Alaina's Second Birthday! (A Month Ago)

Today I'm flashing way back to a month ago when we had Alaina's second birthday party. I can't believe that I'm just now posting these pictures. We've kind of been busy, though.

When I was thinking about what I wanted to do for Alaina's birthday, I decided that "simple" was going to be the name of the game this year. We were originally supposed to close on our new house on March 4th (her birthday is March 8th), so I figured we'd be in the throes of moving. Ha. Haha. We all know that didn't happen, but I'm still glad I kept things [relatively] simple. I decided that we would have a birthday brunch and just invite my parents, grandparents, and David's parents over to celebrate our sweet girl. And because I CAN'T keep something 100% low-key, I decided to have a bird theme :)

The day wasn't completely stress free. I felt like we were running WAY behind schedule right before the party. I was trying to get everything in the oven for breakfast, the kitchen was a WRECK, and people were going to be at our house in 30 minutes. Even though it was just family, and I knew in my head that it didn't matter, I just let myself get ridiculously stressed out. I've learned that for me, the key to throwing a stress free party is NO cooking the day of. In the future, I'll be cooking everything in advance or ordering pizza! ;) Anyway, we got over that little hump, David magically got the kitchen presentable, and everyone arrived. (By the way, our brunch menu consisted of quiche, baked oatmeal, bagels with cream cheese and honey butter, and fruit. The food isn't all out in any of these pictures, and it was looking a little sparse. Didn't want anyone thinking that washing fruit and slicing bagels sent me into a tizzy, Hahaha!)

We had the party outside on our deck. We've done this for both of Alaina's birthday parties so far, and I LOVE it. Gotta take advantage of that spring birthday :) The weather was gorgeous. We had put our dogs in their kennel during the party, and David had left our backyard gate slightly open. I was inside in the kitchen finishing up the food, and almost everyone else was outside. When I went outside, I didn't immediately see Jude. I scanned the yard for him and still didn't see him. I asked where he was, and no one knew! We assumed he had just gone inside, so we went looking all over the house for him. No Jude. We looked in ALL of his usual hiding places, and he was nowhere to be found. At this point, I was getting frantic. I was shaking, my heart was pounding, and I was losing all sense of reason. David ran outside to our front yard (thankfully, we live on a cul-de-sac with basically NO traffic), and I was just running all over screaming Jude's name. All I could picture was that open gate and horrible things were going through my mind. We have a ditch behind our house, and my dad ran to check to make sure Jude hadn't gone in there. The ditch is really close to our driveway, and when my dad started calling for Jude, we heard him yell. I first thought that he was in the ditch, and my heart stopped, but I was SO thankful that he had yelled. We then realized that Jude was just chillin' in David's car eating a York Peppermint Patty. OMG. Apparently Jude knew David had the peppermint patties in there and seized his opportunity to indulge. I grabbed Jude out of the car and hugged him, and he proceeded to yell in my face (he thought he was in big trouble when the car was surrounded). Yelling defiantly in Mama's face is not acceptable behavior in our house, but I have never been so thankful in my life!! Ha! It was an awful 5 minutes. It felt like an eternity. Lessons learned: NEVER leave the gate open and lock all cars at all times. Also, if Jude ever goes missing, always check places where we have food stashed first. Whew!

So, after all of that "excitement", we were ready to resume celebrating Alaina! Ha! I think it took the rest of the day for me to stop shaking. But we had fun! ;)

(That lovely thing you see in the background is our tornado shelter. I don't think I've ever posted pictures of it... haha.)

The birthday girl was excited to open her presents!

And then it was time for cupcakes! I made mini cheesecakes instead of traditional cupcakes :) Alaina was very nervous when we lit the candles, as you can see from her facial expression. Good thing she had her sweet sister there to comfort her and help her blow out her candles!

Even though the day had its stressful parts, we were SO thankful to be celebrating our precious two year old with our families. We all love our Alaina Ruth SO MUCH!!