Celebrate!

We were fortunate to get to celebrate Carson's 2nd birthday a few different ways this year.

First, we had a party for her the weekend after Thanksgiving.  It was a cooking-themed party, because C loves to help me in the kitchen and pretend to cook in her kitchen.  She'd cook the whole meal herself if she could (which I'm kind of looking forward to  :)  ).  And we figured that the theme would give us a few fun activities to do with her buddies while they were there, such as....

1. Apron-making

2. Placemat-making

3. "Twisted Hot Dog" cooking

Seriously, watching the kids at her party was ridiculously fun.  I remember standing in the dining room thinking, "This is the most fun I've had in such a long time!"  (please don't judge my social life)

They were just so cute and busy and curious, and sometimes activites with a little direction but not strict rules seem to bring out kids' true personalities.  It was fascinating to watch some kids do neat, organized paintings, while others dove right in and got messy fast.  Still others hung back, waiting for more direction before starting--and a few ignored the crafts completely and just ran around.  All of which was totally okay and completely hilarious.
Our friends and family were overly generous, just as they are every day with Carson.  Thank you to my parents, my sister Anna, and my brother Tom for coming over in the days leading up to the party to help get the house ready.*  And Brandon's mom might clean our house more often than I do--so thank you to her for all the after-party help.  We couldn't do much of anything without you all!

*This needs its own post, but our laundry room had no floors, walls, ceiling...plumbing...just a few days before we had this shindig. 


Later that week, Brandon and I were both able to take off of work on Carson's actual birthday.  Continuing with our goal of taking her somewhere new each year, we spent the day at the aquarium in Atlanta. 

C seemed to love it all, but these were her favorites:

1. Otters

2. Whales

3. Seahorses (for some reason, she has always had a strong interest in seahorses)

4. all kinds of fish

Her neck got quite a workout. 

And I think it's safe to say she had a good time.

 I know we did.

After the aquarium, we stopped by The Varsity in Atlanta for some hot dogs.  Then we went home for a nap and watched a Christmas parade in Monroe (which Gram just so happened to be in).

I'll briefly mention here that C was about 19 years early on the whole "ending your birthday puking" thing, and we spent the next week living in barfs-ville, population: 1

However, the day itself was so amazing--we were thankful to get to spend it as a family.  Happy birthday, C!

 And here are some more pictures.....