oliver wears his birthday suit!

oliver turned two back on november 10th...& when asked how old he was going to be previous to that day, he would stick out his thumb & pointer finger {like you would if gesturing a gun} & say dwooooooooooo! i tried & tried to snap a shot of it, but failed. oliver's personality has blossomed i would say within that past couple of months. he's somewhere between the "terrible twos" & the "even worse threes" {so i've been told about..."the even worse threes stage"}. and i suppose that i would have to agree...yep, we're somewhere between there. oliver has a sweet personality, but as you know if you are or have been...a parent of a toddler, this can change in the matter of a pindrop =) good stuff, good stuff. and as a parent embarking on this new stage of life, i'd have to admit that's it's a challenging era. and maybe it's b/c i'm 40 lbs heavier, feel like there's a bowling ball in my belly & have the energy level of a snail, i don't know?!

we celebrated oliver's birthday "cars" style...as in Cars the movie. complete with a "mater" cake that i created for his actual day, cupcakes made by oliver's daycare lindsay, & a "lightning mcqueen" cake for his party {thanks to amy conover - it turned out fabulous}. so we had the sweets covered ;) the menu consisted of mini slider burgers, french fries, chocolate milkshakes & plenty of snackies for all of oliver's party guests. since we were able to celebrate locally this year {last year we were in colorado}, plenty of family & friends could help us celebrate. as the house filled with guests, oliver conveniently slept an hour past the party was supposed to start. he woke up from his nap to a houseful & was a bit surprised. after he warmed up to all the commotion, he enjoyed running around with cousins, grandmas, grandpas, great grandma & grandpa & mom & dad. he was into opening his presents & only gave about a 30 second window for anyone to get the toy out of the box, packaging & twisty ties before having a complete meltdown. lovely =)

here is a mix of photos from both celebrations...and i might add to the story {b/c when oliver reads this as an adult, he'll probably be super mad at me, but it's the chance i'm going to take & it's a right as a parent to have embarrassing stories saved up for down the road}: a couple weeks prior to his birthday, he started showing interest in the potty. sitting on it. flushing. so, mike & i decided that he'd be thrilled to open up a box that had his very own potty on his birthday. and he was, once daddy took it out of the box. he showed us all how excited he was by stripping down naked {b/c apparently this is how you use the potty} and sat down on his throne. and then, proceeded to spend the rest of the present opening festivities in his real life birthday suit! so very proud of our little naked man...mama & daddy love you so muches!

birthday spaghetti...o's favorite...& the reason why we're sans t-shirt in the rest of the photos!