Happy 2nd Birthday!

Mara celebrated her 2nd birthday in style, bringing a "carnival" to her home, and adding more grey hairs to my head. BUT it was totally worth it. For those of you who didn't get to see the awesome invites, designed by Derica, here's what they looked like:

I then took the liberty of adding some tickets:

So, I probably stressed out more about this party than I should have, but I'd never really thrown a kid's birthday party before, much less with so many different aged children coming, and then a bunch of adults! But I did enjoy creating the decorations - I tuned into my crafty side (which has been in hibernation, I THINK because this boy inside me is making me crave hot dogs and beer instead...). Take a peek at some of the decor:

 You don't want to know how long it took me to draw this number 2 (and there's another one further down). The color scheme and decor were inspired by Derica's creation. She "loaned' me the cute striped string that I used to hot glue the flags together.

 Painting by Mara, I painted the wagons (like 2 bucks at Michael's). I had 3... but the wheel broke off one and I lost it. More about this later on. The lolly pops were prizes for some games, the crackerjacks, decor and give-a-ways, the blue test tube-looking things are bubbles, and I borrowed the cupcake stand from a girl at work's sister, whom I've never met. I added the red flags on the two layers, and hot glued mini flags (probably the hardest job).

 Not too shabby!

 I had planned on going to the flea market, which has a cotton candy vendor, and purchasing a few bags of cotton candy goodness and dividing them up into smaller bags for the give-a-ways... but check out what I found at Walmart! The girl stocking the holiday candy aisle told me they had more in the back if I needed it (because I filled up an entire oversize Walmart shopping cart with these). AWESOME. I actually never ate one, but was told they were flavored.

 Instead of bringing presents, I asked that people bring their creative minds to make Mara some sock puppets. She's been in a sock puppet phase for probably 5 months, and always with the socks that are supposed to stay on her feet. So here's the layout, with big socks and little socks (for her hands). The sock on the stick is to demonstrate how to dry the creations.

 More of my flags, and a wall that I modeled off an idea of Jane's - I wanted to show how much Mara has grown over 2 years, mostly using the month cards (also made by Derica). There is a framed list of Mara's favorite things to the right. I'll have to take a picture of it later.

 I made up a "program" so guests could see what there was to do, but we didn't really follow it (fine by me!).

 The other number 2 that took ages to draw, and one of the creations/games I am proud of! Instead of pin the tail on the donkey, I had kids "feed a cookie to Arson and Endo" like Mara does daily. The envelope on the picture has the cookies for later.

 I made an attempt at painting a giraffe with kids paints. It ended up looking pregnant, but that's okay. Mara already had this puppet theater from Auntie Tweet. We brought it down to play with, although Blake thought the front was meant to be dived through. Wowsa.

 My flags again, and you can see we had more of a Christmas-themed carnival. I imagine this will always be the case - Christmas themed Mara's birthday. But she loves the Christmas trees and lights so I'm okay with it.

 Flags, restroom sign. I had another restroom sign pointing upstairs, and a Concessions sign in the kitchen that I didn't photograph.

 Some of the snacks on the table. We had goldfish (Mara loves), non-discriminatory animal crackers (chocolate and vanilla), Hershey Kisses, beer dip (a la Marianne), marinated cheese, Lil Smokies and a yummy Velveeta cheese nacho dip (dip a la Derica and both on the counter) and later some pizza poppers (a la Liz). We had juice for the kiddos, water, softdrinks, and 3 types of beer for the adults.

Mara really enjoyed her birthday and started out with us asking what she wanted for breakfast. Can you guess what she wanted?

 Mac n' cheese. She is her father's daughter. 

We also let her open a present from Shirley and Paw-Paw. Check it out.

 It barks and bounces around.

 I caught it hopping! She LOVED it. Look at that smile (and laugh-squeal).

 I had also picked up some balloons featuring her favorite characters the night before, so she saw these when she came downstairs in the morning:

 She wanted to spin around and sing Ring Around the Rosy, so she got a little tangled.

 Here's Curious George, Elmo, and Thomas and Friends.

She found the cart that I didn't paint because I lost the wheel. I watched her go over to a "broken" bubble gun (battery cover was gone), pull off one of the circles, and attempt to fix the cart.

 My little mechanic/engineer! Now we just need to work on scaling to size... but that'll come later.

Now for the party.

For some reason, I got a picture of Cheryll with Max but not with Mara. Max is 9 months now!

 Here are people starting to decorate the socks.

 Baby Jack (Blake's new brother at 5 weeks old) The party animal.

 Ashley and Max at Mara's table and Blake also enjoying the balloons. Broken cart makes another appearance. I did eventually throw it away.

 

And she tried to blow out her candles but they kept coming back on! She just couldn't QUITE blow hard enough. She did seem excited that everyone was gathered around singing the Happy Birthday song... which she'll sing "Hap Birthday to you!" over and over.

 I was so excited to pick up NC State ice cream for the celebration! We got these little vanilla cups for the occasion, and they came with the awesome wooden spoons.

 When I passed out the bubbles, everyone had a good time!

 Especially Blake!

 Mara learned to mix popcorn and animal crackers in the popcorn boxes. Interesting.

Here are the finished sock puppets. Please ignore the phallic shaped example sock. Sorry about that.

 

And finally, our growing, happy family.

 I will post about Christmas, I promise, but this should satisfy you for a little while, I hope?

For those who could join us, thank you for helping to celebrate our little one's 2nd birthday! For those who couldn't make it, we missed you! I didn't take photos of her opening the remainder of her birthday presents, but she loved them!

Ready for Christmas and Birthday?

I know, it's been a long time coming. Hopefully, after this birthday and Christmas are out of the way, I'll get back to my ~1x a week posting.

Here was her 23 month shot. Can you believe tomorrow she's going to be TWO? She's excited about her birthday... probably because WE'RE so excited. She's been having a pee pee in the potty about 5 out of the last 7 days. Pretty incredible.

We've been making some of our own wrapping paper (sadly, I didn't use any for the Northern families! I used this for big boxes down here!)

Mara got some sticky penguins to go on the door and she loves them. She makes us open the front door just so she can see them, and rip them up... so one penguin is now hatless and we have a few less snowflakes. Ooops.

 We went shopping for our Christmas tree with Claire and Travis. Mara enjoyed decorating it - she hung some ornaments low on the branches.

I'll have to take a picture of the decorated tree. But what was amusing to me was she found the sawdust pile in the driveway from Zack trimming the stem:

And every time she'd see it, she's stomp her foot really hard on it. No clue why.

Okay, time for more cleaning and house prep. Later!

Video Updates

Hi everyone,

We've had a busy few weeks, so I just have some quick updates. I finished Mara's hat yesterday! It fits and she likes it - hurray!

She's coming along so quickly with speaking! Yesterday, she said "Miss Nicole" to her teacher instead of "Cole!" We were so surprised! AND she got on all fours last night, moved around like a frog and was saying "Ribbit! Ribbit!" which they apparently do in gym class.

She knows when Zack gets out to put gasoline in the car and says "Gas!" and when we get in the car she says "phone", which I only recently connected to me whipping out my phone to calculate milage... something she observed I guess. Zack put wiper fluid in the car yesterday and she thought he was gassing up the car.

She's using some complete sentences now. "Maya do it." or "Read this book." She'll randomly tell us "I wutch you" (I love you) and brings up friends in conversation randomly. This morning, it was Ian and Derica and Maggie and then "I wutch you, Ian." She also thinks Daddy does everything better than Mommy. Either that, or she thinks he needs more practice at it. Whether it's loading her in the carseat and I'm there ready to do it... she stops and proclaims "Daddy do it." Or I go to wash her hands and she halts and says "Daddy do it. Daddy wash hands." Sigh.

She goes on the slide forward facing now. AND we're doing well with counting. See both here:

I think she had a bad dream last night because she woke up screaming my name and I went to pick her up and give her a lost binky and she threw it in the bed (saying "night time binky", which is what is has become) and just clung to me for a few minutes. I asked if she had a bad dream and she said "Bad deem." :(

Finally, here is something to warm your hearts.

My little lady

Mara is turning into such a distinguished little lady. See?

Okay, forget the fact that she doesn't have on any pants.

She asked to have her picture taken with "her" necklace.

Meaning she found Mommy's real pearls and wanted to put them on, so Mommy dug out some fake pearls strung on elastic for Mara to play with.

Didn't make a difference to her.

She could probably use a hair stylist at this point, though.

She kept saying "CHEESE" and giving me lots of smiles.

Such a cutie. And still saying lots of words.

She repeated me saying "I locked the doors."

She remembers words we haven't used in months, such as "temperature" to go along with the thermometer and her motioning to her armpit.

She has no problems telling you that you have gas. "GAS!" "Skuze me, Mommy." Whether it's her... or me.

She is getting really good at saying her abcs. I have been trying to capture it on video. I hope to post something soon. :)

I love you

 Someone told Daddy "I love you!" tonight without being prompted.

 Melt my heart.

And she says "thank you" for almost anything we give her without prompting.

And she takes her napkin and puts it in her lap.

More polite than some people I've met before!

The scar on her face is from a tube of butt paste - the corner caught her in the cheek when she was rolling on the ground.

Elmo

22 Months and Counting

Unfortunately, I never took out my camera for our chicken stew adventure this year in Tobaccoville, but Mara put some away! Good gosh, girl can eat. She also discovered that she likes to pull store-bought grapes off the vine, pop them in her mouth long enough to make them burst, then shove them into Mommy's mouth. YUM!

I DID, however, tote the camera to the STATE FAIR! Yes, that's right, I convinced Zack to go! More like, I said I was going and he came along as our escort. That, and we got to enjoy Ian and Derica's company. Not the best picture of us, but this is BEFORE fair food.

 AHH! Funnel cake. My main reason for going! Mara just licked the powdered sugar off the top.

 Someone had given Ian/Derica some leftover ride tickets, and they graciously gave them to Mara. We hunted around to find the perfect ride, and this was it! A choo choo train! Now, we had to wait in line for a few minutes, and when we got to the front, Mommy didn't have enough tickets (since they charge to have an adult ride, too). Boo. Poor Mara was devastated that we didn't get on. I hopped to the back of the line and Zack, the hero Daddy that he is, purchased the required amount of tickets. Mara was so antsy waiting in line, pointing at the train, afraid I was going to duck out again. But when we FINALLY boarded, the kid was in heaven.

 Yes, for this go-round, I was the only adult on the train. And here's the train, in all its glory.

 She had her booty propped against the seat, and gripped that steering wheel super tight.

 Even though it seemed like a long ride to me... when the train stopped and we had to disembark... this happened.

 I had to pry her hands off the steering wheel. :( At least she loved her first fair ride!

We checked out the animals and got to see pigs and piglets, ducklings, chicks, all kinds of goats, cows, a Percheron, and a cow show, shown below. You can't see the cows, but Mara enjoyed watching them.

 Mara loved seeing all the lights and hearing all the sounds of the fair. I got a hot dog for myself with ketchup and cheese... and had to get another one because someone hoovered my first. AHEM! It was a good thing Uncle Ian had placed a "Proud to be a Republican" sticker on Mara's stroller tray so that she had a "place mat" of sorts. It was covered in ketchup and cheese. Yum! She also enjoyed the petting zoo, and Derica let her feed the animals carrot slices that she'd purchased. I stayed on stroller watch, but Mara was apparently very dutiful in her carrot distribution (mostly to goats, although she saw camels and a zebra and some other animals, too.). 

One of the last events of the evening was a ping pong toss into fish bowls, again, a treat from the Justices (we really need to take them with us more!! - j/k, we totally appreciate everything they did for Mo-bean.) I think Derica knew DEEP DOWN how opposed Zack was to having a fish. And what happened when Zack tossed some ping pong balls?

 That's right. We won 2 fish. YAY!

Those fish got lots of oooo's and ahhhh's from Mara, like she could hardly believe they came home with us. She hasn't noticed, I don't think, that we are down to one. And I give Zack credit, he went out of his way one evening to go to the store and purchase fish food, and only fish food. (After our homemade fish food attempt didn't work (pieces of beef, according to the internet!)). I also dumped a swatted fly in the fish bowl... but I think Fish turned his nose up at it. Oh well. We're at day 4 and it's still alive! I'll report back next post on Fish's status... but I have a pretty good guess at what it will be.

The next day, we stopped by daycare for their fall festival. Ignore the fact Mara is wearing the same outfit. Let's just say getting her dressed is quite a challenge and I pick my battles. ANYWAY! Here she is, with some teacher I don't know, but who told us how incredibly smart Mara is. This is a cookie decorating station... but Mara neither decorated or ate the cookie. Point lost.

 She did love running into this herd of wild, plastic, rocking animals. She can rock so hard that I'm convinced she's going over.

 There were other games and wagon rides and you can see she did have a nice time! Goofball.

 Cornhole boards? No, jumping practice!

 And check out this giant mountain she scaled!

And last, but not least, I knew I was behind in taking her month photoshoot... so here was my quick attempt. I hand her the card. She does this.

 I take some shots. She hands me the card and says "All done, Mommy. All done pictures."

I convince her to let me put the card next to her for a few more shots. I get this face.

 Show me your smile face, Mara!

And then she really was all done.

A few noteworthy things: She'll occasionally say "thank you" without being prompted. For instance, I'll hand her a cup of milk and she says "Thank you Mommy." Tonight, before dinner, I was putting food on the table and she helped me put the napkins down. She knows that there is one for each of us and calls hers "Mayas." She then said "Pairs. Pairs." And I realized she was asking or telling us to say our prayers!! So we said grace, and she's great at saying AMEN!

She also likes drawing with sidewalk chalk ("Cuhyer" is the best way I can spell color so you know what it sounds like). She also giggles when we pass school buses for some reason. (ScooBus). She's making some of her own decisions... such as wanting to stay at the front desk at daycare this morning with Miss Nicole. (A huge change to our normal drop off schedule). She can also hear Zack talking about leaving to me (such as for golf), and she'll say "Bye bye, Daddy," understanding what's happening. She also has to see him first thing in the morning, and then tells him "Shower!" If he doesn't get up right away, I can get her to say "Up, Daddy! Up!" She will say "Cuh muh, Mommy, Cuh muh!" when she wants me to go somewhere.

We can't believe she's going to be TWO in a few months. She's growing by leaps and bounds, physically and mentally. We love her more than you could ever possibly describe, and we are thankful she still loves hugs and kisses. She gives the greatest, clingiest hugs.