Happy Birthday, Charlie!

Today my little boy turned two years old! We had a nice day with just the three of us. We started things off with opening presents. Chad and I got Charlie a train set. We wrapped the expansions and set up the basic set so Charlie would know what he was getting.

It took some doing to convince him to stop playing and start unwrapping.

Once he got started, he tore through his gifts pretty quickly.

And then we all had a good time setting up the tracks, and playing with the trains. (We bought everything a month or so ago, and I've been wanting to bust it out ever since!)

Charlie spent most of the day playing with his train set. He loves Thomas & Friends and knows all the engines by name. And since his train set has a black engine, a red engine, and a green engine, they instantly became Deisel, James, and Percy. While playing, Charlie would frequently shout things like, "Bust my buffers!" He also thinks it's good fun when the engines fall off the tracks.

We ended the day with birthday cake, of course! Charlie also loves all things Mario. He will beg me to play "Mario Kart" and "Mario's videogame" (Super Mario Bros. Wii) at least once a day. So I made him a goomba birthday cake.

He was pretty excited. When he saw the cake, he wanted to "bonk the goomba!" I said no. And suggested we eat it instead. Charlie said that would be ok.

The cake is a chocolate layer cake with chocolate mousse filling and chocolate frosting. Yes, it is delicious. My thanks to my grandma for her chocolate mousse recipe. I also learned a couple things: 1. Successfully applying a mousse filling is trickier than I originally thought, and I think I will seek further advice before attempting it again. And 2. Chocolate frosting only gets so dark. I wanted the goomba's mouth and eyebrows to be nearly black, but adding more cocoa only accomplishes so much. As it turned out, the goomba's mouth and eyebrows (and all my leftover frosting) are death by chocolate rich. Which I'm ok with. But I think next time I might just buy a little tube of black frosting.

Charlie at age 2 is a ton of fun. He loves to go on walks, play at the park, watch tv shows, color with crayons, play with playdough, "play" videogames ("play" means hold a dead remote and watch), play with toys, and help me with whatever I'm doing. But most of all, Charlie loves to talk, especially on the phone. Give him a call and he will talk your ear off. Full sentences. Asking and answering questions. He'll give you a real conversation.

Something we do need to work on though is smiling for the camera. When I asked him to look at the camera and smile big, this is what I got:

Precious.

He really is a kind, sweet boy, and the last two years have been wonderful. I'm excited to share many, many more with him!