Because two is a sweet, sweet age to be

It's probably about time for that "how we celebrated Anni's birthday" post, right?  Well, here it is!  It's a bit of a combination as we actually celebrated her birthday twice - once on the actual day in Colorado and once with my family in Wichita the following weekend.

On her actual birthday, we woke her up singing Happy Birthday, and she very excitedly discovered that we had put balloons in her room in the middle of the night.  (She started out calling them "balls," but quickly switched to "boons!")  

Breakfast was whole wheat raspberry waffles with chocolate chips on top.  This girl was excited!  The chocolate chips were an after thought after Daddy got a waffle without very much raspberry in it... and after melting into little puddles in the waffle squares, Anni took to just dipping her finger into them and licking it off.  Girl after my own heart, she is.

Her birthday dinner was small - we wanted to celebrate her special day, but knew we were having a big party with my family, so we kept it pretty low key... or as low key as something with chocolate cupcakes and presents can be with a two year old.

Anni's Nonna and Papa came down, bearing all kinds of lovely gifts and our favorite neighbors hopped over to join us.

A pre-dinner cupcake was necessary to combat the crankies from getting overly hot and tired at the park that afternoon.  It perked her right up for birthday dinner: Annie's Mac&Cheese, pizza and fruit.  Anni kept declaring, "I eat piz-za!  I eat mac on cheese!  I eat keeeweee!"

And, oh goodness, the gifts.  Our dear girl was quite spoiled.  Am I allowed to admit that I loved her gifts; though?  Her Papa made the below table and chairs by hand (seriously, he is amazing!), she got the cutest little grocery cart, books, puzzles, a step stool... just a whole lot of fun.

Last year, I really struggled with the memories of how Miss Anni's birth and first few months weren't exactly ideal.  This year, there was so much to focus on in her little personality and how much she has grown, changed and amazes us every day, that while I told her all about her very first birth-day, there wasn't a pang to be had, just immense joy that she is ours and that we are truly blessed to have her sweet little person with us.

She also broke a rather nasty streak we had going on of being hospitalized and cancelling trips around her birthday.  Good work, baby girl!

Anni's "big" birthday party was a joint one with her cousin "Q"... a joint effort between my sister and I between two states.  When Anni and I need a little pick-me-up, we call "Aunt Kaekee" and recently we talk through our plans to celebrate our babies. 

We settled on an animal theme because it was the easiest way to encapsulate these two personalities.  Mostly, we just went for a lot of fun and enough food to make sure everyone was well fed.

The daddies finished off our decorations with some awesome streamers.  They definitely deserve props for those.  Then we had some zebra balloons in the window, french doors covered in pictures of the littles (Anni on the left and Q on the right), some animal masks on the wall (the opposite wall), more pictures on the table and, of course, our food.

I'm glad I remembered to grab a picture of the food before things got crazy... we have animal cupcakes on top and below: Safari Snacks (carmel popcorn/rice squares), Rabbit Food, drinks in adorable milk bottles and zebra stripe pudding.  We also feasted on pizza... because what better way to feed our family (nearly 20 people) and keep everyone happy?

Katie and I made the animal cupcakes the day before the party... I'm pretty excited by how cute they turned out!  We had some monkies, fishies, butterflies, lambs (or... polar bears), frogs, zebra striped and a couple plain ones for good measure.  The cuteness factor is mostly due to my sister's skills... I mostly just spread frosting and ate extra twizzlers.

And don't worry, we had sweet favors.  Everyone (including the adults obviously), spent the party trading and trying on all of the different animals.

We, of course, had some post dinner coloring.  It wasn't planned, but the best things aren't.

When it came to singing, all three triplets got in on the action.  The adults surrounding are doing a mixture of holding up the candles (they didn't want to stick into the frosting all that well) and making sure no one burned themselves trying to blow out said candles.

Q totally rocked his blowing out, Nugget was very intent, but didn't quite have the wind power.

It was so good to be with our family!  I love getting to see the babies grow and know that Anni will grow up familiar with her cousins even if they aren't in the same state.  (She has been making up songs about her Aunt Hannah with frequency since we got back, and tonight she made sure to pray for each uncle by name... I love it!)

And see, I even grabbed one picture with the birthday girl.

I hope all of your celebrations are as sweet as can be.  I'm so grateful for family and friends that love us and cherish our little one as much as we do.