Josie Turns 2!

Even after being in California for 10 months, it was hard to celebrate Josie's birthday without family and friends and a pretty birthday cake. We made the most of it with Aunt Trisha, Elmo and a barbecue at a friends house. I think Josie kind of liked getting presents spread out over a couple of days so that she could play with each.

The festivities began on Thursday with Aunt Trisha visiting. She was given a Play-Doh set which had to be played with at once (and Xander heartily approved). She also received a Princess backpack. She doesn't know much about the Princesses but seems to love the pink, frilly sparkly look. Xander seemed to like the backpack because it means he doesn't have to share his Diego backpack anymore. First thing Saturday morning he rolled both into the room and said "Here, Josie, here is your backpack."


Xander picked out a Princess bouncy ball for Josie. She loves it and carries it with her, although I think that is more to keep Xander from playing with it than anything.


Josie received new blankets for her newly converted toddler bed from us. She also received a tea set. She and Xander have had lots of fun with that, let me tell you. They serve tea, coffee and ice cream (oddly enough, the ice cream is dispensed from the DVD player). Today they figured out they could fill the cups with water in the bathroom, which resulted in a nice spill.


We celebrated her official birthday on Saturday with a trip to Elmo's Healthy Heroes, a Sesame Street Live show. Our seats were better than expected. We didn't have floor seats but there was almost no one in our section so we did move up a few rows. We were far enough back that the sounds and lights weren't a problem. When the show started, Josie had the most astonished look on her face. Of course, she became squirmy and I had to struggle to keep her from running off during half of the show. Xander watched the show with a surprising amount of intensity but didn't do much of the dancing or clapping along. Both kids were disappointed in not getting an Elmo balloon (unfortunately, the parking cost was a lot more than we anticipated). Overall, it was what we expected to go down.

That evening we were invited to a barbecue at a friends house. Nothing big, just four parents trying to have conversation while two 3-year-old boys, a newly 2-year old girl and a 22-month-old girl ran amok. They were nice enough to put up a banner and give Josie a paint set.




I brought over an orange sponge cake for us to eat. We all sang and gave Josie a chance to blow out the candles.



Josie received a couple more gifts on Monday. She put on a little fashion show just to make me happy and then spent the rest of the day listening to the musical card that came with the clothes.


I think that's all she's getting, but maybe I should check the mail.