Today I Celebrated Ash's 2nd Birthday, With Family.

Can't believe I have a two year old.  So grateful I do.  Ash is such a blessing to our little family.  Before I document her party, a bit about the birthday girl.

Ash loves books.  It's the first thing she asks for in the morning.  "Read a book?"  she asks while signing "book."  She loves rice drink, crackers, tortillas, apples, and cookies.  She's rather obsessed with Tinkerbell at the moment.  For some reason she calls the fairy, "Gabby."  I have no idea why.  But we've all been hearing that word a lot this month.  Ash is really good at saying thank you and even says please (occasionally) now.  She folds her arms and bows her head for prayers and says, "Amen."  She's a fairly obedient little girl, for which I am so thankful.  She still loves music and dancing and grooves to the music on a regular basis.  She's going through a bruiser stage right now and seems to always be bumping her left cheek bone.  It will heal up and then she'll hurt herself again.  Recently, she and her Aunt Archie were playing and Archie jumped off her bed, right on top of Ash.  Worst owie ever!  Ash is talking a lot now and it's slowly making sense as she refines the babbling.  She does still use sign language though. 

And now, for the party.  Thank you to Anneliese for the inspiration!  I had been planning on a farm theme for Ash's party for months when I saw that Anneliese had just done a farm birthday for her two year old.  Perfect!  I decided to shamelessly copy her.  Highest form of flattery, right?

For Ash's birthday party clothes I used a dress that we already had (which Ash wore once about 7 months ago) and then primitive stitched farm animal appliques on it.  I wanted to do something that wasn't anywhere near permanent.  I am so pleased with how it turned out.  Ash just loved how well it twirls.  She gets to wear it again to church tomorrow.

These weren't really the shoes I wanted her to wear, but she insisted and it's her party!

Happy Princess.

The decor turned out so awesome.

We put all the letter block words around the perimeter of the dining room and kitchen.  They looked great and every adult at the party took one home as a favor. 

I cut the table runners and napkins with pinking shears.  No sewing required!  Though sewing wouldn't have been any less time consuming.  I just haven't got my sewing machine set up since the move.

The napkin rings are made from the appliques I used on Ash's dress.  Same fabric too.  I found some linen-like stuff at Joann and used this tutorial to put them together.  I love how they look!  The tutorial called for a button hole but I just used a box cutter.  Again, no-sew!  Yay!

 We put all the kids out in the living room with Charlotte's Web in the dvd player to keep the noise down to a dull roar. 

Hubby and his grandma cooking.  His grandpa and mom helped too.  It was all sooooooooo yummy!  We had scrambled eggs (with ketchup and salsa, if wanted), breakfast sausageenglish muffins (with lots of topping choices), chocolate milk, and apple cider.  I meant to served canned peaches too, but totally forgot!  Haha!

We had grape jam, apple butter, pumpkin butter (the most favorite of everyone!), strawberry jam, and butter.

Britt with Tony's aunt and some cousins.  Cutey.

Archie, Mr. Laurence, and Beethoven eating and drinking the good life.  Ash was sitting with them too, but finished up first.

"Birthday Cake" aka apple pie

So excited!  She sang along for a bit and then blew out the candles halfway through "Happy Birthday."  **laugh**

Clapping with everyone else.

Ash received many lovely gifts from everyone.

So happy because Grandma and Grandpa Bee gave her Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue dvd!

Enjoying her new Signing Time book.  She really took her sweet time with each present.  I hope she does that for the rest of her life. 

These are the favor baskets I made with baskets from Garnish, candy, toy animals, animal bands, and oranges.  I really wanted yellow pears but I forgot them when I went to the store last night and Hubster couldn't find them when he went the store for ice cream this morning.  So I improvised with what I already had.

I got these cute straws from Garnish too.

Britt had a good day as well.

Such a fun time!  And now I'm gonna sleep for the rest of the weekend.  Then I gotta get ready for the shower I'm throwing next Saturday!  Haha!  Busy, busy!