Thanksgiving Day / James's birthday

This is the last post in the loooong "James turns 2" series! Yippee! However, it is not the last in the Thanksgiving posts, since we celebrated twice this year and will still have to post about my mom's dinner.

With that said, let's get started. James was born two days before Thanksgiving in 2009 and last year his birthday fell the day before Thanksgiving. This year, however, it happened to fall on Thanksgiving day, which was awesome because E was home from work and everyone was in a celebratory mood anyway. Especially the birthday boy.

He woke up and after watching some "cho cho" we went into the kitchen to do his other favorite thing in the entire world: "cook". He had requested pancake-cakes which was fantastic, since we have a new tradition in our house. A friend of mine said the entire time she was growing up they got pancakes for their birthday breakfast. You had to eat the number of pancakes as how many years you were. She said as she got older the pancakes got smaller, so you could still eat 19, or whatever number you were on. She said it was one of her happiest memories. So, with that in mind, we are now doing a pancake breakfast on birthdays and you "have" to eat as many as you are old. :)

We decided since it was a birthday to throw in some chocolate chips. Notice I did one pancake with a #2 in chocolate chips.
Birthday boy easily ate two pancakes and asked for more when he was done. That is fine, as long as he eats at least two.
After breakfast the birthday boy got another present from Mama and Dada. He saw this toy at Ikea a few weeks ago and LOVED it. He said it was a digger. So he was beyond thrilled to see it again on the morning he turned 2.
Around ten am we headed to our local rec center. I was so thrilled to find out it was open on the morning of Thanksgiving. James absolutely loves the pool, and it is so much more fun when I have another adult there with me. E and I had a blast with James in all the "fall falls". This little boy loves his falling water.
The play structure that is inside the pool is kid-heaven. I would have loved one of these as a kid. Seeing James love it as much as he does almost makes up for the fact that they weren't around 25 years ago. ;)
Our local rec center also has a three story indoor slide. And, as long as a non-swimmer has an adults' lap to ride, there is no age limit. James LOVES the thing and has been going on it since he was 11 months old (gasp!). Now that I'm pregnant and tired, I make E take James to the top of the slide and go down with him. Best part? Seeing two huge grins as they round the last bend.
Tighter crop. Totally pixelated but beyond wonderful.
He's a water baby.
And he adores his Dada.
Back home James had an awesome nap, I was able to blog my year 2 letter and enjoy the sunshine for a moment outside.
Before we left for a Thanksgiving feast I asked E to take a couple of photos of me. It's been almost 5 weeks since I've had a belly photo. I'm getting big.
In the leaves.
Once we were at E's house for the holiday, James convinced "Pampa" to head outside with him. He wanted to look for some birds in the shrubs and both of them spent a good thirty minutes outside checking the bushes for birds. I love that James loves E's dad so much, it is beyond awesome.
The table looked lovely.
Once dinner was served James dug right in. Not sure what he ate but his plate was somewhat more empty than when we started. I do know, however, he loves cranberry sauce. (Check out these photos of him last Thanksgiving!)
Oh my word... this still makes my mouth water.
Last year James LOVED his pumpkin pie, so we got it again for him this year. And he needed a candle of course, since it was his birthday after all. He blew it out in two seconds flat, and everyone was laughing and so we lit it again. Again, blew it right out. And again. What a silly goof. Happy birthday my love, until next year!