Long Overdue... Noah Turns 2!!!

How could I wait an entire month to post that my beautiful little second son has turned 2 years old? I'm a bad, bad mommy and I'm so sorry my little Noah. I love you lots and lots.

Here's my little 2-year old with his face covered in snot and oatmeal. And guess who's completely off the bottle now... NoNo! No more bottles - yayyyy! Daddy's crushed. Snuggling with a bottle was Daddy/Noah special time. Also, Noah and Evan are sharing a room now. Brothers - awwwww!

And then he gets nice and clean in the tub.

Here he is going on a little bike ride with Daddy.

And here's the morning of April 18th. The very day my baby turned 2. He woke up to balloons and surprises.

The opened truck and car were from Grandmom. She took the boys to Toys R Us the night before and let the Noah pick out his gifts. Evan helps Noah with the car.

Noah opens his musical cards. He think cards that don't play music or say something are "broken".

Now for my Noah Update. He's the sweetest, but toughest little boy I know. He doesn't put up with any crap from anyone - me and Mike, his brother, other kids... He's quick to defend himself. He'll hit Evan when he's annoying him, then when I reprimand him, he'll kiss Evan quickly on the spot he hit him. He falls and gets hurts and cries for 20 seconds and he's over it. He doesn't want too much coddling when he hurts. He's just so fiercely independent. He's not a big fan of babies or stuffed animals. He loves to draw and paint. He plays on the playground like kids twice his age and doesn't need his mommy following him around. He goes up to the super high slides, goes down and then turns and climbs up the slide and does it again. The other day Evan was at t-ball practice so Noah and I went to the playground at the rec center. Noah was running back and forth on a long, "rickety" bridge at the playground with a bunch of preteen girls. I was on the bench watching the whole thing. He wasn't afraid at all and then a kid about 3 years old approached it with his mom and was too scared to cross it. Unfortunately there aren't any rec sports for 2 year olds around here, but he participates on Evan's t-ball team (Coach Ty lets him hit and throw with the other kids). Noah insists on being in the center of practice and insists on doing everything the older kids are doing. He also runs with Evan at Track & Field. He'll line up with everyone and starts running on the "GO!" with his little Elmo sneakers pounding the track. He has to be in the middle of everything. And he's so so SO cute. Amazingly cute. This little blonde midget running down the stairs with his arms full of toys. You just want to scoop him up and cover him with kisses.

One thing though is we still have concerns over his speech. He's still very, very behind... One of the things he does is leave the consonants off words. Like when I say "I love you!" He responds, "I love you, too!" But he says it like, "I uv oo oooo." The word "yes" is "Essss!" and "no" is "uh-uh". Most of the time only I know what he's saying except for a few exceptions like purple, blue, yellow, hi, hello, up, please, kitty, ball, bubble, Mama, Dada, Lollipop, PopPop (Noah insists on calling PopPop once a day). But most of the time you can't understand what he's saying like "ehhh" is "Evan". He's even still using sign for "more" and "hungry". We're just at the point where we're doing everything we can and we just have to relax. He's had hearing tests and his hearing is fine, he's been to a couple ENTs and we have a speech therapist come in once a week and I follow her techniques, but progress is still very slow.

But he's awesome and beautiful and perfect and we love him to pieces. Next up - the big party!