Happy Birthday!

Terrible Two's, here we come!  Little Libby is two years old today.  So hard to believe these past two years went by so fast, but they came and went and here we are.  Amazing how time flies.

Then again, it seems like ages ago.  Seems like we've always had Libby around; what did we do without her?  When she was born, we only had one little girl. Now that idea seems odd. When she was born we had two teenagers, one still in high school. I was in college!  My how life has changed in two short years.

Now that she's two, her personality is as big as the moon.  She's not as big as the moon though, in fact, she's pretty tiny.  Only 24 lbs and 32.5 inches. She might be little, but she's strong, agile, healthy and smart.  She can talk like a four year old!  She knew the alphabet by the time she was 21 months old.  By "know it" I mean she could recognize every letter and say what it was, plus sing along to the alphabet song.  She can count to 12 and recognizes most 0-9 numbers too. She sings lots of songs, most of them are Disney songs.  She's got a great memory for names too. I think she's ready for kindergarten!

Totally sounds like I'm bragging. I am!!!

To celebrate the day, I threw her a little party.  I decided to have the party at noon on a Wednesday since that is the regular baby play group picnic time slot and I knew all of her favorite little buddies would be available then. Plus, the daddies don't have to tag along.  Dads don't like to go to little kid birthday parties, especially when they don't know, or aren't related to, the birthday kid. So I broke tradition and didn't have the party on a Saturday.  Wednesday party!  Her birthday was on Thursday, which also would have been a good day for it, but Gracie has preschool on Thursdays so I decided a day early would be easier for us.

Via Facebook, I invited all of the mommies and toddlers from baby-group.  I don't know what I did wrong, but I accidentally invited all 233 of my facebook friends. Whoops.  Twelve said they were coming.  Wow, that's a lot, but it's not 212!  Whew!

I ordered a Minnie Mouse cake for her. Libby just loves Minnie Mouse!  Luckily, a friend of Lexie's decorates cakes as a little hobby business. She's just getting started with cake decorating, so I thought I would help her out.  The baby group mommies would go crazy over a cute little cake and she would get some more business for sure.  A week before the party (cutting it close!) I ordered the cake, told her what all I want, agreed on a price and gave her the delivery date, time, address, got it all firmed up.  Exciting!

The night before, I asked Lexie to give her a call and make sure she knew where we lived to deliver the cake.  Guess what. Cake girl hadn't heard from me since I ordered, so she assumed I didn't want it anymore.  So, no cake.  I was so very disappointed!  Lexie and Katie went to Albertson's on Wednesday morning to grab a generic cake out of the bakery bin.  It was really cute!  Libby loved it!  She has a passionate love for her "flop-flops" and the cake had flop-flop shoes on it.  Perfect! 

I made a green tossed salad and some penne pasta dishes for lunch.  Added a tray of broccoli and carrots, baked cookies and opened up a bag of chips and goldfish crackers for the little ones. Ended up with a good spread for lunch.  We gave up drinking pop a few years ago, so I set out a cooler of water bottles and juice boxes.  I also made sun tea which I remembered the next day.  Whoops.

Libby's favorite little friends came with their mommies. Jillian, Liam, Kaelyn, Justin, Nora, and the babies Mallory and Charlie. Fun, fun, fun! One daddy showed up and he was out running around the back yard with the kids so he was having fun too.  Looked like a very tall little boy (with a receding hairline).

Kids played, everyone ate, we sang Happy Birthday and had cake, then all of the kids opened her presents. Libby had such a fun time! 

After everyone left, I rocked the birthday girl and her new nephew to sleep in my lap.  That was sweet!