Rose’s Birthday ACTION

I’ve told you about the birthday GIRL, the birthday CAKE, but not the actual BIRTHDAY!

I made her a birthday crown with a flowery paper punch. She LOVED it. Rose soaked up all the birthday attention like a sponge. Jay has had 3 birthdays, and he never “got it” as much as Rose did this time. Maybe it’s a girl thing—we like to feel special. She was glowing and happy all day, whether we were doing birthday activities or not. It was so cute to see her satisfied little smile any time we mentioned that it was her birthday.

We decided to wake the kids up before Jeff left for work at 6:15am so Rose didn’t have to wait all day till Daddy got home to open her presents. Usually they wake up this early anyways, but of course not on the one day we wanted them to. It felt SO WRONG waking them up, but we did it anyways. Bring on the birthday!

Rose got a shopping cart and a book from her parents and a wooden school bus from Jay. We’re getting a few girly toys around here at last…I’m pretty picky about the toys we keep in our house because I hate flimsy, ugly toys, and most of the so-called girly toys out there are pretty flimsy and ugly.

They went straight to the “play kitchen” and loaded up on produce.

This is the BEST kid book of all time! My friend introduced me to it at Christmas time, and I was so glad to have Rose’s birthday as an excuse to add it to our home library.

 

 

The story is condensed into 12 well-chosen words: friends, sisters, dance, mean, sick, muddy, yes?, no!, write, read, walk, marry. There’s a fuzzy felt picture for each word. How simply awesome can you get?

We watched Sesame Street (Rose’s favorite) and went to our ward’s newly organized play group. I love their attentive faces.

I finally found and hung the ole birthday banner about half way through the day.

I didn’t have to ask Rose what she wanted for her birthday dinner. That goes without saying: homemade mac and cheese! She chowed. I think she ate more than I did. But that would be nothing new. We also had “baby oranges” (cuties/clementines) and broccoli because those are Rose’s favorite healthy things.

I used one pound of macaroni noodles, and our family of four polished it off without blinking.

The White grandparents and Steph, Jasen, and Layne came over for cake after dinner, bearing gifts and balloons. I assigned Jeff to camera detail for once, and it was nice to watch instead of capture. Plus, his pictures are rather more artistic than mine.

 

It was a doll swing that converts into a high chair! And a new outfit and a book.

Then came the cake:

Rose was pretty good at blowing, but not at aiming. I wanted to let Rose blow for a little while to see if she could blow them out, but Grama Leslie had other plans, and she blew the candles out on Rose’s second try. I was kind of bummed, but Rose didn’t seem to care. Next time, though, I’ll make sure everyone knows to give the child a chance!

Rose abandoned her fork early on.

We all choked down the dry cake and Rose had fun squishing it. Both of my kids always eat so  much of their birthday mac and cheese that they rarely care about the cake. But Rose did eat her thin sliver eventually, after sculpting with it for a bit first.

THE TWO YEAR OLD! Wearing her birthday outfit that turned out to actually be pajamas…but she’ll probably wear them as normal clothes anyways.

 

Wearing a pony tail with her new sparkly hair twisty tie. Her hair makes such a fountain!

Well, Rose has just woken up from her nap and is crying stormily on my lap. It looks like the birthday is over…

…now we have a real two year old on our hands!