Here are some cute birthday playing videos.  The first is the dress up man Mimi and Poppy gave him for his birthday.

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While eating lunch, Daniel decided that his Sesame Street friends were also in a celebratory mood.

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Later he played with his doors.  He loves the animals behind the doors and always says their names.

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Daniel is looking at a Pooh card from Mammy, a Horton card from Mrs. Betty and an Elmo card from Papa and Mama.

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The big birthday boy was doing some left handed drawing and coloring on his birthday morning.

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Since Daniel can’t really have anything that’s in cake, his “cake” was one of his favorite treats, a baked squash.  Roasted chicken and lima beans round out his birthday lunch, complete with Elmo plates and napkins.

The lima beans were in front of Daniel’s plate, so he just couldn’t resist getting into them.  He loves lima beans.

Daniel preparing to blow out the candles.

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Daniel really liked the party blowers. 

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Daniel does the funniest thing if you ask him to smile.  He does this really quick fake grin.

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After such an eventful day, sometimes you just have to be crazy and let it all out.

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Daniel’s birthday is Wednesday, but we had his party on Sunday when we were all home. 

Daniel definitely understood the concept of presents even better for his birthday than he did this past Christmas. 

The birthday boy.

This video of Daniel with a door latch toy has a lot of great samples of him saying animal names.

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Daniel’s current favorite word is “stuck”.  Before that he had a brief period where his favorite word was “no”.  His original favorite word was “more”.  “More” was resurrected today with the present opening.  After the first several presents, Daniel would open one and then say “more” and go to the kitchen to pick out another to open.

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Daniel seems a little unsure about the chicken dance card so takes up the suggestion to close it.

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Daniel and his vegetables.

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Daniel and his new cookware.

Daniel doing some cooking.  He declares “Now” in this video.  That is a funny little habit he picked up from his Mama.

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Daniel’s new wallet.  He says “money”.

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Daniel opens the books but then is off looking for “more”.

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Daniel with his new magnetic The Hungry Little Caterpillar set.

Daniel playing his ukelele.

Daniel discarding the money in Papaw’s card so that he can read it upside down.

Papa had some balloons waiting for Daniel when he got up this morning.  Mama had set out Daniel’s party favors. 

Daniel doesn’t say “birthday” but says “happy to you”.  He also says “stuck” a lot.  It’s his new favorite word.  He doesn’t like that the balloons are all tied together.

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Daniel knows about blowing out candles and birthday hats.

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For a while now Daniel has been counting.  He has never included “one”.  At first he would count to eight and replace seven with three.  When he started counting to nine, he would just leave out one, seven and eight altogether.  Now he counts to ten and still leaves out one, seven and eight, but he cheers for himself at the end.  I haven’t been able to get a video of counting to ten but here is one of counting to five, leaving out the one of course.

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We took Daniel to Portrait Innovations today for his two-year-old pictures.  It was a very pleasant experience.

Daniel has to get the mulch off the bottom step.

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More stairs.

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On Friday Daniel had the playground all to himself.

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A deeper set of stairs.

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The field behind the playground.

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This is the pretty creek at the back of the field.  Daniel calls it “wa-oo” (water).

A hat loving boy has an advantage of having a knitting Mama that can make him all kinds of hats, including his new jester hat.