Number 2

Someone had a birthday this week.

 To kick off the celebration we brought home a balloon late Saturday night. Almost as quickly as David could get his hands on it, the balloon went straight to the highest point of our house.

 Hero Daddy saved the day. 

The retrieval was so fun that somehow the balloon has found its way back to that corner several times this week. In fact, it's up there now, as I write this.

These little guys showed up in the mail from cute Aunt Tanya and Cousin Cayson. David says thank you from the bottom of his red-footed pajamas.

 David was absolutely thrilled with his celebration friends (and all of their darling little party hats).

The morning of his birthday, I put streamers dangling from David's door for him to run through when he came out of his room. I left to go to my usual early morning gym time, and  by the time I came back the streamers were down. Apparently they were a real hit--I'll take Sam's word for it. I meant to repeat the fun for naptime,  but I didn't get around to it. Next year I'll have to hang around to watch my son's glee.

Last year David's birthday was so hectic. I remember having a special dinner and cake--but by the time we finished with all of that in one evening, David was overwhelmed and tired, and it was way past his bedtime. We didn't open presents until the following night because the day proved to be a little too much excitement.

So this year I was ready. And we celebrated this little guy's birthday all week long. The night before his birthday we pulled out the ice cream--because he kept asking for some. We stuck a candle in his bowl, and he had so much fun blowing it out that we lit it several times.

So on his birthday the dinner menu was pigs in a blanket (with lil' smokies) and a fruit salad with lots of whip cream and pudding mixed in.  David liked the fruit salad and he kept calling it ice cream. At the end of the day when we had already eaten plenty of sugar we skipped the real ice cream. The birthday boy didn't know--he was happy to have that creamy salad. We now call that salad "ice cream salad" at our house.

We have a weekly playgroup we get together with--it's a group of moms with all of our babies within six months of each other. It just so happened that I hosted the playgroup on David's special day--so I made a banana cake (not frosted--just like banana bread) and prepared goody bags to hand out to the other little friends. I kept insisting that I wasn't going to throw a "friend party" for my 2-year old--I'm going to wait until he's older and it matters to him--but Sam thinks our playgroup was an all-out party. We definitely had fun together, David felt special and he loved having his friends over. But I didn't have to send out invitiations, do decorations, or host games--so I think I got by without actually throwing a party. I loved watching David willingly hand out the party bags as people were leaving. His friends had brought him gifts, and his tender heart was more than happy to share something special in return.



To end, here is the birthday boy blowing out (more) candles.

Step 1: Take a deep breath.

 Step 2: Give them a good blow.

 Step 3: Request "ooooooooooone mo' mime" while  you wag that little finger in the air for emphasis.

Step 4: Repeat as necessary.

And we did. After all, we had a whole box of matches.

And one very excited birthday boy.

I couldn't think of any other way I would rather spend my evening than to watch David blow out candle after candle after candle.

Oh, and the mint brownies were good too--when we finally got around to it. Sam and I enjoyed them, but David skipped the dessert. His fun was blowing out so many candles.