Happy 2nd Birthday Jake!

Here you are! Two and Terrific, and super cute!

One Week Old (1-29-2011)

One Year Old in Santa Monica (1-22-2012)

One Week Old and Handsomes as ever!

We love your curly-qs and kissing your cheeks

Your mama loves you, you know that?!!

We had a party and you were surrounded by both your grandparents and our dear LA friends!

We took you to the beach for your birthday, too! You lucky lucky boy!

Happy Birthday Jacob! You are TWO! TWO!

You make mom and dada so proud each day!!! You are turning into a sweet little boy and we are shocked and surprised by all the neat new things you are learning.

Here are some things about you I dont want to forget:

You are so much fun! You are determined, tender, precise, loving, and a wonderful little helper.  You have become quite the chatterbox, telling us all kinds of things! Especially, if something doesnt go your way, you are reallllly verbal about that, but you have a cute little voice! You say many words, but recently have started saying very loudly, "HAP HAP Happen?" When you are trying to figure out what happened to a lost toy, your star birthday balloon that floated away, or just plain confused about something!

One, ok, maybe two of the sweetest things you do that melts my heart and makes me tear up is that you are such a little helper.  I never would have thought a two year old would be able to help without being asked, but you help all the time.  It must just be in your nature, cause I catch you doing random acts of kindness just out of the blue and it blows me away.  Here are some of your charitable acts that set my heart aflutter.  I was doing the dishes, and you come up to the dishwasher and I'm thinking you are going to make another mess, but you take the cups and tote them over to the counter, reache up on your tippy toes and place them there in a neat fashion right where they need to go below their designated cupboard.  JAKE you just blow mommy away with your tenderness. You always close the garage door behind yourself after we come in from the cold, you throw your dirty diapers away, and you are so very conscientious of others feelings if they are sad.  Just the other day, I caught the flu.  It was horrible.  I was sick all day, and as yucky as it is to write this, every time I threw up, you ran to the toilet and held and hugged my leg, and asked, "OKAY OKAY?" checking to see if I was ok.  Then, you flushed the toilet for me and played contently all day, watching movies, and bringing me books to read you in bed. Later, daddy came home from work as soon as he could and you two went out for a daddy son date.  When you came home with dada, dada gave me a blessing and you ran over and put your hands on my head right along with dada like you knew exactly what you were doing.  Little boy, do you realize what a sweetheart you are?  Well, you are.  You often do many of these things without being told. Andy and I are so proud, like when I caught you throwing away a tiny piece of paper you found on the floor. Goodness, we just love you so much.

You were not an easy baby, your poor tummy hurt a lot, but you have overcome these obsticles and we have seen miracles in your life. You have become such an incredible little person.

The second and one of greatest things that makes my heart explode with love for you is when you pray at night.  We've been working on it in nursery and every night we pray with daddy if he is home.  Your sweet voice repeats the words and even if they dont sound perfect, the sounds you make are more than perfect in my heart.  The other night, dada started saying a prayer and you repeated his words, and when dada said, "Bless our family", you just pointed to mommy and said, "Mommy too" "Daddy too.  Tears welled up in my eyes.  Thank you baby boy. You have such a mighty spirit in that tiny body of yours.  I hope you always have that sweetness about you when life gets challenging and remember, we will always pray for you, too ;-)!

You are a busy toddler.  You love to move and bounce! Your favorite place to be is outside and you love your grandparents, aunties and uncles, and your cousins, often asking about them during random times throughout the day.

You love music and you have a great voice.  At church, you like to conduct during the hymns, and you sing "I am A Child of God" with us each night before we tuck you into bed.

You fall alseep in your big boy bed, because you kept crawling out of your crib.  You sleep with your monkey, and with ducky, and lets not forget sippy (your sippy cup).   They have to be placed strategically in their places before you are content to close your eyes.  You also love to give us each a kiss before you go to sleep, a little tradition we have kept up and now that you love!

In the mornings, you often wake before the sun comes up and always want to snuggle with mommy and daddy, but last night at 2AM when you quietly figured out how to open your door, sneak down the hall, and climb into out bed,  yeah...that scared me pretty bad, but I kinda laughed too.

For your second birthday, your grandma Carson was here. She loves you Jake, and so does your whole family.  We had everyone hooked up to the ipads doing face chat. You were surrounded by those who love you! You had family from Oklahoma watching us sing to you, as well as all of dadas brothers and sisters and Grandma and Grandpa Turner, who love you so much. We had your neighbor friend Sawyer here and your favorite little girl from nursery, Halle.   You ask about her all the time, it really makes us laugh! You sure picked a cutie! I kinda planned a super last minute cake and ice cream party, and you loved it.  We had a dinosaur cake and balloons, and we sang to you, and for the first time you could really enjoy your cake, and we let you! You can eat anything now, how grateful we are to say that.

You got a Lightening McQueen Car from Halle and her family, and a Monster Book from Sawyer.  Grandma got you a small trampoline so you can jump all winter long, some new summmer clothes, Brown Bear, Brown Bear book and Where the Wild Things Are, a Lightening McQueen rolling backpack for trips to see Grandma, and a small Lightening Mcqueen car. We got you your first tricycle! Your feet cant reach the petals YET but that doesn't stop you from going! 

Your favorite color is GEEEN! or Green! We think because when we ask you what color something is you burst out with, "Geen" without even looking! You love the movies Cars and Monsters Inc.  You also love Elmo, and we think you watched Nemo so much you are over that for the moment, but you still recognize him at the aquarium.  You love Thomas the Train too, and all cars and trucks outside your window.

I could write a novel on how much we love you.  I love kissing your chubby cheeks, and reading you stories, I love watching your bright blue eyes light up when you are excited.

We've always loved you and look forward to another year with our honey, baby boy, bumbbumb, sweetie pie.  You make us laugh every single day.  Happy 2nd Birthday Jake.  I will never forget welcoming your special spirit into this world.