Happy 2nd birthday, Easton!

Easton turned 2 on March 9th - I can hardly believe it!  It's pretty bittersweet - I'm so happy with the wonderful little man he's becoming and it's so much fun watching him learn new things every day...but it's also sad how fast they grow up.  I am so incredibly proud of who he is becoming.  I know he's only two but every day he impresses me with how nice, sweet and funny he is.  For example, just yesterday when I picked him up at daycare I had a proud Mom moment:  When I walked in he was crying and they said he's had a rough day and another kid hit him over the head with a toy and some other kids were picking on him all day (because he wasn't himself - he has bronchitis and had a stomach bug earlier in the week so he's just not feeling well).  His teacher told me that Easton was so good and never hits or is mean to any of the other kids.  Then as we were packing his stuff up and I was looking at his daily report Easton took his sticker off of his paper (they get a sticker on their daily report if they were well behaved) and he said, "I want to give to friend."  So, he walked over and gave the sticker to one of his friends.  Melts my heart.  Especially since he LOVES getting those stickers and what a nice thing to do especially when he had such a rough day.  He has such a big heart!

His 2 year well-check went great.  I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't need to get any shots.  No shots definitely makes for a more relaxing doctor visit.  He is in the 90th percentile for height at exactly 3 feet tall and in the 75 percentile for weight at just about 30 pounds.  She said he's right where he should be for how tall he is.  His head size is still off the charts but it's following a nice curve so she said they won't be measuring that anymore because there's no reason to worry about it.  We talked a bit about his dairy allergy and she said he's doing great and said we could maybe try some yogurt or hard cheese to see if he has a reaction to that because she doesn't think it's lactose intolerance she said he might just have a dairy allergy.  Which means there's a good chance it's not something he'll grow out of.  We'll see though.  I'm not in too much of a hurry to try it out...when he does have a reaction it isn't fun!  Plus, it's becoming easier and easier to work around his dairy allergy and I must say it keeps him eating very healthy compared to many other kids his age...so I'm just fine with that.  He also has one 2 year molar that is finally all the way in.  Only 3 more to go... "YIKES" is all I can say.  These are by far the worst ones for him.  They take weeks to push their way through and are so painful for him. The doctor also said there's a good chance we'll have bad tantrums around the age of 3.  Since he went through his "terrible two's" around 15/16 months she said that when that happens it usually comes again for another round when they are 3.  She said his brain was just developing too fast before he had the language skills.  I knew that was the cause, but comforting to hear from the doctor because he definitely knew how to throw a fit.  He still does at times... but it's much easier to reason with him now.  He does a great job though when we ask him to listen to us explain something if he's starting a tantrum. 

Easton loves to play outside in the snow and loves to go ice skating with Dad.  He has been able to stand on the ice by himself but anything more than that he's pretty uneasy on the ice.  Next year I think will be a different story!  He is talking up a storm and even talking in complete sentences.  The other day he was looking at pictures of sharks and said, "The shark is swimming in there."  It's so fun to hear him transform his thoughts into sentences.  He also has begun to call Jake and I by our name.  The other morning we woke up to Easton yelling, "Jake, Jake, Jake!"  And Jake was outside shoveling one day and Easton saw he didn't have gloves on so he grabbed Jake's gloves, opened the garage door and yelled, "Jaaaaaaaaaaaake, here!"  It's pretty funny!

Some of Easton's favorite things lately:

• saying, "What's _____ doing?"  Especially when it's bedtime and we're ready to put him in bed he'll go through everyone he knows, "what's mom doing, what's dad doing, what's dog doing, what's Mary doing etc..etc.." 
• He loves to do everything himself - which is requiring much more patience from us!  And if he can't reach something he'll go get his little "time-out" stool and carry it over to where he wants to be so he can be taller.  
• He can count to 10 - although he always skips 9... who needs 9 anyways?
• He will sing he ABC's until about letter H and then he'll either get bored or start adding his own words to the song
• Absolutely loves playing with play dough and making shapes, animals, people out of it with cookie cutters
• Still obsessed with trucks, cars, planes, trains...and I think we have enough cars and trucks to fill our entire house!  He received every mode of transportation for his birthday.  
• "one more time" this is becoming a common phrase when it's time for bed.  Whether it be one more time to read a book or one more time to ride his four-wheeler.  It's pretty cute though.  

This is a pretty long post but I haven't updated in awhile so I'll also add a bunch of pictures.  I am going to make another book after this post for Easton.  I know I said before that I was done with the blog but I decided that it wasn't fair to Easton and the other family and friends that I stop giving updates because some people were being negative.  So, we're back at it and I'm excited!   Here are a couple pictures from his birthday.  I still need to upload more so I will do that for another post.  Thanks to our families for coming to celebrate with Easton and for all his wonderful gifts!

Absolutely love this picture that Auntie Mandy took.  He was  SO excited to blow out his candles.  And he could do it which I was pretty impressed with too! So thankful to have such a talented photographer in the family to capture these great moments! :)

Love this picture!  Ridding his new 4 wheeler that we got him for his birthday.  Of course he loves it!

Happy Birthday!

Can't wait to dig into that cupcake!

He was SO excited when he saw the four-wheeler!

Little miss Gretta LOVES Milly

He loved riding with Stella.  I'm not sure I've ever heard him laugh so hard!

Jake and Stella playing hockey

Decided he could drive with his feet!

  This is a very short video of Easton hitting the baseball... he's quite the slugger!  Uh oh.... he might be a baseball player instead of a hockey player!  Thanks for the gift Auntie Mary!