Claire's Second Birthday!

This year we planned a trip to visit my parents in Texas to coincide with my brother's wedding open house and Peter's overload time at work. Which left us in limbo with Claire's birthday. It was the very same day of the open  house.

We couldn't just NOT celebrate her birthday at home with Peter. That was completely out of the question. So instead we celebrated early, on Tuesday.

Claire woke up to balloons covering her floor and streamers on her door.

On her way up the stairs, Claire was greeted by her physically biggest gift, a kitchenette. She almost didn't want to come to breakfast because she was so excited to play in her "ti-tin."

For breakfast she had her choice of cereals--her very favorite thing to eat at any time of the day.

Then, I was feeling a little sad that Claire wasn't getting a party. (I guess I was sad to miss the opportunity to throw whatever kind of party I want and to the extent that I want for my little girl.) So I decided that the theme for the day would be the zoo. We got dressed and ready with sunscreen and lunch and headed to the zoo.

When we came home we made a quick batch of blue raspberry jello jigglers shaped like zoo animals. Then it was nap time.

After her nap daddy arrived as a special birthday surprise! Claire and I baked her birthday cake and cupcakes: devils food cake with strawberry frosting.

For dinner we had her favorite everything for dinner: hot dogs, french fries, green beans, and sprite.

We shared dinner and cake with Peter's dad and brother.

Claire got several new books and puzzles. I've been saving them for some time now, waiting for her birthday. Sometimes I find it really hard to save toys--especially books-- when we're practicing learning things like letters and numbers. So she had a rather large looking pile of gifts. Some were from grandparents. A lot were from us though. She wouldn't have noticed if it was a smaller pile, but I'm pretty sure she also won't remember being a bit spoiled on this occasion.

It was a fun-filled day! We ended up changing our zoo tickets into an annual zoo pass. I know we'll have lots of zoo days in our future, but this was the first to be remembered.