Birthday party, party and more party!

We now have 5 family birthdays to celebrate in the month of September...so it's party time all month long! This year we gathered the day before Brielle's birthday on a bright Saturday afternoon to celebrate all the birthdays! We met at Pt. Defiance Park in Tacoma. 

The weather was beautiful and we were all in a party mood. We took lots of pictures! 

A week or two before the party, I had the idea of making a homemade pinata, and decided on a rainbow since I had colorful tissue paper around.  It was cheaper than buying one, and really easy to make! I think this might become a yearly tradition... 

For our party game I made everyone kick or karate chop the pinata for fun.  We got some great action shots and movies of this craziness:

Everyone got a turn and then in perfect timing it busted open and we all ran around gathering candy like we were 5 year olds again. :) 

My other game was more serious.  I made all the birthday people give a "commencement speech" -- since they are one year older and wiser, they could choose one piece of advice to tell the graduating class of 2014...what would it be? It was fun to hear what they thought spur of the moment.  Jeff got really into it and you can see him gripping his pulpit:

...and then we all wanted to participate. 

Then it was present time! Everyone brought a present for the 5 birthdays, so it felt like Christmas! 

Recently, my Mom found this little Care Bear that she made me and gave me on my 1st birthday...as a surprise, she gave it to Rosalyn! So sweet. 

We gave Brielle the little trolley car from the TV show "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood." She loves that little show and I do too. She was so happy and excited when she opened this present! 

The girls got a little shopping cart and play food from Grandma & Grandpa.  

So now I pause my narrative to tell a little story about another present that we gave Brielle.  

A few weeks before her birthday, I took her to the toy store to pick out a stuffed animal.  I have a cute little teddy bear that I got when I was 2, and Jeff has a teddy bear too that he loved. So I took her down the aisle and gave her all of these cute little bears, fluffy cats and bunnies with bows, etc. She put them all down and wanted me to hand her this bright blue bird! I was surprised at first but gave it to her.  This is what she looked like:

Pure joy.  

Ok, I tried to put the bird back and go back to the cute teddy bears...but all she wanted was the bird.  This was not in my plan!  This bright blue bird looked nothing like the cuddly teddy bears in tutus that I imagined.  I couldn't get myself to buy it, so we left and went home and thought about it....and of course I went back a few days later and bought it for her.  

So when she unwrapped this blue stuffed bird at the party, she was ecstatic. She loves this bird, and it will be featured in many future blog posts I'm sure.  It's always around and is now a participating member of our family. :) I love it, because she loves it. 

After presents, it was time to eat cake! 

My Mom was in charge of making the cake.  She brought it and told me she wanted to make it a rainbow cake, but didn't have time to make it and just used rainbow sprinkles. No problem, I said.  Boy, was I surprised when I cut it! Look at the fun rainbow inside! Not what I was expecting at all! It was just as yummy as it looks! 

Brielle ate her piece of cake as daintily as she did a year ago.  She's so sweet...no cake smashing for her! :)  

And of course, she insisted the bird eat some cake too and kept trying to feed it. 

Here's our 5 birthdays! I made them wear badges and we had fun celebrating them! 

Then we packed everything up and headed to the zoo around the corner...only to discover that it was closed for the day! Oops! So we went to explore the other side of the park instead.

We played along the water.  Brielle didn't let anything stop her from getting right in the water...she was SOAKED.

We had a beautiful view all around us and even got to catch Mt. Rainier.  It was a fun end to a fun day.


The next day, Sunday was Brielle's 2nd birthday.  She ate her usual breakfast with flair:

We went to church and came home, took naps. Then we went out to the park down the street from our old apartment where we lived when we brought Brielle home.  It was fun to go back and see the park and apartment and reminisce on 2 short years later.
We did a quick photo shoot and got some cute pics:

Brielle wanted to run and play, especially when she discovered a leaf pile!

2 years later:

Then we went back to the car and gave Brielle her surprise....a little car Jeff bought at Walmart on clearance for $20! She loved it and wanted to ride it all night long. :) It was a fun day celebrating our little girl. 

I'd like to end this post by writing some fun things I want to remember about my new 2 year old. 

Brielle Lori Tolsma
Age 2 years old
Weighs - 26 pounds
Height - 35 inches

• She is so happy and always giggling and smiling. She has a very lively personality that close family members get to see.  She takes time warming up to new situations and people, but once she feels comfortable she babbles and has this high cackle laugh that is unmistakable.
• She is a great sleeper.  We put her down to bed and she goes down easy - sleeps without a peep for 12 hours straight. She takes one afternoon nap every day. She loves to go to sleep with books in her crib and reads them before she falls asleep and when she wakes up. 
• She loves to dance, jump and spin.  She will gallop or walk on her tip toes sometimes. Lately she has been running and flapping her arms like she is a bird. She has got great body control so far. 
• She is a great eater.  She will try new food most of the time.  Her favorite food is probably strawberries or eggs. She drinks lots of milk and loves it. She loves meat and even eats salmon when we are eating it for dinner. She's growing up in Seattle, what can I say? 
• She loves going to playgrounds and gets so excited when she sees one. She likes to climb anything and go down slides most of all. 
• She has done great in nursery.  She is easily distracted when we leave with all the fun toys.  Her nursery leader says lately she is always climbing whatever she can climb. Her favorite toy is a certain plastic puzzle that she goes to each week. 
• She's very particular about being organized. She likes it when things are in their usual spot. 
• She does not like to wear shoes. It is a fight to get her to keep her shoes on at the park or if we go on a walk. 
• She says tons of words, that only her mother can understand. :) She says one syllable for most words, like apple is "app." Lately she is putting 2 words together like "hi mom". 
• She can identify almost all of her abc's (upper case)- She points them out when we go places.  She will see letters in every day objects and tell me. She likes to point out letters on license plates when we are in the parking lot. 
• She knows lots of colors and will point them out. She seems to like the color blue most of all. 
• She loves to color.  She will sit and scribble with crayons on paper for 20 minutes sometimes...the most I can get her to focus on anything! She is always asking to color. 
• She likes learning "Big" and "little". She will request "big" strawberries for example. 
• She talks non stop at home.  She likes to make all sorts of sounds. She often copies Rosalyn's babbling. She especially likes to count "1, 2, 3 SURPRISE!" really loud when ever she thinks we can surprise us. 
• She always notices when another child is crying or sad. She will come to me and do the sign for crying. 
•  She will hear music playing and tell me before I notice it.  She LOVES music. Don't all kids at this age? At church she will stop whatever she's doing to "sing" along with the hymn or watch the choir number. She loves going to Music Time and singing songs with us at home. She always does the hand motions to songs - her favorites right now are the "wheels on the bus", "apricot tree" and "slippery fish." Her favorites change weekly. 
• Up until she was two, she would dictate what music we listen to in the car - insist on certain cds. But she turned 2 and now will let me listen to the radio...or "daddy's music" when we want to play music from Jeff's Ipod. :) 
• She doesn't have her molars yet. I'm dreading that. 
• She loves to watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood while I put Rosalyn down for her nap. 
• She loves her shadow and notices it when we go for our walks in the afternoon sunshine. 
• She loves to say "stop" and "go" in the car while I am driving. 
• She has a good tantrum for a few minutes only once every couple of days.  She calms down quickly.  I'm not excited for them to get more frequent as the "terrible twos" come. She rarely cries at this point except when hungry or tired. 
• She now wants to sit at the table with us. So I've converted her high chair into a booster seat and she's at the table for meal times. 
• She is such a wonderful sister to Rosalyn.  She is so sweet to her and attentive at such a young age. Just tonight she got out a package of Goldfish snacks and made a little pile for her to eat and another pile for Rosalyn to eat. She is very good about sharing her toys with her most of the time. (Except when hungry or tired.) 
• She went through a phase where she insisted on putting on her own clothes, but couldn't.  That has stopped for now, but she still likes to try to put on her shoes before we go outside. They usually come off in the car anyway! 
• She is very obedient.  She likes to please her parents, and she knows when she's doing something she shouldn't.  She is good at keeping Rosalyn in line. :) 

We just love her so much! We can't wait to see how much she will grow and change this next year! What a special girl she is to us.