Happy Birthday, Jonas!

Last Thursday, January 29th, Jonas turned 2!!!!!!!!  

It is so hard to believe that two years have passed since he was born.  As challenging as it has been, Jonas has brought amazing blessings to our home and I simply cannot imagine my life without this little ray of sunshine.  He has taught me so much and I am sure he will continue to do so. 

His birthday morning was busy but during his nap I was determined to make him a cake he could eat. Every person deserves cake on their birthday, right?  For Jonas, this is a bit of a challenge considering he is allergic to wheat/flour, eggs, dairy, soy and nuts.  So, I got this really great looking recipe off of one of my favorite gluten free blogs and it even had sweet potatoes in it which happens to be his favorite food.  So, I rounded up all the ingredients and the batter looked just right.  

I put it in the 9" pan and placed it in the oven to cook for 30 minutes.  Twenty minutes into the cooking, our kitchen filled with smoke.  

I looked in the oven to find the cake had completely spilled over all sides and at least half of the cake was burning to the oven.  But, the cake was still runny in the middle.  So, I turned off the oven and just left it in while I tried to decide what to do.  

Turns out, the 

cake set up the rest of the way.  After his dinner of fried rice (a favorite), I went to put the cake on the cake stand to frost it (with another dairy free delicious recipe).  The cake simply fell apart. 

 I had to cut a triangle out of the middle and manually shape his piece cake onto the plate.  I then tried a bite and had to spit it out, it tasted awful!  As you can imagine, I was completely amazed when I gave him his piece, he ate it and loved it!!!!!!!  I now consider this a success, even if I am not sure I'll try it again.

  He loved opening his presents and Clara also loved "helping" him.  The cutest was when we sang him happy birthday and he gave us the sign for more and wanted us to sing to him again. 

Overall, it was a fabulous birthday.  It is amazing to look back and see how far he has come in two years.  He is learning so much lately.  He is working on pulling himself to stand and is making more and more sounds.  He can say (although we may be the only ones that know what he is saying :)) bye-bye, "ba" for ball and baby, hi, moo for cow, woof for dog, Clara (pronounced "adta"), dada, book and apple.  And, no, you didn't misread that...mama is still not on the list!!! The little stinker!  He also has learned to move his arm up like an elephant's nose and make an elephant noise which is very cute.  All of this has come in just the past month or so, so we are very excited his recent development.