Birthday Celebrating

We got to celebrate our two year old doing fun stuff.  Although scheduling was complicated for me, I was able to get the morning off of work.  Jason also took the day off.  The weather had been chilly, but we went to the Little Farm anyway.  Meme and Papa brought her cousins too.  We fed all the animals celery.  Cordelia was less enamored of the goats this time and wanted to get back to the cows.  We learned from someone that one of the brown and white cows is actually named Cordelia!  There are also two calves, Bluebell and Buttercup. Meme bought her a stuffed cow at the gift shop, which we named Buttercup.  We then had cupcakes and played on the playground.  Her cousins got her some books and a Kitty Surprise, which was a total throw back toy as Rebecca totally had one in the 90s.  We left just in time as swarms of field trip children took over everything.  Jason dropped me off and took her home in time for a decent nap.  Then they went on a walk and saw a school bus in our neighborhood and he let her watch a little Peg + Cat.  We went out to dinner a Yokoso's, where we hadn't been in a while.  While we were there, Cordelia requested going to the Pet Store.  So we made one last stop so she could see some more animals.  Then we went home and she got to play with her big present, which is a huge dollhouse that Jason picked out.  It is a big hit and she plays with it every day.  She has named all the dolls for family members.

That weekend we went to Fanime/Clockwork Alchemy.  My folks and Rebecca came too.  Cordelia was a bit overwhelmed and kept asking, "Shall we go to the farm now?"  But she napped well in their hotel room, if sometimes later than normal.  We also stayed over one night with them, and my parents put her to sleep, so we could go to a dance and also a concert.  Cordelia liked riding the "city bus" between the conventions.  

For her actual party, we kept things really low key and had it at a park, but with a Dog and Cat theme.  I didn't invite too many people, mainly just families with kids.  That way there was lots of parallel play and if things got too overwhelming, we would just take all the kids out to the playground and turn em loose.  I went to the party store and got some balloons and then picked up Gillian at the bart.  The timing worked out nicely, even though her train was late.  I had been debating ditching the balloons, but they ended up being an impressive, simple way to add decor.  We used table cloths and Gillian also helped bring in a lot of color with her streamer skills along the chain link fence.  I was trying not to spend too much, but still probably spent more than I need to, but I kept finding cute stuff or great deals.  What can I say, I'm excited for my kid's birthday and my mom always threw us such fun, thoughtful parties growing up!  I think I did pretty well with the party favor bags with theme shlock…. it was much easier to find dog stuff than cat stuff, but there was a fair amount of plastic animals, balls, stickers, and bubbles.  Also dog hats I found at the thrift store and a stuffed dog or cat to "adopt" from our basket.  The adoption basket kept Cordelia very busy as she would arrange all the animals around food bowls.  She loved it.  It was perfect party for her.

The balloons were such a great addition.
Cordelia loved them!  This is the winning picture!

The basket of animals was so engaging, and definitely helped to have while we were setting up!
























Cordelia finds the two kittens and makes them kiss.

Birthday cupcakes.  I found cat and dog bookmark post-its (thrift store find, again) and taped them to toothpicks.  They were slightly curving, but managed to not peel all the way off.  "I spelled out Happy Birthday Cordelia" with the speech bubbles.

Having the birthday song sung by so many people kind of rocked Cordelia's world.  She kept talking about it often afterwards. It was very windy, so we barely managed to keep the candles lit, but she wasn't scared of them this time and actually made an effort to do a little puff to blow them out.  You can see the streamers and a little bit of the favor bags on the table.

That night Cordelia played with two halves of a cherry tomato and a half of a grape.  She pretended the tomatoes were Mommy and Daddy and the grape was a baby.  The Mommy and Daddy kissed the baby and said good bye and went to work.  Then they came back and kissed the baby some more.  It was such an incredible level of dramatic play and storytelling, I was super excited about it.

Last night (after my on-going terrible days at work), Cordelia gave me a HUGE HUG and actually squeeze me around the waist with two arms.  She said, "I love my mommy.  I missed you so much.  I'm so glad my mommy came back."  That is what she said, word for word.  I was about to cry!  It was so precious and such sweet love.  I mean, I probably say similar phrases to her often, but how wonderful is it to hear those words back to you.

Now she is waking up and playing with her crib crew.  She is saying "I will get all the babies" as she gathers up cats and dogs.