TWO.

Julian is now, as he will tell you, TWO YEARS OLD. He's a big boy!

He was very excited about opening all his presents.





We had a party, of course! It was very well attended and we all had an excellent time.

There were cupcakes, of course. Julian knew exactly what to do, and blew out the candles the instant they were set in front of him.



Then he and Julia and Koji (and everyone else) had some yummy frosting.



Julian and Niko did some drawing on the patio.



And then everyone decided to play on the slide at the same time. (Julian, Niko, Koji, Julia, Lisa.)

May recap

Julian has had a very busy month of May. There's been gardening,



and hanging out with Mom,



and doing kung fu with Dad.



His best friend Julia had a birthday, so of course we were there!

On the swings with Julia:



Serious sandbox work with Maisie and Julia:



Eating cupcakes with Geoffrey:



And of course, Julian had a birthday as well! More details to come in the next post...

A conversation over breakfast

Alex: I love you, Julian!

Julian: I love you. And daddy loves mama. Mommy and Daddy and Julian. We're a family! That makes I happy.

 

Late April movies

Julian has a lot of energy these days. For reference, he did about twenty more laps after this movie was taken:



One day we were playing in the back yard, and Julian was riding his tricycle. I went inside for just a minute to get a drink, and by the time I came back out, he'd opened the shed, found the big shovel, dragged it across the patio, and started digging a hole in the yard. So much for our attempts to give him his own garden tools.



Context for this next movie: he knows two boys named Milo; one is his friend in Boulder and has a mom named Madeline, and the other is his cousin in Portland. But both of their dads are named Steve.



This is by far his favorite song. He sings it approximately thirty times a day.



Practicing for being a big boy:

April photos!

And now, a change from all the movies... some photographs!

Allan and Rebecca came to visit. Julian adored them both and is still talking about their visit, especially in context of the stuffed pig they gave him.





The weather has been warming up, so we've gone from hats...



to spring flowers ("gwape hy-a-this-ith!"), which you can compare with the same setting one year ago...



to picnics in the back yard!



On Saturday, we picked up Madeline and Milo and went to the Butterfly Pavilion again.



Julian found a great bench to play on.



And after the adventures, we drove home, the boys making faces and funny noises at each other all the way home and giggling madly. Then we played basketball at Milo's house!



Last but not least, Julian is ready for a season in which he can go downtown and eat ice cream in the evenings. This was strawberry Ben & Jerry's, and it was gone in about five minutes, followed by the firm statement, "I want MORE."

More April movies

First, Julian would like to thank Grandma Jean for the awesome bubble wrap!



(He loves the birdie too.)

Julian knows the importance of being well-dressed:



He's really happy about baseball season starting.



And he recently dug up one of his old toys, seen in this movie from almost exactly one year ago:

Springtime in Boulder

looks like this:


So we stayed inside and played:





And once it finally stopped snowing, we went out to play:



One other thing: Julian has learned how to say CHEESE when he has his picture taken. So, expect a lot of pictures from now on to look like this!