Happy Birthday to the Cutest. Baby. Ever.

Somewhere back in June, sandwiched in between Ava and Nathan's birthdays, Laurel's wedding, John's starting MBA school, and our week long trip to Kentucky, E-Lias turned 2.

We celebrated with an improptu dinner with -who else? - the Ryan boys.

We had quite the time blowing out candles, which was ironic cause this was the only party out of the three that the candles didn't get blown out by the wind.

Instead, it was 2 little overzealous 3 year-olds (ahem, Noah and Benjamin) that we were trying to shield the flames from this time.

Of course, Lias wanted nothing to do with the candles and very forcefully said, "NO MAMA, NO-NAH DOED IT" when I tried to encourage him to blow them out.

For months, Lias has referred to the entire Ryan family as No-nah, which we can only assume means Noah but in his mind encompasses the whole crew. Recently he's also expanded his vocabulary (which is actually huge, but basically no one but our family can understand it) to include "Ma-mee" (sounds just like Mommy but means Jayme). He uses this to reference any female mother figure (ie, babysitter, grandma, aunt, lady at the gym who helps him put on his shoes, etc). It's actually a very endearing thing, since everyone who watches him tells me sweetly that he called them Mommy the whole time. Too bad he really means Jayme, but hey, if it works to his advantage, then why not?

He got some great gifts, books, tractors, puzzles and bubbles. He also got the coolest cake (ok, not my finest but pretty decent for the 2 hour notice I had) and we all had a great time. Happy Birthday Baby - or "Bid Boouuy" (big boy) as he calls himself.