What a 2 year old’s birthday is really like

Yesterday, October 28th was Gretchen’s 2nd birthday.  We decided to keep it small, just me and Tyson, instead of last years birthday.  We also wanted to make it special and wanted to do all of her favorite things.  Tyson decided he wanted to take the day off, so we started planning and this is what this (Gretchen) 2 year old’s birthday entailed…

Gretchen LOVES breakfast food, I’m talking waffles, pancakes, eggs, and french toast.  There’s this amazing recipe for french toast that I like to use.  It’s basically half whole eggs and half egg whites mixed with about a tablespoon of vanilla.  Then we cut up strawberries (I give the ends to Gretchen to eat while everything is cooking) mix it with about another tablespoon of sugar and the zest of an orange.  White that is marinating in the fridge, I heat up some dark chocolate chips and spread over the french toast and sprinkle some of the strawberry mixture on top.  It is so good and so easy to make!

We ate breakfast while we watched Ice Age since Tyson needed to be at school by noon and nothing is open until 10 or 11.

We decided to let her open presents after breakfast and thought she’d have fun playing with some of her new toys.  I think she got board because she got a lot of clothes and only a few toys, and wouldn’t open her last two presents that were toys.

After she opened most of her presents we went over to the mall and let her ride the rides (what are they called?) and play on the tot playground in the mall.  She loved it!!!  Even though she isn’t smiling.

By this time it was time to take Tyson to school, so we dropped him off and Gretchen and I headed over to Noodles and Company for some lunch.  She LOVES their Alfredo Montemore (I think that’s what it is).  She was sooo good at lunch and we had fun.  She also needed the chopsticks to play drums on the table.  This picture of us is one of the first pictures she’s smiled with us both in it!

Next, it was back home for a nap until it was time to go get Tyson from school…

Next, we were off to the Willow Zoo, come to find out they are closed all but 2 days of the week.  Instead we headed across the street to the Willow Park Pond (I don’t know what it’s really called) to feed the ducks.  We fed the ducks about 2 weeks ago, best place ever to feed ducks!  There are so many and they are crazy, loud, and funny!  They came right up to us, it was scary but awesome!  Here’s a link for watching a video on Facebook.

When the whole bag of bread was gone we started walking towards the park and the ducks were following us, it was so cute.  Gretchen LOVES swinging and we spend most of the time doing that every time we go to the park.  I don’t blame her, that and slides were my favorite things at the park.

We were about to leave when we saw some ducks waddling around in the park.  Gretchen decided she wanted to chase them, and she did!  Here’s a video of her chasing the ducks.

We headed back home for a little while to open her last presents and try to get her to blow out candles on her cupcake.

The last part of the day didn’t end how we wanted.  We went to Village Inn for dinner, her other favorite place to eat.  Side note, don’t go there in the middle of the week, they were so so soooooo slow!  She started crying and having a meltdown before the food got to us, so I had her come and sit by me.  She likes to slap, so she started slapping me and the 3rd time was actually pretty hard.  Tyson got mad at her and gave her the “look”, more bawling.  When the food finally came, she didn’t want it anymore.  We were going to go get Aggie Ice Cream afterwards, but decided that we should just go home and see if she’d calm down and if she didn’t, put her straight to bed.  She must have known, by the time we got home, she’d turned back into an angel.  All in all, it was a really fun day, it’s too bad that it didn’t end very fun.

After posting the photos, I remembered that she was being a sweetheart when we got there and was coloring and playing.  Then, there’s the last photo, that’s right after she slapped me.  I don’t know where she got the slapping from, so I’m not sure why she does it.  Enjoy the photos, coming up will be the rest of the Boise birthday trip.