Lola’s two!

Lola turned two this week! It’s no small task to get ready for a birthday just two days after Christmas. I read a lot about how to make Christmas birthdays a positive experience and not one to be overlooked. Basically, “people” (bloggers, articles, other people with Christmas birthdays) suggest putting away Christmas if a birthday is just a few days after, making sure gifts are separated between Christmas and birthday and never combined, making sure that birthday presents are wrapped in birthday gift wrap, and not to combine other holiday and birthday celebrations.

So I made sure to have her party right away, close to her birthday even though we had just had a party on the 24th for Christmas Eve. I appreciate so much that basically the same people showed up BOTH days. I’ve also vowed to, every year, “take down” Christmas on the 26th. It pretty much took all day. Between the 3 kids, Sean being sick, pumping, feeding, putting away toys, taking down the trees, putting away ornaments and decor — it was hard. But by 11:30PM on the 26th I was sitting in the living room rocking Eva with barely any trace of Christmas except for the bare tree which I couldn’t move myself! But early the next morning, the tree was gone!

I made an angel food cake, got strawberries and blueberries (which I knew she’d love more than the cake itself), and decorated her chair at the table. We had 4 gifts for her (2 dresses, leggings and new boots). She spent her day hanging out, watching movies, being sung to (which she didn’t love until it was truly time for cake), and ended her day with a pizza feast, presents and cake.

On the 28th (the day after her birthday), we had a Frozen party! Lola is OBSESSED with the movie and the music and I went back and forth between Frozen and Cinderella but ultimately when we went to Party City she started grabbing all things Frozen. 🙂

I was nervous about how she would react to the attention all on her but she LOVED her party, the food, the cake, the presents — everything!

Lola was so excited to open presents! It’s a good thing she had practice on Christmas day because she was SO slow opening gifts then — but she did well at her party. When she opened clothes, she immediately put them on which was so cute and the reason she had on multiple layers.

I can’t believe she’s already two! It seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital. Time is such a funny thing.