Happy Birthday Gunnar!

He is 2! I can not believe it! It blows me away. He is such a big boy and showing it more and more each day. The day started out with hula. I couldn't miss that since I paid for it. So Gunnar headed to my parents while Jeff needed to work on some side work sort of things. They were working on yard work. The weather was fantastic (75 degrees) and he was in heaven outside. My parents have a John Deer Gator. The only thing that we can think to compare it to is a truck looking golf cart. Gunnar drove that thing with my dad for 3 hours straight while they did yard work. He loved it! The only downside to the entire thing was that he got a pretty bad sunburn. Nobody even thought about what this nice weather would do to a fair skinned toddler.

At 5pm Gunnar's party started. We kept it pretty low key and invited only family. We were feeding everyone so why make it bigger than you have to right? We had about 22 people there and had a blast. My brother in law, Jesse, is so great. He pulled all of the kids piled in the wagon a lot. They had a lot of fun and it was fun to see them all smooshed in there.

My sister, Heidi, made the cake. She has been making fondant cakes of all types for every occassion since my other sister, Mindy, announced that she was getting married and that was the type of cake she wanted. She made one for Mindy's birthday in Jan, one for my mom in March, one for Zoe (my 2nd cousins daughter) I think in February and then Gunnars. She is practicing up until September when the wedding cake needs to be done. This cake turned out so cute! The funny thing was that she used 3/4 of a bottle of red coloring and stopped. So it looked quite pink. My brother in law, Ren, called it the Mary Kay car. Gunnar didn't know the difference and we all liked it regardless. She did a great job. Th wheels are Oreo cookies.

Gunnar actually blew out the candles all by himself. Jeff told him to blow so he did. We were all so proud of him.

Then we opened presents. Gunnar has always been so funny opening presents. He gets so serious. His eyebrows furrow and he rarely smiles. It is all business to him. He meticulously opens the wrapping paper or bag to see what is inside. Many were on the same page recognizing that pullups are perfect right now. We really appreciated that, and of course the design on them right now is CARS. Perfect!

Everyone was so kind in getting something for him. Everyone is greatly appreciated.

At church Gunnar envied other little boys CARS cars. Well, Grandma Miller got him two of the characters. Gunnar is now in heaven. He carries those everywhere.

He also got a CARS book and coloring book from Uncle Brent. That book goes everywhere with him. Another fantastic gift. He also got CARS swim shorts and shirt from his great Aunt Nancy. He eyed those at Walmart the other day and really wanted to see them. Now he has them.

The most heart felt gift goes to Zander (my 2nd cousins son). Kristin told us that he went up to his room, grabbed an an hero figure from his own collection, got a Superman bag, and the stuffing to hide the toy and wrote a note to Gunnar. It was so sweet and he was so excited to give it to him. It was great and Gunnar really likes the little man. It is his first little figure. Gunnar really came out ahead on the gifts as you can see.Then it was ice cream and cake time. Gunnar loved this part.I love this picture of him because this is Gunnar. He has these cute little faces that he does. He is just so sweet!We had a lot of fun and great conversation with everyone. These little girls were following each other on the railroad tie. It was pretty cute.Gunnar with grandpa and his cars. He is so in love with his grandpa. It is not even funny.

I was able to get pictures of several of the guests with Gunnar. This is Kristin my second cousin (my dad's cousin). We are so glad that they moved here from California about a 1.5 ago. We love having them around. She too is taking Hula lessons with us. It has been a blast.

This is Gunnar's great aunt Nancy. She moved here the same time Kristin and Michael moved here. Kristin is her daughter in law. She is so great and we love having her here. My grandma passed away when I was 16 so it has been great to have her siblings so close.

This of course is my parents. Gunnar loves his grandma and grandpa. Sometimes I wonder if he loves his grandpa more than anybody else. We are so lucky enough to be about 8 minutes away from them. They have been a big help with anything that we have needed.

This is Gunnar's other grandma. He was getting so worn out and tired by the time everyone was leaving. He was being a little stinker.

This is another one of Gunnar's big loves...his aunties. He loves them so much. For a long time, Mindy was by far his favorite. He could not get enough of her. Now all that he talks about is Aun' 'eidi (aunt Heidi). We love Mindy so much. She is getting married in September and boy are we all so excited. These two are always so goofy together.

This is Aunt Heidi. She lives right next door to my parents so Gunnar sees her alot. He just loves her to pieces. We are so excited to have her so close. I just love having sisters nearby.

Ren,Heidi's husband, is too funny. Gunnar gives kisses to everyone when he is leaving and Ren refuses to have them on the lips. He insists they be on the cheek. Gunnar would not have that for a long time. Now he accepts it and goes over to his cheek for a kiss without needing reminded.

We had so much fun and like always, I don't exist in any of these pictures. I have two cameras and by the end of the night when my mom was going to take a picture of the three of us, the batterries had died in both cameras. So frustrating. I even thought that I had all of that taken care of.

Saturday night Gunnar was running towards our 2 stairs in the sunken family room and some how missed them and flew off hitting his upper gums on the chair stool/ottoman type thing. He was bleeding nonstop. It was aweful. After getting the bleeding under control, Jeff could see that his bottom teeth mangled his lower lip and the gums for his top two middle teeth were also nasty. His lips were swollen and his upper gums are red and very bruised. I am just praying that his teeth are okay. So far so good. A celebration of any kind would not be complete without Gunnar doing something to himself.