Happy Second Birthday, Abigail

I keep saying that just because she is two years older does not mean that I feel two years older. If I think hard, I can realize it has been two years and so many milestones have been accomplished. There are so many milestones that have been accomplished in just the last six months let alone two years. Here is just a small comparison:

2 months
2 Years

Since we just had family birthday parties for Abigail's first birthday, we decided to do something a little more for her second birthday. I went through a lot of ideas for a birthday party and ultimately decided to have the party at our house. Since it would be late March, (her birthday actually fell on a Saturday this year! Though it could have been June for all she knew.) we figured we could have a nice outdoor party filled with water excitement. (Okay, I keep saying we but we was really me. Sorry Josh but you know it is true.) We have a water mat and a crazy sprinkler:

I had been planning for almost a month for party times, logistics, food, etc. and finally decided on March 28 at 3:00 PM. That way it will be after nap time, sun should be shining and no one will expect me to feed them a four course dinner. We also decided on a guest list. Part of me felt obligated to invite the day care kids but since I don't even know most of their parents, that obligation whithered quickly. We just invited some of our close friends with kids and some friends who don't mind hanging around with a bunch of kids. We ended up having 25 people plus kids at our party. I don't know if I could have mentally (or physically) handled more people than that at our house.

Josh put up two pop up sun shade tents in our back yard and we purchased two inflatable kiddie pools. We borrowed a lot of tailgating chairs and had cake, snacks, and lots of fun.

Though I think the biggest hit was the bubble machine. For $10, you just had to load the bubbles and let the machine do the work. Of course we have already gone through gallons of bubbles but it is much easier than trying to wrestle a bubble wand from Abby. She is strong!

Unfortunately we did have some uninvited guests. All the ants decided they wanted to join our party. Josh worked hard the day before and put down ant killer on most of the yard, flush out the large hills on Saturday morning and further spot treated. But the smart ants didn't take the bait, went to visit their family in the neighboring yard and headed back for our party on Saturday afternoon. I think we had around 20 bites between the three of us. But at least no one else at the party got bit. I would have felt awful for that.

All in all, I think it was a great party. The only "bad" thing that happened was with the cake. I was going to get a general Publix cake because their cakes are so tasty. Honestly I will not pass up a Publix cake. I didn't think of really getting a specialty cake unless they had something that was entirely Elmo, Abby's favorite. So I looked online and saw this cake:

For those of you are not familiar with Sesame Street today, they have a segment called Elmo's world. It is normally about 35 minutes into the 60 minute show and features Elmo, his pet goldfish named Dorothy and a funny mime named Mr. Noodle (and sometimes Mr. Noodle's brother Mr. Noodle or even Mr. Noodle's sister Ms. Noodle). This has become part of our after school routine and I am fine with it...until it becomes time to turn it off but that is a whole other post. So since it wasn't just Sesame Street but specifically Elmo's World that Publix offered, I decided to splurge and get a character cake. If anything, I just spent $7 for the three little plastic characters on top of the cake. So I ordered the cake three days before the party and sent Josh to pick it up right before the party. This is what I get when it comes home:

Now, I am no cake expert but shouldn't the cake for my 2 year old not look like a 2 year old wrote it? I never asked for her name to be off center or the H in Birthday to not connect. I also would have liked the outside red border to not look like it was rushed. Too picky? Unfortunately, there wasn't time to run back to Publix, have them correct the cake and then come all the way home. Well, technically there was but we live 15 minutes from Publix and I wasn't going to send Josh all the way back out there. I called the bakery manager (who was very apologetic) and told her I would see her tomorrow with the above picture in hand. I took a toothpick and evened out what I could and then put all the candles on the right side to even it out. It ended up being fine and what was better, it was delicious. It disappeared almost instantly. Abigail loved it.

What a party! We thankfully recovered and Publix even refunded my $7 for the botched design portion of the cake. I like them. I will still shop there. Abby has now even taken to having to watch Elmo's show holding all three plastic characters. Very cute.