Caroline is 2!

Caroline turned 2 this weekend!  When she woke up in the morning, she was excited to see that the gifts were actually for her.  She has gone through a lot of birthdays recently and watched a lot of gift opening.  She knew just what to do despite the boys sitting "at the ready" to help her out with unwrapping.

Her new smartphone.

Henry and Caroline with an "I'm 2" sign

Then we spent the rest of the morning at the Children's Museum of Houston.  It was a lot of fun and slightly overstimulating (at least for me!).  The kids seemed to want to try everything, but not long enough to actually learn about what they were trying.  I think it'll take a few trips for them to slow down and truly visit the exhibits.  One thing they all liked was a big outdoor area of the museum.  They have a huge water area; essentially canals with locks or waves or some way to manipulate the flow of water.  They liked that a lot, but it will be even better when it is warmer out (so wet clothes aren't so cold).  Josiah got to walk in one of those huge balls.  It was probably only 20 seconds inside of it, but he loved it.  Too bad they capped the age at 16 or I would have jumped in there.  Henry did really well on the rock wall.

Back home, I had to get started on her cake.  She's never had cake before with all her food sensitivities, so I was happy to find a website that allows you to put in your allergies and it limits the recipes to those that don't contain your allergens.  I chose an orange cake for her mostly because it was a cake (and there were not a lot of cakes in the dessert area) and because it had 6 ingredients (almond flour, baking soda, salt, 2 oranges, honey, & eggs).  It was a new way to bake because I had to first boil the oranges for 1.5 hours, then stick them (whole) in a food processor.  Then add the other ingredients to the food processor (this got quite messy), then bake it.  After baking, it had to sit for 2 hours.  So, all that and we were ready to eat her cake.  We gave her a slice and she took a bite or two and then threw it back into the cake pan.  Todd fished it out and gave it back to her. She again tossed it back in.  Not a fan.  Henry liked it, asked for seconds, ate half of his second piece and said he didn't like it either.  Josiah didn't like it.  Todd and I thought it was pretty good.  Good thing it was a small cake!

She was a fan of her candles though.

Now that she is two, she seems to think she has to act like a two-year-old right away.  I think she said, "NO!" every time Todd and I asked her to do something today.  In fact, I think she said "no" just because she wanted to, all day long.  She has started biting her brothers again and she has been hitting them over the head with her new toys as well.  So she is getting a lot of lessons in consequences to behavior.  She got a toy camera from Grandma & Grandpa that she likes a lot.  However, instead of taking pictures the normal way, she takes a lot of selfies.  We don't even do that around here, so I think she may just be confused on how to hold the camera properly.       

The boys on the other hand have been battling it out with each other all week.  At the beginning of the week, I overheard Henry ask Josiah if he wanted to have a pee war while they were peeing.  Of course Josiah said, "yes." Fortunately I was there to nix it, but who knows how many battles are going on like this.  Then to annoy each other, they each have been singing the history song from our CC work that the other one doesn't like.  So Henry sung about Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders all week to bug Josiah and Josiah sung about the Continental Congress all week to annoy Henry.  Henry kept coming to me asking the "number" for Theodore Roosevelt (1898) so he knew how to start the song.  Todd and I have been smiling at their history battle.  I have a feeling they are going to know these two history facts for the rest of their lives.  

On Friday, after CC, Josiah asked if we could stop to get a doughnut.  The thing is, if we do something like that once, they remember it for all of time and eternity and will ask to do it every time we go to CC.  However, since I found a Dunkin Donuts very close to our CC group, I decided to stop and get him one (and me a coffee...since we were going anyway).  Henry was not able to get a doughnut because he refused to get in his car seat when we left CC and he has become a bit more defiant lately so I was not going to budge with him.  Anyway, Henry fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep while I brought him in the house.  Josiah ate his doughnut and then showed me the one small bite he had left for Henry.  It was seriously one bite of his doughnut left, but I praised him for sharing.  Then when Henry woke up, Josiah gave him the doughnut piece and Henry said, "Thanks Josiah, you're the best brother ever."  It was nice to see both sharing and gratitude from them.  Gratitude is our theme for March.  (February's was "Say Hi, Look in the Eye." so the kids look at people in the eye when saying hello.)  Each theme is born out of what is clearly lacking in our every day life.

And we did make it to the library story time this week to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday.