Ayda at Jared's birthday party - she was SO content!
Jared blowing out the candles on his cake.
Jared and his little friends...awwww.
Ayda in Jared's dump truck.
First solid food - bananas!

I have a two-year old!! I can't believe my little boy is two. He turned two last Monday, May 12. We had an awesome outdoors party with lots of people, running around, food, fresh air, and cake! Seriously, there were around 25 adults and 20 kids (including little ones, like Ayda). The weather cooperated - if it hadn't I have no idea where we would have put everyone!! Jared just ran around, excited beyond belief that so many of his buddies were there to play. He had a great time, which was the most important to me. When I was planning the party, I thought that I was mostly doing it for me (and Ryan), but it turned out that Jared DID have the most fun and I did do it all for him!!! And Ayda just sat peacefully with various people throughout the whole thing.

And another milestone is that Ayda has started on solids. Yeah, I really didn't want to start until she was 6 months, and she just turned 5 months today. But she was SO interested in anything anyone put into their mouths, so I decided to try a bit last night at the cabin. And she loved the banana. She didn't eat a lot, but she did like it. I think I'll give her a bit in the evenings and see how that goes for now. Hopefully that will be good enough until a month from now...

The cabin was great - Jared had a lot of fun convincing Daddy, Shaun and Grandpa to give him quad rides. He spent a lot of time outside with the men and fell asleep twice on the quad. Dad says Jared reminds him of a guy he went to school with, who wasn't challenged enough and so got into trouble because he was bored. There were a few times that he was just into everything and that was Dad's reason for it - he wasn't being challenged. So do we have that child? I guess we'll see... I do have to say that he does do things "ahead" of his age group, and I don't just say that because I'm his Mom - others do to. I have to remember he is only two with some things, but it is hard because he is advanced in a lot of things. I think the new place with a bigger house and huge yard will be really good for him. The guy we are buying our land from (they are friends of my parents) has him mowing all the grass around in a couple of years - could be a good first business for him!!

And Ayda is leaping ahead in her developmental stuff, too. All of a sudden she wants to try food/drink (if I let her, she grabs onto cups and pulls them to her mouth, like we do), she is able to hold onto things with purpose, and she can suddenly lean on her elbows during tummy time with no problems (seriously, she would barely lift up enough to turn her head, and then during pictures last week, she just pushed fully up and lay there, perfectly). I am actually handling it well - when she was first born, I didn't want her to advance at all - I wanted her to stay tiny. But now I am cheering her on and loving the development. Of course, there are still times...