A Birthday Brunch Party for Bug

Salted-caramel chocolate layer cake.

We had an extraordinarily fun day celebrating Lucy's birthday with friends yesterday. Lucy had four friends over (and their parents) and we ate, hung out in the warm sunshine, and chatted for hours and hours. It was perfect. This kids had a great time and there wasn't even one tantrum!

Serving Lucy her plate first.

Our spread minus the home fries.

The birthday girl.

I do believe Lucy liked this cake!

Blowing the first candle out.

Trying to blow out that second candle.

Lucy singed her eyelashes on one of her eyes as she was getting close to blow the candles out.  Here I am checking to make sure she's OK.  It didn't even faze her!

Tired Lucy noshing on some cake.

She's rapidly becoming more awake with every bite.

I just love this view. Happy girl sitting on her tree stump seat carved out by dada.

Our friends :)

Fabulous nursing mamas. Maya has a 3 year old, Keet, and Carrie has a 4 month old, Ana.

Hanging out. Lucy claimed this chair as her own.

A gloriously warm and sunny day on our deck with friends in honor of Lucy.

Lucy also had her 2-year check-up at the doctor's on Friday and she now weighs 22.4 pounds and is 32" tall. I can't believe my two year old is already more than half my own height! 

The birthday girl!

Lucy turns two today! 

What a perfect age to be. 

It has been more fun than we ever could have imagined...our time with Lucy so far has been incredible and our days are forever brightened by her perfect little presence. Our little crinkly-nosed daughter is as happy as can be and we couldn't feel more fulfilled.

Happy Birthday Dada!

Happy 43rd birthday to Matt!

At first Lucy appears uninterested in the cake, or perhaps just mesmerized by the candle. Notice Matt got a 1-year-old candle for his cake!

Then, Lucy suddenyl realized she has a chance to blow out a candle...

...stick her finger in some chocolate frosting...

...and eat it too! Yum.

Mama has a birthday

We celebrated my birthday last week by having good friends over with their little ones. There was so much action and so much speed I was only able to capture this one in-focus photo (of the wee ones) below of Lucy with her friend Cord. The bag of raisins was being passed around from tiny hands to other tiny hands. The adults enjoyed cake!

Well, Lucy also enjoyed chips and spicy salsa (surprising everyone but us) and you can see in the photo I had to wash off her sweater due to salsa dribbles. She called it quits when she accidentally made the switch from medium salsa to hot salsa!

Maya and Keet being silly at our party.

Lucy has a mouthful of delicious pancakes that I made for us on my birthday.

Lucy actually ended up having her worst sickness yet this week. A few days after my birthday poor Lucy started suffering from an awful case of gastritis. It came to a grand finale ending over the last two days when her fever spiked and peaked at 103.5. Poor thing. Luckily she stayed hydrated and healthy otherwise. You can here that she was feeling much better this morning as she glowed while eating scrambled eggs and toast fingers off of her new plate.

New words and actions that I can remember at the moment: apple, pizza (pronounced pda-pda in case you didn't know!), mimi (you'll have to guess what this one is for), nodding very slowly and purposefully for yes, saying mama/dada/mama/dada in an excited fashion to both of us repeatedly.