Whew, he made it to TWO!

There have been some close calls...Arlo is a wild child! We, very gratefully, celebrated his 2nd birthday last Friday. It does seem like yesterday that he was born and was this tiny (errr, not so tiny) little baby boy.

However, in two years he has blossomed into a fantastic, explorative, and expressive little toddler. Running and climbing everywhere, talking up a storm, eating like a champ and asking so many questions...he really is a joy (and a lot of work) to be around.

Arlo has a wicked sweet tooth, likely inherited from me! He LOVES candy, especially lollipops. We hosted a play group on his birthday and had cupcakes with lollipops on top! Quite a splurge on my part, but you only have one birthday a year, right?

We had a wonderful weekend filled with holiday family events. The university hosts Santa every year in the arboretum and it is filled with poinsettias, including a huge poinsettia tree. We braved the crowds of families with 2, 3, and 4 year olds and managed a quick photo session. Not an easy task with two wiggly boys.

Arlo wasn't sure about Santa and if you ask him about seeing Santa he'll say, "Santa cary Arlo", meaning "Santa scared Arlo". Sam told Santa he wants a Spiderman truck for Christmas and Arlo felt a little better about Santa after he gave him a candy cane...which disappeared in a matter of seconds!

Over the weekend we began a new family tradition of building a gingerbread house. The boys loved the entire process, especially our little sweet tooth who kept eating the candy decorations. 

All weekend Arlo kept asking, 

"eat ginger house, please, please, please?" 

When he was told that we don't eat the house right away he wasn't too happy as you can see below!

We've been seeing this face a bit more these days between Arlo's recent new fears of moving toys and Santa and his assertion with independence. The two's have hit and though he usually takes these developments in stride, we're definitely seeing more tantrums.