Alaina's Birthday Part 1!

My baby girl is turning 2 on April 5.  Emily and I decided to have a joint Playdate/Birthday party for them on Tuesday since Zachary turned 2 on March 13.  I think Alaina was clueless to the fact that we were celebrating her birthday, but maybe she will get it by Monday.  I just can hardly believe she is going to be a toddler.  She is my baby. 

I grabbed some balloons last minute and they were a hit.  The kids spent the first hour or so playing with them. 

Alaina loved it!

This is Paige with Payton.  She adores him.  I'm pretty sure my girls think he belongs to them. 

Lunchtime!  Baked Mac-N-Cheese, hotdogs, and apples.  Yummy!  Lunch with a group of kids is always crazy, but I think it went pretty well.  I think we ended up with 7 moms and 18 kids by the end of the party.

Alaina didn't understand the presents were for her.  She would open them up and then give them back to whoever game them to her as she was saying Thank you.  (I think Paige is hilarious in this picture.  I'm not sure why she was plugging her nose?)

Thanks for the gifts everyone.  She has been playing with them everyday.

I'm pretty sure Deb and Natasha are enjoying the party.  What do you think?

Alaina wasn't so sure about the candle.  She wanted to hold my hand.  Zach is really wanting to help her.  (So am I!)

And we finally did help her. 

The three littlest eaters starting to devour their cupcakes.

Darling Lauren decided she didn't want to get her hands dirty!

Paige enjoyed her cupcake!

Alaina only ate the frosting.  The rest of the cupcake ended up being crumpled all over her tray and the floor around her.  She was a pleasure to clean up!

The kids ended the afternoon playing outside.  It was a nice day and they all enjoyed it.  And the moms enjoyed the quiet inside.

Yes, I did let Alaina play in the sand box. 

Paige and Ellie were running around together.  My girls just LOVE being outside.

The sequence of the next 4 pictures just cracks me up.  Right before this Alaina had gone down the slide and Zach had "caught" her.  It was so cute, I was hoping to catch it on camera.  Instead, this is what I got. . .

Hilarious!

Another of Paige and Payton.  She really likes to hold him and thinks she is so big.  As you can see, he is no small baby for just turning 7 months.  Plus, I like that she holds his cheeks!

We tried to get a group picture of all the kids.  This is the best we could do.  I think the only ones missing are Connor and Kendall.  If you look close you can see Ashlyn looking out the sliding glass door from inside.