Leah turns 2!!!

Today my baby girl Leah is turning 2. Because her birthday falls on a Sunday, and Mother's Day we had her party yesterday. She had so much fun. It's hard to live so far away from all of our family for events like these. I would love for Leah to be able to share her birthday with all her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins but that is not the hand we have been dealt. So we made the best of it. We have a few friends with kids, they all work with Mitch and so there wives have become my friends. They have great kids and we are so thankful that they were able to come to Leah's party. Jim and Jenn came with their 2 girls, Bella and Olivia. Rich and Kathleen (Caffeine as Leah likes to call her) came with their son Ryan, and Mike and Melanie came with their daughter Emily. We also had our wonderful neighbors Mike and Julie.

The party preparation started on Friday night of course. Mitch cleaned the house a little while I started working on the food. I made a few appetizer dips and baked all the cupcakes. I found a recipe on line for these cute little pink piggy cupcakes, they seemed easy enough, so I went with it. Mitch and I got a system down. He cut up all the marshmallows and dipped them in the pink sugar while I assembled the little piggys...aren't they cute???

On Saturday morning I went to the party store and imagine my suprise to find this...The most adorable little pink pig balloon. Well, knowing what my cupcakes looked like I just had to have it. I wasn't really planning to have a theme, but a theme party was definitely in the works. When I got home and told Mitch that I ordered the pig balloon he laughed at me.

Mitch went to pick up the balloons at 2. Leah woke up from her nap at 2:30 and came into the kitchen and gave me the BEST response. She stopped in her tracks and said "balloon" and then she saw the piggy and it was something like "PIGGGGGGY!!!" I loved it! It made the $8 piggy balloon totally worth it.

The guest started to arrive and before we knew it there were little ones running wild in the back yard. The wildest without a doubt was little Leah, of course!

They played on her little John Deere, her brand new slide and they couldn't get enough of her new wagon from Aunt Laura and Uncle Jeff. Dad's had to take turns pulling the kids around. It was a big hit.

Then it was time for the cake. We sang happy birthday to Leah and she got to blow the candles out on a real cake. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this. I was holding the cake and Mitch had the video camera which come to find out later...wasn't even working, oh well.

The little piggy cupcakes were a hit. All the kids loved them and the parents seemed to enjoy them too!

Afterwards we opened up all the gifts. She got a fishing pole, play-doh, a puzzle, an RC car, a tea set, and wiffle ball set, a my little pony...the list could go on and on. Not to mention the trike from Aunt Lori, Uncle Todd, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Brian and all the cousins in Minnesota. And of course the sand and water table and shovel/bucket/sand toys from Gigi and Papa. Leah is lucky girl to have so many people that love her.

Mitch and I were talking about how this is only the beginning. We have a lot more birthday parties in our future. It was a lot of work but totally worth it. There will be many more late nights, decorating cupcakes. I hope Leah had a very memorable birthday. I know my memories of her are priceless.