It's hard to believe that our little guy is two today. He's a walkin', talkin' T-riffic 2-year-old. And boy are we thankful to see it all (even the tantrums. )

Here he is first thing this morning.

And for breakfast he asked for pancakes. So mommy made him chocolate chip Mickey Mouse pancakes.

He picked the butter off of it.

Here he is with his Mickey mouse cake.

And a helpful big brother trying to make sure he held up 2 fingers.

Blowing out the candles.

It's nice to have a helpful big brother here!

He didn't really have much use for cake. He licked the frosting off. (Yes that's about all he's eaten today, butter off the pancake and frosting off the cake. Well unless you count the juice he chewed out of his orange slices before he put them back on his tray.)

He wanted to get straight to the Mickey presents.

Sometimes it hard to get to all of those presents in the bottom of the bag.

He knows just what to do with this present.

Happy birthday baby boy!!!!

We didn't exactly plan for things to happen this way. At least not this close together but...

There's a new member of our family.  

Are you curious yet?

Meet ...

Loki! Our new puppy. One of the girls I work with has a pure bread black lab and in early August, Surprise! she had two puppies. (The dog not Rhonda.) They didn't even know she was pregnant and have no idea who the daddy is.

We thought we had another week or so, but the mother decided she was done with the pupps and they were both eating dry food so...Loki came to his new home a little earlier than we expected.

The boys love him. Well mostly. He bites a lot (as puppies do) and they aren't crazy about that. And even though he looks small, when he jumps up on Nathan he can pretty much chew on his ears. Nathan's not so crazy about that either. But once he gets a bit older they'll be best buds I'm sure. Right now Loki loves to chase Zach around the yard.

And chew on grass and leaves...

And clothing...

Kelly and I don't remember how we survived the puppy stage last time.

Our other four-legged family member isn't crazy about him either. In fact we've been a bit concerned that she'd just up and decide that she should find a new home. But she does seem to be slowly mellowing. She's still clearly making sure Loki knows she's the boss however.

Since the last couple of entries have been all about Zach I thought Nathan should get his fair share. Here's a little movie of Nathan figuring out that he could climb all the way up the slide by himself.

Nathan LOVES the slide!

And we loved to see him climb it. It's hard to believe that we were once worried that he wouldn't be able to move his feet.