Two years old!!

The day before their birthday, Darin and I decided to let them open their presents from us. We got them a new kiddie table which we set up during nap time, and 1 gift each to open. When they woke up from naps, Nolan saw the presents immediately and ran downstairs to them. He pointed to 1 and said, "Noey's pe-pe." Then he pointed to the other and said, "Ya-ya's pe-pe." He was right! He then directed her to sit down....I assume to open these suckers up!














He didn't need much help ripping into his gift!















No matter how much we tried, Maya would not let go of her baby doll! She struggled to open her gift with one hand. Eventually I think she got distracted enough that we were able to slip it out of her arms. This one-armed gift opening continued on her birthday as well! She loves that baby doll!














For the party on Sunday, the decorations were pretty simple. I was able to reuse the sign I made last year and it worked really well.















The theme we went with this year was a bug theme. We focused on caterpillars for Nolan and butterflies for Maya. The Hungry Little Caterpillar is the most famous one, so we went with that color scheme for his decorations and cake. Maya really likes the colors pink and yellow (per her crayon selection each time we color) so I went with that color scheme for her. This picture is the caterpillar we made out of latex balloons.















I found these paper lanterns at Michael's and we spray painted one red for the head. It's hard to tell, but he has pipe cleaner antanae. The confetti on the table are little cupcake toppers that I had extra of.














Here is Maya's butterfly cake in vanilla. I "starred" the top of the cake with icing, meaning that I used my icing bag with the star tip to cover the cake.















I had extra cake batter left over from Maya's cake, so I made some cupcakes with it. I found some cute printables online and "made" these cupcake toppers to decorate them with. Some of the other patterns are in the background.





















Here is Nolan's chocolate caterpillar "cake". I baked a round cake and iced it with red icing, and then made cupcakes for the caterpillar's body. The fun part was mixing the up the icing with different shades of green and making a swirl pattern to match the Very Hungry Caterpillar's body colors. From the angle of the picture it's hard to tell, but I used black pipe cleaners for his 6 legs and also for his antenae. The rest is icing.

Here's a closer look at the cupcakes.














And of course, there were lots of extra cupcakes so I "made" Nolan some cupcake toppers too.




















The kids started their party by opening some presents! This was a joint gift from Gramma and Grampa....legos!! The kids LOVE legos right now so it will be fun to watch them build tall towers on their new kiddie table.















Here are some pictures of the gang during the present opening. From left to right, Darin, Darin's Uncle Raney, Uncle Kevin, Aunt Gwyn, Grampa Bob. (Janae and Lana are on the floor playing).















More of the crowd....Aunt Terrilyn, Sydney, Nana, Gramma Gayla, Uncle Brian.














And to finish off the guest list, Asher and Darin's Aunt Jill! Ethan escaped the picture police...I think he was playing downstairs.














Gramma and Grampa also got the kids these pillow pets. Maya got a panda and Nolan got a dog. They are so soft...the kids love snuggling with them!














Opening presents is hard work! Time for a cat nap!














Terrilyn and Brian (and Syd and Ethan) got the kids these baby tickle-me Elmo dolls. Maya and Nolan gave them some hugs and kisses.














Gwyn and Kevin (and Lana and Janae) got Maya this computer and car. We have already had a few fights over the computer! I obviously didn't get shots of all the gifts, but these were the pictures that turned out the best with my camera. Trust me when I say our family was very generous with their presents!

After gifts and a taco bar lunch, it was time for cake!!! First, we sang Happy Birthday to Maya (since she was born first!).

She actually blew out one of her candles! When I tell her to blow on her food when it's hot, much of the air ends up going UP into her hair instead of OUT! She did a great job on these candles though.

D-E-licious! I tried to move her sippy cup out of the picture and was told by her that this was NOT ok. Can you tell the 2's are upon us?

Next, it was Nolan's turn! He got a kick out of everyone looking at him and singing to him. He love attention!

Nolan did a pretty good job on his candles too. It's tough to aim your air where you need it!

He wasted no time chowing down. He ate an entire cupcake himself, along with a scoop of ice cream, and then asked Nana for some of hers. Definitely my child. Thanks for sharing, Nana!

We had a blast and a half this year! Thanks to all that braved the snow (1-2" fell Sunday morning, the morning of the party) and cold weather to make it to our party! Overnight Sunday night, we were hit with a big snow storm that has so far dropped about 5-6" of snow, with more expected. Glad that storm hit after our party and we were able to celebrate with the whole gang!