Since Rush is a bit more reserved (at least at the moment) than his big sis, Cary and I wanted to have a blowout party for his second birthday. The idea was to let the kid shine and make sure he was the center of it all for a change. If you've spent any time with Rush in a car, you know that he loves to play the "spot the American flag game." Rush spots them like a hawk, and yells out a vowel-filled sound that somehow means "flag!" So, we went with a stars and stripes theme for the party. Cary had the inspired plan of getting a "bounce house" for the kids, and asked me to make a sprinkler out of pvc pipe (she had seen some cool variations on the internet). 
The bounce house was a huge hit, even more so than I would have guessed. It wasn't easy to get a good photo because of the constant motion of all the kids, but you can certainly get a sense of Rush's enjoyment level from this shot.
The sprinkler I made was not the show-stopper we had hoped for. I think the holes I drilled were too large, and so it didn't have as much pressure as I would have liked. This photo probably make it look a bit more exciting than it actually was, but I still appreciate the kids paying some attention to the thing. Sprinkler 2.0 will be much cooler.
Rush is an absolute sucker for cookie cake, so he was really pumped to eat far too much of this awesome flag cake.
For his present, we got Rush a train set. Actually, most of the set is my own Brio train which my mom carefully saved and later gave to me to hang on to. It is really fun to have something from my own childhood be in Rush's life. He had so much fun playing with the train and configuring the track, we had to drag him screaming to bed! I didn't have to show him how the track works, he used his awesome puzzle skills to figure it out on his own. I'm excited to see how his creativity grows as he gets more comfortable building with it.
A great birthday for a great kid - can't believe it has been two years already!
