Celebrating with Cookies & Milk

We recently helped Addie celebrate her 2nd birthday, who can believe she is already 2???? Definitely not me.  While it's sad how fast time seems to go when you're raising children it is so much fun helping them celebrate another year of life.

Neither one of my girls really like cake.  They LOVE the icing but always seem to leave the actual cake.  Addie's has two big weaknesses, cookies and chocolate candy.  I'm honestly not exaggerating, when she is offered a cookie or is happily eating one her eyes just sparkle.  It's so precious, not to mention she does a spot on Cookie Monster impression.  Needles to say we chose to celebrate her special day with a Cookies & Milk party.  While I love Cookie Monster we didn't want him to be the entire focus of the party.  I asked my very talented sister to help design the perfect invitation and this is what she came up with.

I think they came out adorable!  She surprised me with the cute return address labels, which featured Cookie Monster's face.  I totally think she out did herself, thank you Aunt Krystal! 

Here are a few pictures of the party decorations and set-up.  Since we had the party in the evening we also made dinner for everyone (bbq chicken and pork, homemade mac & cheese, fruit and chips).  For dessert we had plain milk, chocolate milk, oreos (4 flavors), chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, cyclopes cookies, chocolate rolo cookies and piroulines.  We did have a small cake just in case someone didn't want cookies and so we would have something to put candles in for Addie to blow out.

All these cute labels were also made by my sister!

Recently Addie has sort of developed her own opinion of what she wants or doesn't want to wear. The day of her birthday party was no exception.  I had this adorable new outfit for her to wear but she adamantly insisted she wear her fancy dress from Krystal and Bryan's wedding.  And since it was her party I conceded.  What you cannot see from this picture is that she is wearing this beautiful dress and a pair of jeggings underneath.   Her hat is from her birthday celebration at school, she was so proud of it!  

After dinner and cookies the real fun started, opening gifts!  At Christmas Addie was sick and didn't really get into opening her gifts, in fact Trey and I ended up opening most of them up for her.  However, since she was feeling 100% at her party she didn't want any help and loved every minute of unwrapping chaos.

Addie absolutely loves to play dress up so when she opened the gift from MacKenna (her favorite nighttime babysitter) and her family she immediately changed clothes and proceeded to wear the dress-up dress for the remainder of the night.

This is the quilt I made Addie from the fabric we used to decorate with at her first birthday party.  I'm so excited because she has been sleeping with it every night since she opened it up, which just thrills me to no end.

Her gift from Trey and me was this adorable little tikes pick-up.  It's kind of like their classic red car with yellow door, only its pink and purple, has a horn that honks, and a tailgate that lifts up and down.

It was a big hit and all the kids wanted to ride in it at once!

Since we decided to host Addie's party the weekend after her actual birthday she got to somewhat celebrate all week.  On Sunday, March 3rd, her actual birthday she got to open a couple small gifts.  One in particular was from her big sister Lexie.  For the last several months Addie had been intrigued with Lexie's pillow pets (yes, that is plural, and yes she does actually have 3 of them!).  Anyways, she always wanted to lay on or play with them, so we thought it would be a fun idea for Lexie to pick one out that she could give as a gift, one that could be just Addie's.  I pulled up the pillow pet website and Lexie scrolled through all the options before settling on a pink and purple ladybug.  Obviously she chose right because Addie was so excited when she opened the gift and she has slept on her pillow pet every night since her birthday.

The downside of making such a great gift choice was the realization that the pillow pet wasn't Lexie's to keep....I think deep down inside she thought she was going to get to keep it for herself.  

I love this picture, because Addie is telling Lexie "thank-you" and trying to console her because she doesn't want her to cry.  It's a hard lesson to learn but we think its so important that both kids know how important it is to be special and to help others feel special.  I will have to confess that once Lexie calmed down she asked Addie to get her a pink and purple unicorn pillow pet for her birthday in October!

On, Monday the 4th, Addie got to celebrate with her friends at school.  We took in decorated sugar cookies and each kid got to take home a favor bag with a bag of cookies and a chocolate milk.

Krystal also designed the favor stickers!

The next day she discovered the gift shipped from Aunt Krystal and Uncle Bryan, and of course she needed to open it immediately.

Addie had a great "Birthday Week" we are so blessed to have her in our lives and cannot wait to see what the next year holds.