Happy Birthday, December!

We decorated for December's party with LOTS of pink and purple balloons, both inside the apartment and outside it. This is how we decorated December's chair.

Here's the birthday girl herself!

Here's December sitting at the table that is half set up for food and the other half set up for hungry toddlers. For dinner, we had hamburgers on the grill, fries, cantalope, watermelon, bananas, and oranges (it was funny to me to have summer fruit -- cantalopes and watermelon -- for a February birthday! I'm realizing what crazy things you can do when you live in a warm place!!)

Here is December watching everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to her. I am very proud to say that December blew out her own two candles! I wasn't expecting her to be able to, but she was trying to blow them out before we even told her that was what she was supposed to do!

Here is what December was looking at: everyone while they sang (and Brad catching everything on film).

Eating her kitty cake -- well, actually, more like trying to save her kitty cake. She didn't really want to ruin the kitten. When Brad pulled out one of its blue M&M eyes to show her how tasty and edible the cat was, she grabbed the candy and tried to put it back into the kitten's eye. She did eat a little bit of it, though.

Here is the kitten after December was finished with it. Not as nice-looking, but still mostly in tact.

One of December's gifts was an Elmo Potty-Time dvd. Woohoo! (I've had my eye on this dvd for a while now.) As soon as I put it in the dvd player, Samuel, Noah, and December were drawn to the movie like bugs to a lantern.

You just can't beat Elmo teaching the potty! (and, in case you may wonder, the movie IS as strange as it sounds. It's weird. Really weird. BUT I'm still hoping it will work!)

Then Christopher (Samuel's dad) took out Brad's guitar and started playing some fun tunes, so the kids were dancing and have a great time. Here Samuel and December have jumped up on the couch next to Christopher.

They were trying to play the spoons, because they saw Della (Samuel's mom) playing them in beat to the music. I've never known anyone who can actually play the spoons, but it's pretty neat! I'm hoping I can learn, too :o)

The party was really quite fun. Everyone came around 5:30pm, and we had dinner right away. There ended up being twelve adults and seven children, all of December's California friends! It was nice for us to all hang out together, too. We've been very blessed to meet such great people here. Our new two-year-old girl was pretty tuckered out after it was all done, but she did great and was in good spirits the entire time (except for when her friends wanted her to share her new birthday toys). We are so thankful that God has given us such a gift, a wonderful, sweet, happy-hearted, fun daughter, for two whole years! She brings such joy into Brad and I's life, and we pray that we will celebrate many, many more birthdays with her. We love December!