BANG!! Two

This Saturday was Ned's 2nd birthday party! (Her birthday is Monday.) Because our house is approximately the size of a sardine can, Grandma and Grandpa (Dan's Mom and Dad) graciously hosted the big event in their beautiful, toy-stocked, party-friendly home. And then Nana and Papa helped with party supplies and food. How lucky are we? (They love Ned to pieces and, knowing that we're rookies at this birthday party thing AND terribly disorganized, they sprung into action for the sake of their youngest grandchild. HOORAY for grandparents!) Anyway, it was a really great time and so nice to get our family and friends together, many of whom hadn't seen each other in quite some time. That's a nice side benefit of kids--the parties you have for them pull all of your closest people together.

See Grandma's stock of toys? She has a huge kid-accessible, Martha Stewart-sized closet full of them!

Papa punched the head of Big Bird and Grandma and Nana convened in the hallway with Scotch tape... What's a party without the decapitation of the guest of honor's hero? :)
So, the cake. Ahhhhhh yes, the cake. Ummmm...well, it's supposed to be a section of the Great Wall. But in the words of Ned's Great Aunt Janet, "Is that supposed to be Big Bird's foot?" Funny, when we picked it up at the cake place, Ned was sleeping in the car. When she woke up, it was sitting on the folded down seat in front of her. She took one look at it, rubbed her eyes, and said, "Cake? Brown? Grass?" with a very suspicious look on her face. In any event, Dan created Big Bird in China stick-ins with great precision (see Holly poking fun below). This cake is kinda an "A for effort" thing. So now we know that the cake place isn't so great at constructing oddball cakes, but no matter, the taste was there. :)

And the gifts! It's always great to have a house full of kids when a two year old is expected to open a whole pile of stuff--group effort!

Look out, world! That's my baby with her very own digital camera! Oooooh, I can't wait to turn her into a little photographer. :)
Ned LOVES books. It was cute, she was opening gift after gift and then got to the collection of books from E and family and stopped in her tracks to page through a few.
Thanks to our family and friends for such a great time!