Josh and Kara's new life: Party Time!!

We had so much fun the week of their second birthday...filled with lots of special people! On Thursday, I got the mail on the way to our library class, and found birthday cards for each of them from their great-grandma. They thought it was too cool that they got mail!!

Also, one of my best friends Kristie was in town from South Carolina, home for spring break, and got them all gardening buckets for their birthday! So on Friday, we spent the afternoon planting our beans, zucchini and flowers! The kids have had a blast watering their gardens, but it's hard to keep them from playing in them! We'll see how everything grows...hopefully something will work out!! (no thanks to their mama's green thumb though!!)

Then came Saturday.... Although mother nature didn’t cooperate with me like she was supposed to, we still managed to have a FABULOUS 2nd birthday party weekend! On Saturday we had our ‘friend’ party….which consisted of 10 families on the invite list…which (including us, my mom and brother) was 19 adults and 30 kids…all INSIDE our house. We had a Jungle theme, and had the house decorated to a ‘t’…exactly as I had pictured while laying in bed for many sleepless nights planning the party in my head. I put the kids down for an early nap, and they woke up to a fully transformed house! Our guests arrived and we played, read books, ate snacks, played with stampers, ate cupcakes and opened presents…pretty standard b-day party! The kids got wonderful presents….mostly fun outdoor toys….that we just need some warm, DRY weather so we can go out and enjoy them!

Mommy and her birthday babies!

They weren't sure what to do with the candle....but they were very interested in watching it!!

MUCH cleaner than last year!!!

They had a blast opening their presents!

Birthday Family On Sunday, their birthday, we woke up and had their favorite food for breakfast….waffles =) (eggos…they prefer those to homemade!) And as tradition has, took each of their pictures at their exact birth times… 9:26am

9:27am

(colby wasn't thrilled to stand on the cabinet...and by the time it was zach's turn, he had run to the other side of the room!)

9:28am

After that, we played with some of our new toys and straightened up to get ready for party #2, our ‘family’ party. I coaxed the kids away from all the new toys to go to the cookie store (Kroger) to pick up our cake, which turned out perfect! Again, some lunch and naps then it was party time again!

And just a silly side note…the kids got their first 5 seconds of fame on their 2nd bday! The TV channel we watch with all our favorite shows is called Sprout. Every day, they set aside a few 5 minute segments to show birthday cards that were created for the kids having birthdays on that day and then they sing the birthday song. So for a long time, my kids have been able to say “happy birthday” because they hear it quite often! So this year, I made them a sprout card, and it was actually shown on TV on their bday! We didn’t see it live, but I recorded the day’s worth of shows and josh went through and found it! I video taped it, but now still have to figure out how to get it from the video camera into the computer so I can post it!! =) but here’s what the card looked like!

and on tv...Barney even wished them a happy birthday....now that's big time!!Between naps and party (~15 minutes), the kids opened their presents from mommy and daddy…

Avery woke up from her nap SOAKED with sweat.....and no one had their pants on =) (the fun of 2 year olds has already begun!)

Colby was very serious about opening his basketball hoop!

Sweaty bday princess

Colby's new bat...

And golf club! Such a proud daddy moment!

And Zach is thrilled to have his OWN lawn mower!!

Then party #2 began! We did have some cooperation with the weather, but almost to the opposite extreme! It was in the mid 80’s! And of course, in an effort to cool off the house before the party I closed the windows and turned on the AC, just to discover 3 hours later that the AC wasn’t working! Thank goodness for ‘handy’ family members that could diagnose and fix the problem without too much hassle! But it was definitely warm! Again, another standard party…played outside, ate dinner, opened presents, ate cake and ice cream, then off to bed for everyone (esp and exhausted mama)!!