Silas turned two last week! As we did with Levi's last birthday, we celebrated in two chunks -- breakfast donuts from our local bakery in the morning, and a family party in the evening (actually, in the evening a week later, since that's how schedules worked out this year).
Also like Levi, Silas went straight for the sprinkle-covered donut . . .
. . . but then refused to touch it with his hands and ate most of it leaning over his plate.
Silas doesn't usually get any plates at all, let alone something breakable, so this was quite a special occasion indeed!
Silly, silly boy.
Confession: a small part of the reason we waited another week to celebrate with family is because we didn't have his gift finished yet. Check out the wall behind Silas's high chair in the above picture . . . and now in the picture below.
Yep, while he napped, we installed and "wrapped" (with a sheet) what may be the coolest present ever. (In my humble opinion.) More on that in a minute. In the meantime, we had pizza and cake. For reasons we have not quite figured out, Silas is thoroughly obsessed with umbrellas. So even though it looks like we're having a baby shower with this cake, he was thrilled. In fact, he grabbed one of the raindrops ("S for Silas!") and the pretzel rod, and never even noticed that everyone else had big slices of cake and ice cream.
Checking out the umbrella cake.
Two!
My dad couldn't be here, but my mom and Isaac's parents came.
From my mom: That's Not My Puppy. We also have That's Not My Monkey, and Silas loves them. Highly recommended for the toddler crowd.
My mom has also been our sole provider of dress-up clothes. She brought our train engineer hats for Owen's third birthday, and this year expanded our options with a cowboy hat, a fire chief hat, and a construction hat.
Owen's pretty excited about hats.
Hard hat for the 2-year-old.
But then, FINALLY, it was time to reveal Silas's big present from Isaac and me! (I say "me" because I found the idea, but Isaac did ALL of the work.) I came across the idea for a sensory board randomly -- pinterest? clicking through blogs? -- and knew it would be perfect for Silas, who always has his hands on EVERYthing. Why not give him locks and switches and chains he's allowed to touch?!
Isaac wandered hardware and dollar stores, looking for cheap, easy-to-install items to screw into a large square board that he then mounted (quite securely) to the wall. (If you want more detailed instructions, please ask!) Some were cheaper and easier than others, of course. :) We ended up with: a light switch, a small padlock (the matching key is hidden among an assortment of keys), a sliding chain lock (like you'd find on a hotel door), a carabiner attached to a chain, a sliding lock (like you'd find on a bathroom door), and a bigger padlock (like you'd use on a school locker).
The bigger padlock is mostly for Levi right now, and he's successfully opened it twice, but not without several failed attempts first!
Along the bottom of the board, I put three fabric hoops with different textures of fabric (felt, burlap, satin) for Toby to sit and feel (when he can sit up, which is still a few weeks away), along with a plastic chain to rattle. After all, this might be Silas's birthday present, but Lord knows all four boys are going to touch it!
I was thrilled with how it turned out (thanks, Isaac!), and two weeks later, the boys continue to investigate the mechanisms. Super fun!
In Silas's own words: "I'm a two-year-old!" :D
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