Christmas Morning!!!

Gabriella turns 2: part 2!

Even though we have our big party early, we still get to celebrate Ella's actual day! These first three are of the EXACT moment she turned 2:)Birthday ice cream! When you're two, you get two cups, right?! (No, those weren't both for her!)

Our fifth day of Christmas

We had our first family Christmas celebration on December 23 (aka Gabriella's birthday!). We spent the day celebrating Ella (more to come on that) and the evening with mom's family. We had to "remind" Ella how exciting presents were to open at her birthday party this year. Since her birthday and Christmas are at the same time, it's been a whole year since we've done this! It's been fun...HOWEVER, now she doesn't have much patience once she lays eyes on those boxes/bags/wrapping paper! It's still as much about the actual opening as it is the gift inside. It doesn't even have to be about her. She enjoys watching (helping) everyone else too:)
Gabriella with (great) Aunt Lisa and MimiH and baby H:)
Passing out the presents
Noticing a theme this year? First Pooh, now Eeyore and Piglet!
Some of Harper's presents:)

Gabriella turns 2!

Let me take a break from the Christmas posts and share some fun things from Ella's second birthday. Since her birthday falls just two days before Christmas, we have decided (for now), that we will try to celebrate each year on the first weekend in December.

This year, we invited family and friends to join us for food and cake and fun! I'm thankful birthday parties are still very low maintenance at this age! Food, cake, presents, balloons...done! I'm not quite ready for the real birthday parties with games, activities, party favors, etc... I'm just not that creative!

The decorations: ("The Very Hungry Caterpillar", one of our favorite Eric Carl books!)
Ready for cake!
Friends:)
Opening presents:
Harper getting passed around:)
A family picture that actually turned out!