Happy 2nd Birthday Cody!!!

Well, I can hardly believe it... CODY is now 2!!! Amazing and he is proud of it. We have had a few celebrations so far and it only continues... Ken and I have been reflecting on the moments before Cody was born and the labor and delivery. Now we are chasing after him. Helping him learn new things everyday and enjoying his laughs, giggles, enthusiasm about everything new his sees and even the old stuff that he still gets excited about.

As I reflect and see how he is growing, it is so adorable when he is happy and skipping along and saying "look at me mommy, look at me mommy" in a tune all of his own. My heart just sings along with him and I smile and even want to skip along with him. We love singing songs, reading books, going to the water park or other water activities like swimming. Going to the zoos around us, and just spending time at home playing with his trucks, animals, riding in the stroller to see the horses down the street. He also loves to learn and say new words as well as seeing the familiar things around town. He looks forward to school and lately he has been asking to go to church, which gives us even more reason to go! These are the special memories I hope to keep for a long time.....

We had a fun time at the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids last week. WE saw Rachael Coleman from the Signing Times videos series LIVE!!! How cool was that, I think I had the best time just seeing her perform the songs. Cody was not too sure about her but he was intrigued by Hopkins the Frog who seemed more real to him. Then Rachael did one of her new songs for those who has birthdays in August!!! THIS was awesome! She called all the birthday people up to stand on stage with her during the song, which she taught us the "Happy Birthday" signs! Then after the show we got to get our picture with her up close and personal. I am so glad we did this. For more information about this series visit the link under my favorites. We hope to start working with Brady on signing with him (we started with Cody when he was 6 months old and I am impressed with how it has helped him communicate and learn).

The next day we traveled to Ken's parents Andy and Shirley's house for Cody and David's birthday celebration. We rented a moon walk, which almost all of us including the adults got to bounce and jump around. We did a pinata. In Cody's words "We hit it, candy came out" as he does the motions of hitting it and eating the candy. (It is hard to describe it in words). Cody just wanted to eat his cake from the moment we got there. But luckily we were able to distract him enough with the moon walk and playing outside until it was time to eat. He enjoyed blowing out his candles and matches (he just kept blowing the matches out before I could light the candle again!) HE sang along and just smiled big! Then we opened presents, and he loved all his fun toys (like the big tonka truck and riding loader with the hard hat, the Thomas the train toys and wiggles dvd, basketball thing and everything else I cant seem to remember at this point). WE played in the pool and just enjoyed hanging out with all our cousins and aunts, uncles and grandpa Andy and grandma Shirley.

I must go to bed, my eyes are sleepy. I will post a few photos now, but will come back soon with more.