Take Two

Guess which cutie turned two on December 8th?!

 

 

(Hint: it's the one with all the hair)

 

We rested up to make sure we'd be ready for the big day!

 

 

And, boy, were we glad we did! 

 

Eve's birthday fell on a Saturday this year - which also happened to be Andrew's last day of school for the semester.  Our friends Candace & Jeremy & kids came down from Oklahoma to celebrate with us!  Nathan's 4th birthday was on the 11th, so we had one big bash!

 

Candace found an Indoor Safari Park up in Plano, so we decided to give it a try on Saturday afternoon after Andrew got home.  Eve was very excited to get inside!

 

 

And it's no wonder!  It was a ton of fun and well worth skipping naps for!  (If you ask the kids - the parents might not agree).  Here's some shots of the fun:

 

Each of the kids got to ride a mechanized animal - Eve and Nathan both chose the elephant.  Hannah decided it wasn't for her and kindly gave her ride to her birthday brother :)

 

 

I was a little worried how Eve would handle the ride, since she broke down in tears when we tried to get her to ride a pony at the zoo in September (remember that one, Kelly?), but she did really well! 

 

 

After the rides, the climbing, sliding, and ball-playing fun began!

 

 

Halle cheered Eve on from the sidelines...

 

 

Part way through, the kids got to take a break and ride the safari train!  Hannah had a meltdown on the first lap, so they had to stop the ride, get her off, then continue.  Pretty funny!

 

Eve had a blast on her train ride and kept trying to sneak back for another turn...

 

 

Candace took a turn holding Halle - she did that for us a lot over the weekend!

 

 

Proud parents of a two year old!

 

 

Eve was very excited when she saw a "merry go round" at the safari park.  She well remembers the joys of the merry go round from her time with Reagan!  So we scrounged up $.50 so the kids could ride.  Three seats for three kids!

 

 

The little play area that Eve spent the least time in:

 

 

Eve taking Nathan for a spin :)

 

 

Round 10 or 11 in the ball pen, Eve discovered the joy of burying yourself.  Nathan was happy to lend a hand...

 

 

By the end of our afternoon at the safari park, we had Eve in a total meltdown.  Too much excitement + skipping afternoon naps did not make for a happy girl.

 

 

Unfortunately for Eve, we weren't done!  We left the park and headed straight to church for our ward's Christmas party.  Luckily, Eve got about 30 mins of sleep in the car, just enough to get her through another hour or so of fun.

 

First up?  Santa!  We'd talked about it and Eve was very excited to see Santa.  Until we actually got in the room.  Then the freakout commenced.  So Santa held Halle and I got to sit in with Eve.

 

 

As soon as we'd left the room, Eve talked excitedly about seeing Santa.  Of course.

 

Then it was on to make some ice cream cone/frosting Christmas trees!  Eve was more interested in eating the skittles that were meant to be used as ornaments.  But hey, they worked as a bribe to motivate good behavior for the rest of the night!

 

 

We had a yummy dinner with great company :) then skipped out early before the program.  We figured we'd pushed our luck by that point.

 

 

We didn't want Eve's actual birthday to pass without having her get at least one present (by this point it was late enough and kids were cranky enough, that'd we'd decided to post-pone the cake/presents until the next day) so we let her open one. 

 

A new tricycle!

 

 

She's still working out how to ride it, but loves her "bike" and enjoys having us push her around on it.

 

The next day was Sunday and after church we had some visitors!  Grandma and James stopped by to wish Eve a happy birthday (and hold Halle, of course!).

 

 

After their visit, we finally got around to having a little party for Eve and Nathan.  They got to open the rest of their presents, which I think they both enjoyed!

 

Eve got TWO new dolls and was on cloud nine.

 

 

Reading the dollies her scripture stories:

 

 

Size comparison - if you pile Halle in with all of Eve's dolls, she's easily mistaken for one of them!

 

 

Then it was finally time for cake!  We went with cupcakes for this birthday since we were leaving the next morning for a 3 week vacation and would have no way of finishing an entire cake!

 

When I had asked Eve what kind of cake she wanted, she said "brown".  So chocolate it was!  A girl after my own heart :)

 

Hers even had a pink bear decoration on top (she chose).  And two candles!

 

 

She did great at blowing out her candles (I only got it on video, no pictures and the video is really big, so will take forever to load....just imagine her blowing them out).

 

Dig in!

 

 

After cupcakes, it was time for our Oklahoma friends to head home, but not before a quick game of hoops :)  One guess as to who wanted to get the basketball hoop for Eve for her birthday?  :)

 

 

Despite it being a very busy weekend, I think Eve had a great birthday!  We sure hope she did!

 

Here are a few things about Eve at age 2:

 

-75% percentile for height and weight

-Knows upper & lower case letters and all their sounds

-Favorite phrase: "Let me do it."

-Is a great big sister and loves to help with Halle

-Favorite stories: the Sheep books, Peter Pan, and Alma and Amulek

-Still half potty trained (knows how and when to use the toilet, just choses not to)

 

I know there's tons more I could say about this little girl, but I'll just sum it up as this.  Eve is very smart, strong willed, independent, shy around others, kind, helpful, organized, and cute!

 

Happy 2nd birthday, Eve!