Emily's 2nd Birthday Party- San Jose

Emily has been looking forward to her birthday party for months now!  In order for her to be more motivated for potty training, sleeping, behaving well- we have been talking about how cool it is to turn two!  That once she turns two, she is a BIG GIRL!  I knew I wanted to have the party at home and make it really special for her.  I can remember each of my children's second birthdays really well.  Michael had a big party at E and Papa's (Winnie the Pooh Theme) and a party at Nonna and Grandpa's (Elmo theme), Claire had a ladybug theme here in San Jose and then a 50's style Poodle party at Nonna and Grandpa's, and Matthew . . . well we went to Chuck E. Cheese in San Jose.  Yes, sad but true.  I was very pregnant with Emily at the time and unable to travel or do much of anything.  I felt terrible but what was I going to do?  (Matthew, if you are reading this years from now, I love you buddy!  Sorry about slighting you on your second birthday.  Please note that I kept this in mind when I went overboard throwing your awesome Peter Pan birthday when you turned four.  Thanks, Mommy.)

I racked my brain for the perfect party theme and nothing seemed to feel right!  When I sent the invitation, I had written Sweet Emily is Turning Two!  That was it!  She is sweet so why not have a sweet themed birthday?  We planned to celebrate her birthday on June 11th because the following day Auntie Ali was graduating from UC Santa Cruz undergrad.

Claire was equally as excited to help me be creative and together, we came up with a lot of fun decorations for the party!  The first thing we wanted to do was to make a number two on a foam core board and then fill it with candy.  While at Target, Claire and I were perusing the candy aisle and the Starbursts were on sale.  Without completely thinking it through- we bought them because they have a lot of surface area and would fill up the two quickly!  It wasn't until later that night after we had lined the perimeter of the two with licorice that we realized that a square candy was the LAST thing  we should have bought for this project.  The number two is verys curvy so if we were going to make this look good, we were going to have to cut A LOT of Starbursts.  Claire was in charge of making sure the color scheme was right and laid our properly.  I was in charge of cutting and gluing.  In the end, we were thrilled with our 'masterpiece' but my throbbing finger from cutting the Starbursts didn't see it the same way!

Next thing to do was find Emily a party dress.  I wanted her to be in something with pink in it that looked fun!  Would you know that Emily found the dress before I could see it!  She wandered over and saw the pink diamonds on this dress and I couldn't believe it!  She found it!  Check!

We kept the party pretty small.  Just close friends and our family.  I guess the word small doesn't apply to either of our families.  Both Damien and my families are huge so we know that 'small' to us means huge to others!  In the end we had 38 people and it felt just right. 

Lots of lollipops, candy, cupcakes, cake, licorice, sugar sticks, and a candy packed cupcake pinata surrounded my sweet girl on her special day.  She didn't know what do to first?  Should she devour a lollipop as big as her face?  Should she bounce around in her bounce house with her cousins, siblings and friends?  Should she pout because she didn't get the nap she usually gets?  All of the above?

The day was wonderful and the party was just the celebration I wanted for my little two year old sweetheart!  Emily really had a wonderful day.  One of the things that I loved was that all party long, she tried to hold up two fingers but her other fingers kept getting in the way.  When you would ask her how old she was, she would look intently at her hand and try and make 'two'.  It usually ended up looking like four and a half! 

Emily got a lot of great gifts.  She got some really cute clothes, some fun toys, pajamas and she also got a Jesse hat and Jesse boots!  Emily was beside herself with all of the Jesse gear.  She started with some yodel-eye-hee-whos automatically.  I absolutely loved it.  It is just what she wanted.  So cute.

She was surrounded by love and by the look on her face when we all sang her Happy Birthday, she felt the love, too.  I would like to make sure that I document one thing that cracked me up on her birthday.  After we finished the Happy Birthday song, Emily said cha cha cha which sent everyone into hysterics.  This is the sense of humor I am talking about.  She is seriously too much!