But Happy Birthday to my boy!

If you ask him how old he is, he replies (enthusiastically), "dtooooooooooooooooo!" He loves having Happy Birthday sung to him...in fact, he asked for it "again" after we sang it the first time (on Saturday). So he got 2 back-to-back singings for his #2 birthday. Not too bad!

We had a fantastic time, seeing both sets of family -- really, it couldn't have been much better, if you ask me. Iliya saw (what seemed like) about 150 different - some new - people this weekend, and he handled it all like a champ! He was a little stressed in "new" environments (like when we went to a new house with a bunch of people he didn't know well), but given a little bit of time and close proximity to both of us, he would settle right in and have a great time. Everyone was SO good about reading him - if he said "no" or "bye-bye"(meaning I'm stressed & I need you to move away for a minute) or "mama" - then they took him seriously.

You have no idea how much it means to me when people take my child seriously and respect him - children are so often forced into doing stuff that they don't want to do or don't feel comfortable doing (don't get me wrong, I do think there are times when children should step out of their comfort zones, but not as often as they are many times required) and I so appreciated that Iliya was not "forced" at all this past week. He was allowed as much time as he needed to get to know people, and I think the reward came in that - once he was comfortable, there was no stopping his fun & friendliness!

And that's about all I have the energy to post about right now! I'm waaaay too exhausted to do a good job telling about our adventures - oh, and my camera card has only seen the reader for about 2 minutes. So I haven't had the opportunity to properly select pictures to share with you. But I will...don't you worry. I will get to it. In the meantime, here are a couple pictures of the birthday boy at his 2nd birthday party.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday...we all have so much to be thankful for!