Annabelle Turns Two!
I cannot believe it. Our biggest little, Sweet Miss Annabelle Sue, turned TWO last Friday. How in the world did that happen already? I still remember the day we checked in to the hospital to be induced with her just as clearly as if it were yesterday. I recall the first few days at home, moving out of the house we had just sold and into my parents' for a few months while we looked for our current house, her baby giggles, crawling, her first teeth, her first birthday and everything in between. It seriously seems that she grew up overnight.
Our 2-year-old is now talking up a storm, has the funniest facial expressions (she can look at you like she's 16 sometimes, I swear) and has the biggest heart for someone so small. I think she's got something in her that just knows that people like to laugh and smile, and when she's around other people, she does the funniest things to bring out that joy in them. Don't get me wrong, she also has a fierce toddler side that throws overly dramatic tantrums and her listening skills when she's tired need a lot of work. Overall though, she's just a really happy, funny, loving kid.
For her 1st Birthday, we had a big party - Family AND Friends. While that was lovely, this year we decided to scale it back a bit and did only family, and it was just as much fun! Annie and her 2 cousins are all within 2 months of each other in age, with Annie being in the middle, so they had TONS of fun playing together. Just picture 3 2-year-old girls running around like wild banshees, and the laughter, giggles and fun they were having - that was our Saturday night this weekend.
I loved that Annie is now old enough that she's starting to understand the concept of birthday, birthday cake, candles, and presents. The actual night of her birthday, we didn't do any cake, but we did put 2 candles in her dinner and had her blow them out and she LOVED it! So when party time rolled around on Saturday, she totally understood what was going on. She thought it would be perfect to cheer in between candles as well. Hey kiddo, if that's what makes your heart happy, we're all about it!
After the singing and candle blowing, everyone enjoyed their cupcakes, especially the little ones! (In case anyone was wondering, Eloise actually fell asleep for most of the festivities and woke up right after we opened presents haha!)
There are more photos of the girls eating their cupcakes, but we'll leave it to your imaginations as to how it went! Let's just say there were a lot of laughs.
After getting the kids all sugared up, we decided to move on to opening the gifts. Perhaps the best part of watching her open gifts was the expression of amazement on her face at each gift she opened. She truly seemed in awe of each one, many times before the gift was even unwrapped!
Y'all, our families hit the nail on the head with gifts. I don't have photos of Annie playing with everything, but I will tell you this: she had an AWESOME day yesterday playing with every single one of her new gifts. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. With the exception of naptime, eating time, and playing outside, she stayed busy quite literally all day entertaining herself with her new things and wearing new clothes and her "Elsa cape" as well!
After gifts, the girls just played and played and played. It was the perfect time to get all that energy out from the sugary cupcakes. I'm pretty sure all of the kids, ours included, crashed hard Saturday night. And honestly, so did Dan and I!
We couldn't be more grateful to our families for helping make Annabelle's 2nd Birthday (and really it's the 1st birthday that she has any idea what is going on) so special. We had a great time just being with both of our families, and watching the kids play together. We really are so lucky to have all of our immediate families within driving distance so we can celebrate with them for things like this!