Party!

If you remember Seth's party from last year, you'll be sorely disappointed in our party throwing this year. Without Nanny Marah here to help, I just wasn't up to having 30+ people over for a party. So we kept things simple this year. REALLY simple.Seth kicked things off a few days early by sneaking into the package from Grandma Cathy and grabbing out a present. He opened it just enough to find out there was a car inside before he started hyperventilating. "Car? Car. CAR! CAR!!" Luckily Grandma was a sucker and gave him permission to open it early. Okay, Mom was a sucker, too. We spent the next couple of days trying to keep him out of the rest of the gifts.

Seth's birthday was Monday. He helped me decorate the sign I made for him (the whole time exclaiming over the 's'es and balloons). He also helped me make his blueberry muffins for breakfast--he was very concerned over the cracking of the eggs.
We invited Angelina and Debbie over to swim Monday afternoon. Angelina surprised Seth with an M&Ms dispenser with a fan on top. He was thrilled, since fans are one of his favorite things in the world. They had a great time splashing around the pools and chasing the frog I found in the filter. After a couple of hours, we headed back to our house for lunch and popsicles. Seth had never had a popsicle before, but he learned quickly. I obviously wasn't thinking. Guess what? Red popsicles stain. For dinner we had Seth's favorites: crab alfredo, garlic bread and 'appa joose.' After dinner we called Grandma Cathy on Skype and had our little party: Mom, Dad, Seth, Grandma Cathy and occasionally Aunt Bubba over Skype.

Seth's cake, of course, was Lightning McQueen, or as he calls him, 'Ka-Chow!' I had a hard time keeping Seth away from the cake so I could finish it. He kept trying to crawl on my lap, saying, "Ooo, big Ka-Chow!" He liked it so much I was afraid of how he'd react when we cut it open...I thought about doing the cake in fondant. It would have looked better, but guess what? Fondant is gross. So buttercream it was!We were very impressed--Seth managed to blow out the candles all by himself! Unfortunately I missed it with the video camera because I was trying to take a picture with the regular camera. Next year we need to invite at least one person so there are enough people to document every detail.
Of course, he was spoiled completely rotten. 90% of his gifts were cars or Cars paraphernalia. He was so excited that he didn't know what to play with--he kept running back and forth between his gifts. Our big gift for him was a wagon. It's actually for us, too. Next time we need to haul a bunch of stuff to/from our backyard, we won't have to carry it all around the building or finagle some method of dragging it through the house and off the deck. Townhomes are awesome sometimes.

Taking Grandma Cathy for a ride in his new wagon.

He LOVED his cake and ice cream, and there were no tears when we cut into Ka-Chow. Definitely a successful birthday.

Jon and I were really excited about his 'surprise' the next day. I stumbled across an article in the local paper about the Mason-Dixon fair. On the day after Seth's birthday, they were having a monster truck show. Since admission to the fair was only $3 for adults, free for kids, we jumped at the idea.

After dinner at Chick-fila, we drove the 35 minutes to the Pennsylvania border. Seth was thrilled--they had tractors pulling trolleys full of people to and from the parking lot.

Once we got inside, he was enthralled by all the lights and movement from the rides. We spent a lot of time just walking around so he could stare at everything. Eventually we found the animals. He was fairly excited to see the ducks, pigs, goats, cows, etc. We even got him to pet a sheep, but things got a little tense when the sheep tried to eat Ka-Chow. Eventually we made our way to the monster truck area. They were a little late getting started, so Seth relieved his boredom by running away from us as often as we'd let him. Luckily he didn't actually go too far before he turned around.Finally, they brought in the monster truck. I realized our mistake when the woman next to me whipped out some noise-cancelling headphones for her toddler. Having never actually been to a monster truck show, I failed to anticipate that it would be loud. REALLY loud. And the loudness was amplified by the fact that we were sitting directly under a speaker.

Seth did great through the part with the stuntman on the 4 wheeler. He was even okay with the monster truck for a while.After several passes that included loud engine revving, I noticed that Seth was starting to tear up. Despite my hands over his ears, it was just too loud for him. We immediately packed everything up and headed to the car.

Monster Trucks are a little bit scary...

Turns out Seth was inspired. Not only was the show about 2 minutes from being over, it also started sprinkling as we headed to the car. By the time we got in and headed home, it was pouring. Thank you, Seth for sparing us a good soaking!

We felt a little guilty on the drive home. Did we just traumatize our son? Luckily he slept well that night and didn't wake up screaming about 'big trucks.' In fact, ever since that night he's been carrying around a monster truck in one hand and a tractor in the other. He's also insisted on wearing his boots. Apparently instead of scarring him for life, we turned our son into a redneck. Awesome. Must be those West Virginia roots...

I still can't believe we have a two year old.

PS--I can't imagine how a monster truck show could possibly be lamer than that one. ONE monster truck crushing 3 cars. Over, and over, and over again. Meh. But then again, it was only $6 total...