Birthday party and Arkansas

We celebrated Hagen's second birthday on Saturday, May 24th. We had friends and family over for a party and it was a blast! Hagen got a lot of really neat gifts and I think all the kids had fun. Mom (Grandmommie) made the football cake. Shawn bought Hagen a Penn State jersey with the number 2 on it to wear for his party but it lasted about 15 minutes because we think it was probably itchy. We had it on at first with a shirt underneath and I said that would be too hot, but when I took the shirt underneath off and the jersey back on, the jersey didn't stay on long. Oh, well.












Hagen and his buddies enjoying lollipops (Hagen still says "lollilops" - it's my favorite word).

The next day we went to Arkansas with Shawn's dad and stepmom. The drive was about 9 hours total with stops and Hagen did REALLY well - I was very proud of him. We went to Fairfield Bay. Our condo was right next to the pool so that was really convenient. We had a fabulous view - we were on the third floor (the top) and it really was beautiful. I loved the huge, tall trees. Hagen liked seeing all the birds. The first three pictures were taken from the balcony.

We went on a really cool nature hike with lots of caves. Hagen was asleep in the car when we got there and he was zonked for about half the hike. Opa and Daddy switched off carrying him. When he woke up we were at a little cave that he went to explore with Opa.

Here's a log cabin that was at the start of the nature trail (Hagen's checking it out with Oma), and some pretty landscaping. This was all on the country club grounds.

One of the many evenings spent coloring on the coffee table, and some random touristy pictures.

We spent lots of time at the pool. Hagen LOVES the water and he did really well by himself (well, supported by arm floaties and an inner tube) in the big pool. There was a little splash pool for kids but we spent more time in the big pool.

His first skinned knees. We were going to a little park that also had a miniature golf course and he was running on the sidewalk to get to the park and tripped. At first I didn't understand why he was crying so hard - I thought he just slapped his hands on the ground when he fell but they weren't bleeding, then I looked down and saw his knees. Poor pumpkin!!

Opa and Oma bought Hagen a lion that roars when you press him. I asked Hagen what he wanted to name his lion and he said "Tiger". So we call him Tiger the Lion.

We ate a LOT of ice cream on the trip...this was after dinner one night when Hagen picked up the bowl and drank the rest of his melted ice cream. He was quite hyper after that...I can't imagine why... ;-)