Terrific at 2!

Really. What is there to say about Elaina's most wonderful, fantastic, beautiful 2nd birthday?

Don't worry, I have plenty of pictures!

You may recall that Eric's parents were kind enough to host Elaina's first birthday at their house last year and my parents graciously offered their house this year for Elaina's party. Living nearly 3 hours away from all of our family puts a damper on us trying to host such events at our house. At this point, destination birthdays seem more practical than expecting all of our family to make the 3 hour drive to join our celebration for 3 hours and turn around to drive home. So, with a big thank you to Grandma and Grandpa H. let me tell you about my 2 year-old daughter's fabulous birthday.

My sister-in-law just happens to have ownership of a small inflatable circus which she offered for Elaina's party entertainment. Her inflatable bounce house was a hit last year and as luck would have it, she topped herself this year with the investment of a water slide! Hello... who has the lucky kid now? ( Hint: his name starts with an "E" and ends in -van.) All of Elaina's young guests made out today as the temperature was in the low 90's and they were able to skip around the yard from bounce house to water slide to baby pool. Do we know how to party or what? Correction: if it wasn't for Cindy, the baby pool would have been old news after the first 30 minutes for our busy little bees. Thank you, Cindy!

I'm not really sure that Elaina could have enjoyed her day any more if she had tried. She had more recreation in one back yard than she could ever fathom, 5 kids to play with and doting adults squeezing her with birthday hugs and kisses all evening long. And of course, let me not fail to mention the scrum-dilli-icious birthday cake and loads of food we devoured throughout the evening. Yum-O!

As always, Elaina's grandparents and aunts and uncles did an awesome job of picking out birthday gifts and she received loads of great new stuff to decorate her new bedroom and some great clothes too.

So at the end of any fun filled day, there's really nothing like settling down with a good book to read to your friend, or cuddling up with the ones you love.