Lila's 2nd Birthday Party

I'm finally getting around to blogging about Lila's birthday party thanks to the fact that my girls are taking very long naps due to an exhausting trip to the doctor today for check ups.

The day of Lila's birthday party began with her walking around the family room completely tangled up in the balloons Daddy bought her for her party.  She is climbing the stairs in this picture because the second she saw me with the camera she declared, "I see it!"  Luckily the balloons slowed her down quite a bit.  I think I might have something here...

Once we untangled Lila and got the balloons dispersed throughout the house, the party could begin.  I tried keeping things small this year after filling our house last year with what seemed like 150 little girls in costumes, so we just had my extended family and a few friends over.

Lila wasted no time in chowing down on the chips and guacamole.

The rest of the menu included pulled pork, brisket, Zarda baked beans, Jack Stack style cheesy corn, green beans, and chips.  Lila was in hog heaven.  Pardon the pun. 

For cake, Lila requested a blueberry cake, so I used an old recipe of my parents' for a lemon blueberry cake.  It was definitely labor intensive; especially the part where I decided I didn't like the color of the icing so I scraped it all off, got my hair cut, went to the store for more powdered sugar and blueberries, told the girl scouts at the store that I couldn't buy cookies because I'm counting calories, drove home, and re-iced it.  Lila also chose a Costco red velvet cake as our secondary cake...because you can't have too much cake.  You can tell from the video that she was pretty excited about the cake.

 For party favors I made these sugar cookies with this icing. 

Lila got lots of great gifts, including a baby doll who she has named "Baby Chloey" after her cousin Chloey.  But her favorite gift at the party was her new princess Cozy Coup from my parents.  The first thing she asked me when she got in the car was if I could turn on the music.

Olive was a trooper and didn't even get jealous or anything...unlike me when Jessie received a brand new Fischer Price cassette player with TWO microphones for her birthday while I was looking like a chump with only a ONE microphone cassette player.

Happy Birthday my little Lila Lou! I love you!

Lila Turns Two!

At some point Lila went from this:

To this:

(She's the one on the left...I think.)

Her big family par-tay is on Sunday, but she had fun today going and getting a hot chocolate for lunch and Winstead's for dinner.  Since Lila has become so verbal lately, I decided to start a little tradition of asking her questions every year on her birthday...so here they are:

How old are you? I two (holds up three fingers).

What's your favorite color? I yike purple.

What's your favorite food? I yike rackaroni...pizza...

What's your favorite TV show? I watching Daniel Tiger.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I be Grandmommy.

What's your favorite book? Caterpillar.

What's your favorite song? I yike Milk song!

What's your favorite animal? I yike polar bear. I yike penguin. I like giraffe...beary beary yong necks.

Who do you love? I yike you!

I also tried to ask her who her best friend was, but the jury is still out on that one.

Lila's First Birthday Party

I'm so excited to share photos from Lila's first birthday party!



We decided to do a storybook birthday because Lila loves to read and play with books.  I got the invitations on Etsy from Toasted e Design.  The first section had the invitation; the second section was a coloring page requesting that each kid come dressed as their favorite storybook character, and the third section was a book plate.

I attempted to do all the food based on different books that Lila likes, but with the new additions to our family, the cupcakes were really the only things that made it that far.  We had The Snowy Day vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and white sprinkles.  Next was Fancy Nancy funfetti cupcakes with pink vanilla icing and pink crystal sprinkles.  Last was If You Give A Mouse A Cookie chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and half of a chocolate chip cookie.  Because of our demographic, the pink cupcakes were by far the most popular.

I did manage to throw in some themed food...



 like these strawberries for The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear.

Lila was a little cranky at the beginning of her party.  In my family we say "The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Birthday."

 

 She quickly perked up, though, once all of her friends arrived.

Lila was dressed as Olivia the pig.  We also had Thing One and Thing Two...

A few Fancy Nancys...

 

 And (almost) all of Lila's aunties came in town just for Lila's birthday and dressed as characters from James and the Giant Peach.

I tried to keep things short and sweet.  We had a box fort for the kids the play in and color on along with Meriahna and Sydney's hand-me-down slide.  Then Johnny read Olivia to all the little girls...and Hayes (a very brave boy).

After reading the book, we got to have cake.

These little girls were pretty good at demolishing cupcakes.

Johnny and I had the easy way out of dressing in black and white like Olivia's parents.

We are so thankful to have such a healthy, fun little girl in our family.



Happy Birthday Lila!

Photography: Valerie Fisher

Johnny Turns Twenty-Six

Johnny's birthday was on Saturday, and to celebrate his birthday and the first day of fall, we went to the Louisburg Cider Mill!



The weather was beautiful.  We were apparently fortunate to miss the Cider Festival because there was a giant electric sign on the road warning of slow traffic due to the Cider Festival next weekend...in a town of what seemed like fifty people.  Phew.

We ate apple cider doughnuts-Johnny's favorite.

And I took this picture right before I saved some children from sticking twigs into outdoor electrical sockets. The mom said, "Oh! I couldn't see because they were behind the pole!"  or she was just playing with her iPhone.

Johnny's big present was a beer making kit.  He is very excited about it.  

Now the "wort" just has to sit in the basement for two weeks, then get bottled and sit for two more weeks.  Come on over in a month for some good beer.  I'm trying to convince Johnny to use chalkboard paint on the bottles so everyone can write their names on their bottles...but I think it might be a little too Pinteresty for him.

On Sunday we got to sit outside and enjoy the weather.  And by "sit outside and enjoy the weather" I mean trade off sleeping on the quilt because Lila hasn't been sleeping through the night.

But we still love her.

A Quarter of a Century

I had a fabulous 25th birthday, so thank you for all the well wishes! Lila gave me a wonderful present of sleeping 13 hours through the night and then taking a two hour nap on my birthday.  She's also started laughing, but only when she feels like it...like pretty much everything else she does.  I have no idea where she gets that.

Along with wonderful presents from friends and family, Johnny made my year by getting me some fabulous macarons from The Roasterie, who just started selling them the day before my birthday.  He had to go to two different locations and then bought out the store.  He also gave me the gift of his next few weekends by promising to paint my front and upstairs hallways.  So stay tuned for some before and after shots.  Adios ugly wood trim.

Twenty-Five Years and Counting

Happy 25th Birthday to Katie! Last night we got to celebrate at Gram & Dun on the Plaza. Great atmosphere and great food, definitely recommend it.



Please note that in front of Emma is a large platter of Chicken and Waffles.  We're talking three huge breasts of fried chicken.  Johnny pointed out that it took more than one chicken to make her meal.  This was before Johnny, Mike, and Emma spent the last half of the meal discussing opening a Waffle House/KFC/Taco Bell. KenTacoHut better watch out.

It was great to have Emma and Sarah come in, but we missed Jane and Sarah Mann!  Over 15 years of friendship for some of us.  Baby Hutson is lucky to have so many wonderful aunties.