A very Lego® birthday

It's Zachary's second birthday! Wow, how the time flies - still can't get over it already being two years since we first met him. In honor of his favorite toy, Meh made the party Lego-themed, with cupcakes topped with blueberry butter cream frosting topped with lego fondant that she had hand-made, rectangle by rectangle and dot by dot. (The dots involved pushing a piping tip onto a sheet of fondant, then popping the small circle out with a toothpick, brushing it with water, and placing it on a rectangle. For. Every. Single. Dot.) The five kids who attended got cute little pails with chocolate Lego men (not sure where Meh found the mold; mima and she made red and yellow men), along with stickers, crackers/cookies, and of course some actual (well, generic-brand) Legos.

Unfortunately, the little man himself was a bit under the weather today; he was ready for his morning nap fairly early, didn't sleep well or long through said nap, and was getting progressively fussier and splotchier as the day wore on. Meh put him down for his afternoon nap fairly early, in the hope that he'd feel better by party time. Meh took a nap herself after all of the morning preparations. She woke up about the time that we needed to leave, and the little man was still asleep. So papa and I packed up the car, drove over to the grocery store for ice and ice cream, and headed onward to the park for his party.

Luckily most of his guests arrived fashionably late, and many of the kids were entertained by the 'happy second birthday' balloons or just headed for the ginormous playground (which claims to be the largest in the state). The birthday boy himself arrived flanked by mommy and mima about an hour after the scheduled start time, feeling very refreshed by his nearly 3 hour nap, and ready to play with his guests. He (and everybody else) had a great time -- happily exploring, swinging, and then sitting in the middle of his pile of presents on a picnic table. He couldn't quite express interest in opening them, though once a flurry of trucks and trains started to appear (our neighbor's four-year-old daughter assisted with the actual present opening), he was definitely excited to play with them.

One of his favorites, which had him in stitches both at the park and later this evening, was a little car that revs its engine, actually peels out for about 5 feet, and then stops and giggles. Zachary pretty much follows suit. I myself was particularly pleased with one of those marble rolling Rube Goldberg type toys, which according to the box is designed (I'm not making this up) to "develop early engineering sense". The most Seattle toy award goes to a cute recycling truck, itself made of recycled milk cartons, with separate little slots for paper, plastic, and aluminum. Oh, and the box itself (also made of recycled materials) is printed with icons for the three recycling types, so you can cut it up and use it with the recycling truck. Brilliant!

The birthday cupcake itself went something like last year, with the little man pushing it away without much interest. But that's okay, we all enjoyed plenty of cupcakes for him, and he had a wonderful time at his party -- happy second birthday, little man!