Saturday, March 23, 2013

Don't Let the Pigeon Turn Two!

Sarah is seriously in love with the Pigeon series of books by Mo Willems.  Her two most requested reads are "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!" and "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!"  She thinks it is hilarious to tell that silly pigeon "NO!," and we're, quite frankly, happy to hear her yelling "no" at someone other than us.  It only made sense, then to have a pigeon-themed birthday party for Sarah's second birthday!

These are the invites I made.  Imagine them printed front to back and folded down the middle to make a little booklet.  They make a lot more sense in 3-D!


The day of her party was cold and yucky, but we still managed to party anyway!  I thought the house looked cute:



Guests got to snack on blue cotton candy, birds nest cookies, and Oreos dipped in chocolate.  I think I was pretty creative considering there were no "pigeon" party ideas to be found anywhere!



We also had an amazing cake made by family friend Karen Peterson!


Sarah insisted on wearing her cowboy boots, and I'm pleased to say that everyone thought they were really cute.  I guess I'm lucky that she didn't want to wear her big pink snow boots!


Since Megan was in Chicago, Sarah got to video chat with her before everyone started arriving.


We spent some time chatting, eating, and dancing with Uncle Adam, Grammie and Pa-Pa while we waited for the party to start!



And then the party began!


Sarah loved having everyone at the party read one (or more!) of the pigeon books to her!



When it was time for cake, Uncle Adam held her up so she could blow out the candles.



YUM!!!


Just after we served the cake, it started to snow. A LOT.



We had a lot of friends and family who needed to drive through the snow to get home, so we quickly opened presents!



Sarah got lots of cute clothes and toys!  She also got a lot of help from her friends, Grace and Finley!


The highlight of the birthday presents was the campfire set Grammie and Pa-Pa gave Sarah.  Everyone from age 1 to age 7 spent some time playing with it!


As we were handing out treat bags (bubbles,egg-shaped sidewalk chalk, and eggs of iridescent putty), I ran down to the garage to get the large bags of cotton candy I had stored down there to send home with each family.


And that's when I realized that Pickle had also been stored in the garage during the party.  OOPS!  Can you guess where all that cotton candy ended up?  Here's a hint:


In spite of Pickle and the snow, however, we had a great time at Sarah's 2nd birthday! 



*** It's a good thing people went home early, though - this is what we woke up to Sunday morning:





Thursday, March 21, 2013

Sarah's 2nd Birthday

When Sarah got up this morning, I held her tight and whispered in her ear, "Today is your special day, baby.  It's your birthday!"  Sarah leaned back, looked at me and said, "Hat?"  So we put on her special birthday hat.  She then looked at me with a pained but patient expression on her little face and said, "Cake?" in a manner which really said, "Come on, dummy!  It goes birthday, hat, cake.  Get it together."  Since it was 7 am, I compromised by putting a candle on the pink muffins she had picked for her birthday breakfast!
 

 
Yummy strawberry muffins!


 
 
After breakfast, Sarah got dressed in her special birthday shirt.

 
Then we made cupcakes!  As Sarah would say, "Yummy in my tummy!!!"

 
Sarah picked out these super sweet fairies to decorate her cupcakes with.  They were so precious!
 

  
Since it WAS her birthday, I let her eat a cupcake early.  Sarah and I are going to make great partners in crime as she gets older - I usually scrape all the icing off and eat just cake, and she tends to eat only the icing! 
 
 
 
Look at this!  She left the best part totally untouched (except for the place she stuck her finger all the way through the cupcake)...

 
Grammie, Pa-Pa, and Uncle Adam came over for dinner (Sarah requested pizza) and cupcakes.  Grammie gave Sarah an early present of a puzzle, Uncle Adam gave her a birthday balloon, and then we chowed down!
 
 

 
Sarah had us sing "Happy Birthday" to her about 5 times, then she blew out her candle (all by herself!) and ate all the frosting off her cupcake.  Seriously.  She scooped it off with both hands and ate all of it!


 
 
And then she let Pickle help with the clean up.  Maybe we should work on our manners!


 
Happy Birthday, Sarah Jane!