Avalee is two!

 

I can't believe that we're already at birthday number two for my baby girl, but here it is!
We (okay, me) decided on a mermaid theme this year, and I think it turned out really well. I had hoped Miss A would wear her mermaid costume from Halloween during her party, but she turned into quite the rebel and decided she didn't want to. Actually, she started just stripping it off during the party until we finally relented and got her something else to wear (to be fair to her, she did tell us several times she didn't want it on...). It would've have been SO cute, but oh well.
So, we had lots of fun decorating sugar cookies (starfish for the boys and mermaids for the girls), playing dress-up, doing sand art, and 'fishing (thanks for being our fishy, Mom!).' Of course, we also had some yummy food and cake too!
I decided to turn the living room into an under the sea scene; we hung blue streamer across the ceiling to look like waves, then added strips of green streamers to look like seaweed to the entryways. I also added mermaids here and there with some bubbles, to really give the feel that we we in the ocean. I was really happy with how all the decorations (thanks to Liz and her Cricut again!) turned out and that it pretty much all came together how I wanted.
And, Avalee's favorite part of the day, of course, was unwrapping presents. I wasn't sure how well she would get into it, since last year she wasn't so interested in opening her presents. But she started tearing them open right away! I think she truly loved everything she got, but the highlights were definitely the magnetic Tinkerbell dress up doll, mermaid Mrs Potato Head, a new baby that moves and makes sounds and her own stroller (she loves her bff Madi's strollers!).
After the party was over, and most of our guests had left, we realized we had forgotten to turn on the bubble machine...oops! So, we cranked it up and the kids (Z, Avalee and Madi) had a blast dancing, playing and trying to catch bubbles. It was the perfect end to the day!