Birthday Bash

Yesterday was Reese's second birthday party. We had been prepping her for the experience all week when we picked up her cake, balloons, crepe paper, etc. She also got some great practice blowing out candles and understanding the "birthday process" last weekend during Daddy's birthday celebration.

When Reese woke up (promptly at 7AM), we heard her talking on her monitor. It's not unusual for her to talk to herself when she wakes up, but when we listened closely we heard her saying, "I'm going to be two. I'm going to be two. I'm going to hold up two fingers. Ellie, I'm going to be two."

The morning was filled with party prep, including blowing up balloons and hanging crepe paper garlands. Mommy accidentally bought a package of small balloons for the party. I thought they'd be great since they included a wide assortment of shapes and colors, I just didn't realize that they were all small--better suited for water balloons than the decoration I had envisioned. Due to their size, they were near impossible to blow up. With my abdominal muscles stretched over a pregnant belly and my diaphragm squished by a growing infant, I'm not sure what possessed me to try and blow up the balloons, but after two I began to worry the exercise might send me into pre-mature labor. So...Daddy got out his multi-function battery charger/generator/inflator and took care of the rest. Reese loved watching her pile of balloons grow. She arranged them into a "house," ran through them screaming, threw them up into the air, and kept repeating, "Look at all these colorful balloons! I love them!"

Around 11, the party goers showed up the party began. Grandma Bailey brought the beautiful curtains for Reese's big girl room that she made and we hung them up immediately. Soon the house was full of family.

To keep Reese occupied while Daddy made lunch, we decided to open presents immediately. Reese commented on the size of all the packages and repeatedly mentioned how excited she was. In the 24 hours since the party, all of her new toys have been broken in.

After lunch we dug into Reese's birthday cake--a chocolate/chocolate ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. Reese specified pink icing with green, blue, and purple polka dots. (I offered the idea of ballerina slippers, but polka dots won out.) Reese was anxious to blow out the candles and could barely wait for us to finish singing happy birthday. Once the song concluded, she expertly blew out each candle. Unlike last year (when there was a lot of prompting and prodding) Reese dug into her cake and devoured every last crumb. In the end, her face was pink, her clothes were a mess, and she was very satisfied.


All the guests left during nap time (which quickly followed cake) and Reese enjoyed an afternoon playing with her new toys.