Birthday Partying

 It's official. I'm 26 and Clara's 2. We've had a busy week of birthday partying around our house.

It began on Monday, my birthday. Mitch made us a special breakfast, and my choice of dinner. It was fabulous. Mitch is a very good cook. Hence why he makes dinner on both our birthdays :)... seriously.

Afterwards we went to Fritz's. Since it was my birthday I got 2 mix-ins... so I was pretty excited.
Sometimes it's simple joys in life. And of course I shared with Mitch and Clara.

As a result, Clara was on a total sugar high (at 7:30 at night no less), and was cracking us up "dancing" to the music in the Fritz's picnic table area and running back and forth like a crazy child. It was all pretty funny until she was still up at 10:00 pm after being put back in bed like seven times.

Then it was Tuesday. Clara's birthday. She'd been practicing for it for a long time with her pretend birthday cake (you can even "blow out" the candle). In the morning she helped me mix up her birthday cupcake batter. I chose chocolate because that's her "usual" when we play birthday.

Afterwards we headed to the zoo. She was a bit tired after her short night of sleep, but was overall excited about the animals and happy. Since the trip she's talked most about the elephants, cheetahs, hippos, zebras, and monkeys.

 
We picnic-ed in Forest Park and headed home for naps and to prepare for Clara's birthday party. Instead of going "all out," we opted to have a little birthday celebration for her with our Bible Study group prior to our regular study time. Clara and her friend Will kicked it off with a treasure hunt in the back yard (which strangely resembled an Easter egg hunt).

Then we sang happy birthday.

Between the marshmellows, chocolates, homemade ice cream, and chocolate cupcakes, Clara once again got pretty sugared up.

Clara also got to open some presents. She and Will had a great time playing outside on this beautiful, warm spring evening.

And once again, it all ended with about a 10:00 pm, VERY drawn out sleep-time. I think we're going to take a long break from the sweets. But hey, a girl only turns 2 once!