Birthday party!

I'm not even sure where to begin to describe the fabulous time we had at Hope's 2nd birthday party. She was surrounded by friends and family, totally in her element, and enjoying the spotlight! For days she'd been singing 'happy birthday' to herself, and on the day of her party it really sunk in that we were going to celebrate HER.

Her party wasn't until late afternoon, so we had a chance to decorate a little during her nap. Nothing crazy, just a My Little Pony tablecloth and streamers. But when she came out of her room after her nap, she stopped in her tracks when she saw the room. She literally gasped and said "Ponies!" then danced excitedly over to the tablecloth to stroke the ponies.

Both sets of grandparents were over before the rest of the crowd, and Hope was hamming it up for them. By the time the rest of her friends arrived, she was in major party mode. Then ... Pugsley arrived!

Just like at the Halloween pony ride, it took Hope a few minutes to get brave enough to ride him. But then, she was hooked! Every kid that was interested got to ride him, but it didn't seem like anyone loved it so much as Hope did. Toward the end the pony handlers even let her go a little faster (maybe 2 mph instead of 1 mph) and it ~thrilled~ her. Booking a pony was a gamble that we went back and forth about, but it turned out great!

When the pony left, everyone had a little dinner. It wasn't planned, but a bunch of the little girls ended up sitting together at Hope's picnic table, and they made for the cutest pictures. I handed out bibs and they were all so specific about which ones they wanted. Far be it from me to withhold stars from the one who wanted stars or dots from the one who wanted dots!

Then it was time for gifts, which Hope was far more excited about than she was last year or even at Christmas. She tore into them with gusto, and wanted to play with everything right away. One of her gifts was a baseball bat, which was wrapped in paper. When I asked her what she thought was inside, she thought about it for a second then replied, "a cucumber!" Good guess :)

I brought in the plate of cupcakes with two candles for her to blow out. She liked everyone singing to her, but was too mesmerized by the flame on the candles to want to blow them out. She just stared! We eventually got the flame out, and gave her the cupcake to eat. Nope. She was content to take the candles out and put them back in a dozen times. She's just not a sweet-tooth!

When we finally got her in bed that night, she was a happy HAPPY birthday girl!