josie turned 2

January 12 was a momentous day! Josie turned two, can you believe it? She's growing up and leaving behind the baby stage. It's always sad to say goodbye to the baby stage, but oh so fun to explore what lies ahead as kids develop into their own little people.

Her birthday started out with a magical dusting of snow! It was very pretty, though it seemed to throw all of St. Louis to a halt. We didn't mind one bit.

Because Josie had an outpatient procedure scheduled, she wasn't able to eat anything but she could have clear fluids till 9:30 am. So she had all the apple juice she could possibly handle! Fortunately, she tends to be a light eater in general, so she really didn't complain much. I just kept her distracted and her crazy sagging diapers changed.

After all the hospital stuff I mentioned in the previous post, which was an unfortunate part of the birthday extravaganza, we were pretty pooped out. Josie had a mega nap (she had partial anesthesia and pain meds that made her sleepy.)

At dinnertime, we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa as well as Dillon Neely (who is living with us until he and Rebekah get married in March...Josie is nuts about Dillon and actually says his name which, in my opinion, gives him rockstar status) and ate some of Josie's favorite foods (and when I say favorite, I mean, stuff that she'll actually ingest. It had to involve ketchup.) We had mac and cheese, hot dogs, and salad, the ultimate kid meal. I couldn't stand to feed this meal to the grown ups, so we had a slightly "higher brow" version...browned apple chicken sausage with kraut to dress it up. (I don't know why, but I just love sauerkraut and took this as an opportunity to inflict it upon others.) Topping it all off were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting and ice cream. (I can hardly bear to think of how many calories were in these little suckers, but I'm glad they're finally out of my fridge!) This year, she loved the cake. Last year, she didn't bother. So that was definitely a step in the right direction!

 

We sang the birthday song to her and she surprised me by getting a bit quivery in the lip. Not sure if it was because the lights were turned way down or if she got overwhelmed and confused. But she's not usually very shy about being the star of the show. Regardless, she totally knew what to do about the candles!

Then she opened presents which, again, she knew exactly what was expected of her coming directly off of Christmas just weeks ago. She got some cute clothes and shoes from us and a great kitty cat piano with a microphone and the most wonderful meowing sound effects! Of course, we all know that anything musical will thrill Josie.

All in all, it was a wonderful day, a real success I think. I just can't believe she's two. But I think two will be a very good year for her. I'm looking forward to getting to know more about her as she reveals more of who she is!

Not much else to say, but just feast your eyes on this sweet little girl who thinks she's so big, she should wear lipstick now!

josie's first birthday

My Josie and her baby blues

Our little baby is officially a toddler. Her first year went by so quickly!

For her first birthday, we kept it simple and had her grandparents over for dinner and a quiet evening of celebration together. We ate some veggie soup which she is known to devour and introduced her to the joys of chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting.

Surprisingly, she didn't lay into the cake like we expected (or like her siblings did on their first birthdays.) When we gave her the cupcake, she promptly squished it in her fist and then proceeded to pick it apart with her fingers, exploring the feel of it rather than the taste of it. I gave her a few small bites, which she accepted willingly, but she wasn't all that impressed. So what you see in this photo pretty much ended up in the trash can.

I had a lovely video of us singing her the happy birthday song and blowing out the candle, but somehow in my transfer of images from camera to computer, I deleted it *boo hoo*.

After dinner and cleanup, we opened presents. We got her a pair of soft soled shoes to help her in her new walking efforts and a fun sippy cup with a straw which she prefers over the handled sucking kind. Memaw and Papa got her a foam book which she has taken a real liking to and has been flipping through today.

A new development on her birthday was this special "photo face:"

She has officially learned how to strike a pose.
Happy birthday, my sweet love! You light up our lives!

batman birthday

Simon requested a batman party this year to celebrate turning four. (Can it really be true that he's already four??!) We haven't really done a "proper" party for him in the past since we learned through experience (Ella is always the guinea pig) that smaller parties are better until the child is a bit more mature and able to handle all the activity and attention. (Ella always cried when a crowd sang her happy birthday.) This was the first year that we instituted the "guests equal the number of years you are" rule. Simon was able to invite four of his closest buddies and we had a swell time celebrating dark knight style.

We decked out the table with all his favorite junky foods (and threw in some carrots for good measure.)

Always gotta have the chocolate cupcake.

Simon is into all things super hero these days and I wanted him to be able to dress up as Batman for the day. He already had a super cool mask, but no attire. I found some cheap Batman pajamas online at Walmart and considered that the costume. I tracked down capes at Oriental Trading Company and was able to get one for each of our guests so they could join in the fun! The only problem was, the day before the party, I gathered my things to assemble Batman goody bags when I noticed I hadn't counted Simon in on the total when I ordered the capes. I was one cape short! I envisioned teary meltdowns as Simon handed out capes to all his friends and didn't have one for himself. It was too late to order another one (DRAT!) Fortunately, I had a remnant of black satin stored away in the basement (leftover from the dress I had made for my senior prom...gasp!...I am NOT a hoarder!) I whipped together a cape, amidst muttering under my breath how annoyed I was at myself for miscounting, that made Simon look the part! He wore it all day and has even asked to sleep in it (I denied the request since it ties around the neck and I was afraid he'd wake up in the night strangulating!)

The boys all played nice and there were no tears, fights or black eyes. I was rather pleased with the whole affair! There was even space for some adult conversation! My only regret is that we didn't wrestle all the boys down to get a photo of them in their capes. It was a little too high energy to remember such things...

Simon got a batmobile from his friend Gabe. It's super cool.

birthday party #2

Ella really lucked out this year. Our trip to Atlanta was a bit of a last minute decision and we hadn't anticipated celebrating Ella's birthday out of town. I had already promised her a "storybook" birthday party that we've been talking about for several months since she's been enamored with writing her own stories. So, not wanting to go back on my word, last weekend, we had a girly little "storybook birthday."

The invitation that I never found time to mail out. In the end, I turned it into a less-than-stellar evite.

She invited a few of her buddies and they all came dressed to the nines. The don't seem to need an excuse to get gussied up.

We had a spread of delicious and less than nutritious finger foods:

On a side note, in my busyness, I avoided making the cake batter from scratch and ran to the store to pick up some chocolate cake mix. After reading the labels, I couldn't find a single one without partially hydrogenated yuckieness, and, even though I was serving junky food, I just couldn't bear making a cake with that stuff in it. So I grabbed the healthiest option I could find and it happened to be Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free cake mix. YIKES! I threw the batter together at home and the kids wanted to lick the mixers. I obliged and Simon put his down after the first lick. He questioned, "Why does this chocolate taste weird?" Indeed. I was nervous about serving the gluten free goodies, but in the final hour, I didn't have much choice! Fortunately, I made some chocolate cream cheese frosting and that seemed to cover up any mysterious flavor that might have slipped by a discerning palette!

Our storybook party included a craft time where each girl/mommy team got to create their own book with matching bookmark.

Our supplies. Note to self: itty bitty beads are not a great idea with three drooly babies present.

The girls enjoyed choosing pretty papers, stickers and fancy lettering.

Here are a couple of finished books:

Ella had loved the time with her friends, especially after that rough first week of school. I heard lots of little girls crying when their mommies said it was time to leave, so I guess they had a good time too! (Crying is good, right?) Ella has already decided she wants to have a "rock star birthday" next year, whatever that means. I don't know if I can keep up with this pace though! She might just get another gluten free cupcake.