Evie's 2nd Birthday Party

Since our little girl is such a music lover, the theme for her birthday party was pretty much a no-brainer... The Musical Theme. I found a couple of Wilton cupcake puzzle sets. They have different-shaped silicone cupcake liners that you can put together to make things like teddy bears, turtles, etc. I figured I could buy them and make up my own designs and use them for years to come, rather than having to buy a different shaped cake pan every year. They worked great and Richard and I came up with this guitar and musical note design. You stick all the molds together in whatever shape you want, fill the molds to a fill line with batter, bake and it (sort of) sticks together for you once baked. Once frosted, it appears solid but breaks apart easily when you distribute the individual cupcakes.



It's hard to see, but I wrote "Happy Birthday, Evie" with licorice strips on the musical note...



Look at that face! We practiced singing Happy Birthday and blowing out candles for about a week prior to the party...She just beamed when everybody started singing Happy Birthday to her.


Blowing out candles...


I stole an idea from my sister-in-law called "Pass the Parcel." You get little gifts (in our case, little musical instruments) and wrap one up, then with a different wrapping paper, put the previous wrapped gift on top and add another gift to wrap up...you keep going like that until you have a giant parcel. Then you play music ala Musical Chairs, but instead they all sit down and pass the parcel. When the music stops on your kiddo, they get to unwrap one layer of the parcel and keep what's inside. After everybody got their instrument we played a song so they could play their instrument to the music. It was lots of fun and I think it could be incorporated into lots of themes for many birthdays to come.





Evie LOVES babies! Here she is playing with Ava's new sister, Allie...



Here's another one of her favorite babies: Katherine's baby sister, Caroline...


Ahhh, let the opening begin...


If all else fails, use your teeth!!




Playing with her Elmo TMX with Katherine...





I don't know why, but I think it's so cute when Evie sits on her knees like this!


It was a really fun party...Happy Birthday, Evie! Mommy & Daddy love you!!! (And Daddy really was at your party...he's the reason we have all these pictures!)

Decorating the Christmas Tree

**Just pretend you're reading this in mid-November instead of mid-January. :o)

Evie enjoyed helping us decorate the Christmas tree. This year we opted for a 4 foot tree with kid-friendly ornaments (rather than our usual tall, pre-lit tree filled with lots of snowflake ornaments, including several years' worth of Lennox snowflake ornaments which would have been sorely missed had they fallen into the hands of a curious almost-two-year old). It was a good thing, because the next day while working in the kitchen I heard a crash--Evie had pulled the tree over! Oh well--she only did it once, so I guess she learned her lesson.

She's Walking!!

I feel I can officially say that Evie is walking now. Yippeeeee! She just took 14 steps! She walks pretty awkwardly, but I'm sure little 12 month olds start out awkward, so we'll let this 2 year old start out that way, too. She's definitely improving at a steady rate . She is now wearing braces which help (We had debated these and gotten conflicting advice from PT's and medical doctors, so we opted for the $80 a piece price rather than the $1,500 price!) Anyway, I thought you all might enjoy our news! Happy New Year!