As if we needed another time-waster...wanna be a piece of IKEA furniture? You get different results with different capitalizations, too!

Swedish Furniture Name Generator




And it's "blog-a-DEE-ya," if you were wondering.

They also have an Action Hero Name Generator, blogged Wolf Action, Treasure Hunter.



Freebie formal picture, from my Mary Kay Seminar awards banquet! Isn't my hubby a hottie? Rhetorical question.

Well, it's done. He's two.


First thing this morning, Charlie trained him to answer "two" when asked how old he is. He also tried getting him to show "two" with his fingers, but that didn't work as well.


His very first gift was a light-up Spiderman outfit from his Great-Grandparents Fraser. Boy was he surprised when it lit up!


He loves showing us how strong he is! That always makes for the funniest picture, because he sucks in his gut and shrugs up his shoulders. He looks emaciated!


He only had two requests for his birthday: cake and Star Trek. More specifically, he wanted to wear his Star Trek outfit. Ever since he and Daddy had their Trek-a-thon during my absence, Caspian has been obsessed. He asks to watch it first thing every single morning! He pulls his outfit out of the dirty laundry every day, asking to wear it, so we washed it last night.

You would not believe how difficult it is to find cake at a restaurant nowadays. It used to be that everyone served a free piece of cake on your birthday (there were two that immediately leaped to mind). When I called one such restaurant today, however, here was the conversation I had:

"Hello, I have a quick question about your dessert menu."
"Okay..."
"Do you serve cake?"
"Ummm...yes! We have brownies and cheesecake, so, yes."
"...?"

So, not only could I not find free cake, I could not find any cake. And Caspian wanted cake — as in cake. With icing. And cake in it. Praise God for O'Charley's, who not only serves cake on their regular dessert menu, but who was willing to give us a free piece of it instead of the standard free piece of caramel pie. And it was triple chocolate cake. And it actually tasted as rich and yummy as it looked. Woo-hoo!

Before the cake came, he enjoyed rolls, broccoli, and macaroni & cheese — three of his favorites!


We got video of him eating his cake, too. He was pretty excited about it.



After dinner, we took him to see Wall-E, since we had a movie gift card. He watched most of it standing up or trying to sit on his booster seat on the floor (not very effective), but he really enjoyed it!

Yesterday he said his first honest-to-goodness sentence: "Mommy, help me...please!"

Here's my loving little kissy man. Our favorite thing is when he grabs your face for a kiss!


Sometime today I told him, "You're wonderful. Do you know that?" "Mm-hm." "Do you know how wonderful?" "Two!" was his answer. LOL

He also spent time with his grandparents for dinner and cupcakes on Monday. He got a toy microwave and play food from Grandma Bonnie & Grandpa Kirk, and Horton Hatches an Egg with a plush Horton from Grandma & Grandpa Fiskeaux. He was so excited! He LOVES pretending to cook, and he LOVES elephants (the trunk is even poseable).

I finally got back from Seminar late Sunday night, and it was incredible! I have a ton of pictures and videos and stories to share, so keep your eyes peeled for updates. Here is a quick picture of the main arena (click to enlarge it).




Charlie helped Caspian learn a few new phrases, too — phrases he'd used enough that they became part of his vocabulary while I was gone: "clean up," "chocoate bread," and "Star Trek." Does that tell you what kind of week they had?


Some of you have asked for gift ideas for Caspian's birthday. He loves letters and numbers and colors (anything related to learning or reading). We never mind gently-used secondhand clothes and toys, either! (And the fewer electronic sound effects and noises, the better.) Since it's only his 2nd birthday, he doesn't really know about birthday presents yet ("cake" is his current focus), but for anyone who would like to get something for our little man, here are some things that have been on our needs/wants list.

• books, puzzles, and clothes are a given...or even a gift card to Once Upon A Child


• diaper covers ~ up to four Med-Lg Mothease Air-Flow Snap Covers (here or here). We recently had to get rid of 3 of his 4 covers due to leakage. They lasted two years in a small rotation, so we definitely got use out of them! "Med-Lg" is actually the size between medium and large...go figure.


• standing art easel (like this) ~ Caspian loves art, but we don't really have a good place for him to do art activities at his own height. We've been looking for one of these — they have chalkboard, dry erase, and a roll of paper in the middle to flip over for painting or coloring!


• LeapFrog Fridge Phonics (here) ~ He loved playing with a friend's single-letter set of these, but he knows the entire alphabet already. This goes a step further, to three-letter words. (And yes, this is an exception to the electronic-sounds thing.)


• standing play kitchen ~ His other love is pretending to cook. Whenever he's at church or a friend's house, he heads straight for the play kitchen (usually to make eggs or tea).


• tricycle or Little Tykes Cozy Coupe ~ Now that his limbs are getting more coordinated, we thought he would enjoy something he could ride in the driveway and on the sidewalk. Some tricycles come with detachable handles for the parent to start out pushing.


• diaper wet bags ~ up to three medium SMJAE (here) (patterns 011, 50, 54). We also had to get rid of 2 of his 3 wet bags due to leakage (again, they lasted two years in a very small rotation).


• cloth wipes ~ SMJAE has good ones (here or here) (gender neutral, floral sensation). We switched to cloth wipes for most diaper changes a few months ago, but we always run out of wipes before it's time to wash a load of diapers.