2 years ago today...

...our life was changed forever.

We welcomed Gabe to our family on August 7th, 2005. In some ways it seems that he's always been here, always been a part of our lives - a lot of times I have a hard time remembering a time without him and without being a mom. I guess in a lot of ways my life up to that point was just preparation. I've become what I wanted to be when I became a mom, and in a way that is really when my life started.

There are moments like today when I sit back and think - NO WAY! I can't believe that it has been two whole years - time is racing by too quickly. And I know that with the addition of Hunter to our family that time will only speed up faster. That makes me so sad. Today I was thinking that in the future we'll be facing things like boy scouts, first dates, his mission, girlfriends, and someday a wife. Someday I'll be spending time with Gabe when he and his wife welcome their new babies into their home and I'll get to watch him be a daddy. I know these things are in the distant future, but scary enough the distant future has a way of becoming the past faster than we realize.

But for right now I'm going to try to enjoy these moments, capture these feelings and live in the here and now. I can't believe that my little boy talks now (and oh boy does he talk!), that he is so independent at times, that he has opinions and desires. I love that he has favorites, dislikes and that he is so sweet at times. I love how he loves his new baby brother. I love the sweet voice he uses when he says, "Morning mama", "Morning Hunter". Or when he says, "S'rong Hunter?" (what's wrong Hunter - when Hunter is crying). I love how excited he's been today to have cake for his birthday and how simple things make him happy - like his favorite pair of shoes (his Crocs). I love when he tells us stories about things that go on in his days. He gets so excited and it's amazing what things he remembers, and the vocabulary he uses to tell us about it. He's a crack up!

So tonight we'll celebrate my baby's 2nd birthday. We're having a Cars cake, and we've decorated the house with black and red streamers and red balloons (Cory's even hung balloons from the ceiling fan and they're spinning around - it's quite festive!) Cory even went all out and got some Cars party favors, Cars dishes to eat on - the works. What a fun daddy!

He also went out on a birthday date with Gramma this afternoon. She took him to Wendy's for lunch (where he ate all of his nuggets - a pretty big accomplishment!), and then they went to Deseret Book where he got to pick out a fun new book. Gramma was very proud of him - he was on his best behavior.

We've been asking him for a few weeks what he wants for his birthday and all he answers is, "Cake" but that's expanded to "cake with candles" - like he had at Aunt Ashley's house. We asked what he wanted for a special birthday dinner and he thought about it for a minute and then whispered in the sweetest voice, "cake!"