Julia's 2nd Birthday Party, part 2 of 2

Aunt Stacy joined us for this part of the celebration too. And no birthday celebration would be complete without snacks & birthday cake. OK, so we had an ice cream cake too.

Can they stay this little and precious forever?

Notice the Dora backpack...birthday present from Ashleigh. She would love to never take it off, unless she picks up a cute purse to carry, of course. Anything with a purse like strap is a purse. We find all sorts of things on her arm...jar tops with handles she can slide on her arm, pony tail holders, baskets, buckets. She's so girlie!

Love you, Julia Belle

xoxo

Julia's 2nd Birthday Party, part 1 of 2

For Julia's official birthday party we decided to take her to Marbles Kid Museum. The kids loved it...parents not so much. No, just kidding, it was fun just so many places to run & play. So keeping up with Julia made for quite a workout.

She loved this fireman's hat, so much so that she wore it all around that area of the museum, through the grocery store, dress up area, stage, riding in the convertible, basically everywhere.

My "big girl princess"

love this pic!

Ashleigh, on top of the pirate ship. She was so proud to make it to the top!

Julia on the run! We lost her in this area once. She ran through & around the pirate ship, through the discovery area & over to water play. Which is where we found her 5 minutes later.

The girls in front of the pirate ship

Would you like to dance with a cow?

Ashleigh loved the international area.

Ok, I think Julia could have played here for hours. These were little gel cling pieces to arrange on the glass. I buy those at Target when they go on clearance...they're good for hours of entertainment.

Phew! I think everyone's pooped, but the party's not over, on to phase 2 of the birthday celebration...

Grandma's & Julia's Birthday Celebration

This will become our tradition, a joint birthday celebration with Grandma & Julia. We'll definitely have to pencil it in to our weekly birthday celebrations :).

Soon after Grandma arrived we opened presents. It was their party, so if they wanted to open presents first that's ok, right. I thought so.

Julia loved her presents & got to work right away. She received gigantic pooh coloring pages, a really cool round, wheel like coloring tool (see above!), & magic markers. I quickly put the magic markers away. A quick glance at our kitchen wall & you'll know why.

Grandma definitely liked her presents.

We gave her 3 pictures taken over the year all mounted & placed in one frame. Of course they were the cutest ones!

After opening presents we went to Bojangles for our birthday lunch. That's where Ashleigh wanted to go & so did everyone else. It was very delish as usual.

Then we went to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for some tasty birthday treats. They were so yummy, mmm!

Grandma with her girls! I think they all looked pretty happy.

Party games! We picked this game especially because Julia loved it so.

Julia's 2nd birthday at Granny and Grandpa's

The girl's favorite activity at Granny & Grandpa's, spinning in the gold chairs! Julia is game for whatever Ashleigh would have her do...she definitely enjoyed the ride.

Happy Birthday Julia Belle!

Ashleigh was so excited about Julia's birthday party, much more so than Julia. She's ready for the cake.

There's the birthday girl, just loving all of the excitement.

There's our little professor taking it all in.

Granny & Grandpa helped blow out her candle. I just love this picture :)!

Julia didn't eat much of her cake. She said,
"icecream?" And at Granny's when the grandkids say icecream, they get icecream. All we heard was, "mmm mmm mmm". All was well in her world.

"Whatcha' doin'? I'm trying to eat icecream."

She did like the icing & Stewart & myself tryed to stop her from having a finger lickin' good time. But Granny & Grandpa quickly reminded us it was her cake & whatever she wanted to do with it was fine. She just got a little bit with that left index finger...she's my little lefty.

She gently & slowly opened her gift. We ultimately helped her, otherwise I think it would have taken a couple of hours. The girls are so different. Ashleigh would have ripped it off in about 2 seconds!

It's Gecko, the webkin! She loved it, but Grandpa thought it was hilariously ugly. After Granny purchased it & showed it to Grandpa he just laughed & laughed at its ugliness. It was funny to hear them tell the story.

Julia loved snuggling with Grandpa.

I found MY old BARBIES! Ashleigh just loved them, their clothes, everything. I think she was amazed Barbies had been around for SO LONG. She had a great time playing with them. Needless to say they now live with her Barbies at our house. And she wouldn't have it any other way. "Mama may I please take them home. Yay!"

I think this was the highlight of the party for Stewart (other than the food, of course). Granny & Stewart played Wii bowling. I think they both had a good time.

"Come on Grandpa, start the train please."

"The Chair" in action.

Julia received her gecko & says, "cool". Julia came away with more presents, but this is the only one on film.

Of course, Ashleigh gets presents too...check it out.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We decided to have a family night in for Valentine's Day, so we had a pizza/craft Valentine's party! While Stewart was at the gym, the girls prepared for the party. No one could decide on a combo pizza everyone would like, so we ordered 3 different ones. Everyone should be happy on Valentine's day, right. Needless to say we had quite a bit of leftovers :). For our craft we each decorated different sized hearts. It was really neat to see our different personalities come through our heart, art project that is. We had a fun night making great family memories!

I'll include pics of our hearts after Stew updates our software. We recently had computer problems.