Five, Four, Three, TWO, One......

Dear sweet little Cameron,

You are two years old now and growing and learning more each day. To say we enjoy you and your personality is an understatement. We LOVE it. We love everything you are and all you have become. You are not only a joy to be around, you embody all that is joy, bring it with you wherever you go, and share with everyone you meet. Your enthusiasm for life and every detail in it are contagious and we thank you for bringing it into our home and our lives.

You are, to be sure, THE quintessential boy. From your blonde hair and light blue eyes to your never ending sense of adventure, you are all boy. You love to be rough and tough, wrestle and climb, jump and run, get dirty and make things dirty. You break your toys in less time than it took to buy them and love smearing your food from head to toe. The part of all this that makes it cute is that you're not doing it at all on purpose. That's just how you do life. You approach everything with curiosity and adventure and don't like being held back in any way.

We learned from your earliest days not to strap you in a stroller or try to get you to sit in a high chair. You want to be free to explore the world around you. You won't take life sitting down or sitting still. Being pushed around in a cushy seat as a spectator is not for you. You want to experience it all for yourself and do it by yourself. I love that about you. I hope you always feel that way about life my sweetheart!

You're also quite goofy. If we were to vote on who in the family was the "class clown" you'd win for sure. You're always pulling funny faces and doing funny things and trying to get us all laughing. One day you found q-tips, stuck them in your ears, and ran around the house making silly faces. Just one of the many things you do to keep us all entertained.

In the last several months you've become really interested in rockets and anything to do with space. Whether it's the moon, stars, planets, space shuttles, or astronauts you love it all. It's been fun the watch your interest in this grow because this one is all you. You didn't become interested in this because it was something your brother liked, you like this all on your own. I think your love for rockets came from a book I bought you boys called "On The Moon". The book talks all about the astronauts who went to the moon. You love to count down rocket launches and do it so well. Most of the time, when you are upset about something, all I have to do is look you in the eye and start counting down from five. By the time I get to one you have a grin from ear to ear and yell "ba boff!" which means blast off!

Whenever you find me on the computer you come stand by my side and ask in your cute little voice "watch rocket launch mommy?" You love to watch rocket launches on you tube. I love doing this with you because now I've learned to appreciate rockets as well. Something I've never really given much attention to. I'm learning, along with you, all about space and actually get teary and tingly all over when I watch the launches with you. They are awesome and amazing, just like you, and I hope to take you one day to see a real rocket launch. As you watch them you literally shake with excitement and make cute rumbling rocket engine noises. Your love of rockets matches your style and personality perfectly.

You insist on reading "On the Moon" or "On The Launch Pad" before every nap and each night before bed. We both have the stories memorized and you can pick out our planet in the solar system, earff, with no trouble. We're working on memorizing all the planets along with your brother Ty. You're such a smart boy, you'll know them soon.

You are talking so much these days. People are always impressed with how many words you know and how clearly you speak. You've started using complete sentences to express your thoughts and ask for things. It's been so fun to see your progression in this area. I've listened as you've gone from "help" to "need help" to "I need help" and so much more. Every day I'm amazed and impressed at your vast vocabulary.

You also love letters like your brother Ty and pretty much taught yourself to recognize the letters in the alphabet along with many of their sounds. As soon as I knew you were learning them I try to help where I can, but you get most of the credit on that one. Your rocket books have also taught you to count. You can often be heard reciting the numbers one through 13 with no trouble, and you love to count anything and everything you see. You're doing well with colors and shapes too. Circle is the first shape your learned and that one comes easily for you along with rectangle.

Red, white and blue seem to be the colors you recognize easily, maybe due to your love of rockets, but you can say all the colors. Today I held up a green car and you called in pink. Sometimes you get the right and sometimes you don't, but in no time you'll be matching the correct names to colors. I love how you pick up so much from the world around you.

For your birthday we took you to the Aerospace museum. You also love planes and enjoyed looking at them but spent most of your time in the children's area playing. The first thing you did was go to the toy corner and dig through every toy to find the only two space shuttles in the bunch. You hung on to those the entire time. We dressed you up like an astronaut and you loved the flight simulators they had for you to play with. You had so much fun it was hard to leave. On the way out we let you pick your own gift from the toys in the gift shop. Of course it was a space shuttle. The only problem was that one didn't seem to be enough for you. You kept saying "more space shuttles" and tried to carry out as many as you could fit in your arms, but we'd only let you have one. Before the end of the night you'd knocked out an engine and part of the wing in true Cameron style. It's just how you welcome your new toys. For your birthday dinner we enjoyed your favorite food right now, pizza! You usually ask for pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

For Christmas your wonderful dad put together a wooden rocket model for you. It's the Saturn V just like in your book and you love it. You carry it around often and sleep with it almost every night. In the morning when you wake up and I go to lift you out of your crib you have your blanket in one hand and that rocket in the other. It's also chipped and dented and some of the paint has been chewed off, but it's yours and you love it and your dad personally picked that out and put it together for you.

One more thing that's so fun about you is how much you attract attention wherever we go. From the time you were very small whenever we took you out in public, people would go out of their way to come and see you and talk to you and tell us how cute you were. Often we were told "He looks like an angel" and you are an angel. To this day when we go out people always stops to talk to you and tell us how cute you are. You get a lot of attention and attract a lot of people with your beautiful face, and fabulously fun personality.

You also love to freely give hugs. Often, when I've been having a bad day, or you can tell my patience is almost worn out, you come to me with your cute smile and say "hug you" and wrap those strong little arms around my neck, press your cheek to mine, and squeeze with all your might. And as you do this you say "I wub you". I never ask you to say those three words or insist you tell me you love me. I know you do and I want you to say those things when you want to. And you do all the time. Thank you.

May you always be as fun loving as you are now. May you always approach life with the enthusiasm and joy that you do right now. May you always refuse to take life sitting down. And may you always offer hugs and love when people need them most. We love you so much sweet little Cameron. Happy Birthday angel!

Love,

Mom and Dad