The Stotts Family: The Big number TWO birthday.

So I wrote a post all about Grant and that's really all this blog is meant for, until another child comes along, and the last post about his birthday was for journaling's sake and remembering him at age 2. So this post is about the day of his birthday. HE is 2. It is a weird feeling. This morning he woke up around 8:15am and I made sure everyone else was up too we all went in to sing Happy Birthday and give him his first present: Elmo Balloon from Grandma Flora and Grandpa Jim. It was from the dollar tree! Score! Anyway, he was very thrilled. He was confused then happy excited about the balloon and all of us singing.

We had some french toast breakfast with strawberries and of course then it was time to play with everything in his room. He's pretty much got the dream bedroom with every toy possible and pretty much all of it is second hand. Love it because I have spent hardly anything on him his whole life. So they say having kids is expensive, well if you are frugal, and I have to be during this stage in our lives, its not that hard.

So anyway, then it was a mad dash for us to get his party all ready and decorated. We put up the games, streamers, decorated the cupcake/brownies, set up the food table, pick up pizza, cut up the fruit and pizza, blew up balloons, and finished the party favors. I was very nervous/anxious and excited. I had never thrown a party for kids before. Grant's first birthday was a family party and Grant only went to one toddler party ever and we were late so we didn't really experience it much. Anyway so the guests arrived. We invited 8 toddlers. My mom thought I was crazy for inviting that many children but I thought it would be okay.

Four kids were there at the beginning and I thought, okay this will be good. Everyone got their lunch. Then after everyone was satisfied we started the games. First, Pin the Nose on Elmo. They each got their own nose and they seemed to like taking turns. Then throw Dorothy the goldfish (Elmo's best friend) into the fish bowl. Grant's cousin that is his age really like that activity. They each got a turn putting the fish bean bags into the bowl. Then we let the kids just play those games some more. Once I noticed Grant getting bored and asking for his other toys we knew when to move the party along. At this point three other guests arrived. We let them get comfortable and get turns on the first two games. Then we did the pull string Elmo pinata. Its didn't break and I didn't think it would. Perry muscled it and then they got the fruit snack treat inside. Then it was cupcake time. We forgot to think of matches and our good friends had some emergency matches in their car. They saved the day! lol. The alternative wasn't working very well (burning some paper on the stove until lit on fire). We sang the birthday about four times by the time we got the candles lit. Then he blew out the candles and all the kids were even more happy campers. After that it was basically the end of the party. Perry pulled out all our push toys an the kids "vacuumed" and "lawn mowed" to their heart's content. The all also got a bit crazy from the sugar. The kids then filtered out and Grant was very good about giving the party favors to his friends.

Overall the party was a complete success. I think next time I will do a cupcake mix rather than a brownie. It was kind of hard to get the paper off the cupcake liner. We didn't open presents because I was afraid the kids might have a hard time sharing the new toys and also right after the party is typically nap time and it would have been hard for Grant to part with the toys right after opening them.

After the party Grant played with his yard toys and got really messy in his sand box. He really had a lot of fun. It was so sunny and nice out.

Party Boy enjoying his spread.

Elmo! The eyes are too big or the nose is too small.

Delicious.

Costco combo for the adults. MMMmmMMM!

Sophie and Natalie the cousins.

My pride and joy. I made it out of a balloon and foresee many more homemade pinatas for future birthdays.

He has been asking to hold it for a month. Now he finally can!

Abbey, his girlfriend from church.

Cupcake brownie time.

Sand/water soup that he actually tasted, but I think the fact that he was "making" soup made him more prone to eat the soup my mom made for dinner that night.