathroom #2 he said, "Excuse me" while grunting. I didn't hear a toot but I thought it was cute:)

This next side note doesn't deal much with Jared but I want to record it while I'm thinking about it. Chris watched the two boys while I went visiting teaching and when I got home he said, "I don't know how you watch both of them at the same time. It's hard!" It feels good to be appreciated. And not as encouraging but very honestly he told me this morning that he knew when the boys were being difficult according to the condition of our home. When he got back from his meeting this morning the butter and syrup were still on the table and I looked the same as I did when he left:)