Welcome back, patient blog readers!  I’m not going to make any sad excuses, I’ll just commence with the reason you are all here.  :)

G.A. Necy gave Nathan tickets to Sesame Street Live for his birthday and we went a couple weeks ago.  Nathan had a wonderful time and we had fantastic seats!  We will definitely be going back again next year.  It was so fun to watch him see experience all of the characters and get really excited when each of them came out into the audience.  And he loved, loved, loved the music and was dancing in his seat throughout the entire show.  Here are some highlights:

We let Nathan pick out a souvenir and he chose an Elmo twirly light-up toy.  He excitedly twirled it throughout the show and loved that it lit up in the dark.

Look at how close we were!  3rd Row!!!

Hi Elmo!

Nathan wanted to wear his birthday shirt that Daddy made for him.  He loves his robot shirt!

And if you needed any more evidence of how much fun we had that day, I think this says it all.  Nathan fell asleep in the car on the way home and I had to wake him up for dinner at 6:00.

Now that’s a boy who had a great day!  Thanks, Necy!!!

For Nathan’s 2nd birthday we threw him a robot-themed birthday party.  He absolutely loved it!  Would it surprise anyone to know that robot party supplies and favors are not readily available?  It surprised me.  I had to order the plates, napkins and decorations online, which wasn’t a big deal but we had to get creative when it came to invitations and signs.  Good thing there’s an artist in the family!

Balloon

Jeremy designed an awesome invitation, which we emailed out to everyone to stick with the robot theme.

Of course, Jeremy designed a birthday shirt again this year.  I don’t have a really good picture of it, but you can get the idea from the photo below.  Hopefully Jeremy was able to catch a glimpse of it on video.

We ordered the cake from Hy-Vee again this year and she did a fantastic job once again.  I took them one of the napkins I ordered for a reference and this is what she created.

When it came time to sing “Happy Birthday,” Nathan decided to play shy again.  If you look closely on the chair, you can see his little booty sticking up in the air.

He wanted mommy to help him blow out the candles.

We were very lucky to have most of the family in from Iowa and Oklahoma to celebrate, along with some good friends.

Nathan was very thankful to receive some wonderful presents.  Among them were a Spiderman scooter and helmet from mommy and daddy, an art easel, a t-ball set, tool bench, some great fun shirts and socks, an AquaDoodle, a remote control truck, play-doh and tickets to see Sesame Street Live in a couple weeks.  He loves all of the gifts and will have a lot of fun playing with them.  Good thing he had a lot of help unwrapping everything. 

Nathan decided he needed to ride his scooter immediately after he opened it.  Here is the inaugural run, with Papa’s assistance.

We eventually had to put it away because it became a source of contention and caused a lot of fighting between the older kids.

Brandon helped Grandpa put the tool bench together.

Stay tuned for video, once Jeremy has time to edit everything.

Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes, cards and gifts.  Nathan is truly blessed to have such wonderful, thoughtful people in his life.  Now I’m praying that we can get through this year with a minimal amount of temper tantrums and other such 2-year-old issues.  Here’s hoping!