Happy Birthday Ann!

Last week our sweet little Ann turned 2 years old!  I can hardly believe it has been two years already.  Ann has grown up so much, it amazes us every day.  I have quite a few pictures of her day, mostly for my record and for the benefit of family who weren't able to be here.

The night before Ann's birthday I hung some streamers over our kitchen table and in the doorway to the kitchen.  Hanging up streamers was something my parents would do for each of my and my siblings birthdays growing up.  Ann noticed them immediately the next morning ("yellow!....purple!!!!").  She loved walking through the doorway with the streamers.

My little dishwasher-helper.  We don't have a dishwasher so I do everything by hand.  Lately Ann has been really interested in "helping" me do the dishes, so she'll pull up one of our dining room chairs and stand next to me.  It can get a little wet, but it's fun.

I tried taking some pictures of my now 2 year old on our office chair, but she wasn't interested in sitting still for the camera.

Heading off to the little Children's Museum in town.  We've never been before and figured this would be a good time to try it out.  Ann has lately insisted on carrying her own bag out to the car, and she often chooses this one - which I'm pretty sure is the biggest bag we have.  Fortunately she's okay leaving the bag in the car until we get home again.

We had a good time at the museum.  The current theme is a castle/middle-ages one.  Here Ann is sitting on a throne in front of a puppet-show theater.

Making horseshoes

Playing with some bread

Checking out the fruit in the kitchen/dining hall

So the majority of the place had the castle theme (it's not a very big place), but near the front there is an agriculture learning area, which included a tractor simulator.  Ann had a great time sitting in the big chair, messing with all of the buttons and knobs and turning the wheel.

That night after dinner my parents came over to watch Ann open her presents and eat cake.  The first thing she opened was a bag that had these little maracas in it.  She had a great time with them.

I pulled out the other two maracas from the bag.  Now whenever Ann and I play with the maracas, she always gives me the green and blue one.  Apparently those are mine :)

Convincing her to open another present

She got a pair of sunglasses, which she absolutely loves and wears all of the time.  Here she's checking out her new book: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Opening her peg puzzle to play with

We've discovered that Ann really likes angel food cake, so I bought one from the store and made a lemon glaze to put on it.  I used food coloring to dye part of the glaze purple.  (Funny side story about the glaze - I had looked up quickly online recipes for lemon glaze, and when it came time to make it, I remembered it wrong.  Instead of thinking I only needed 4-5 TABLESPOONS of lemon juice to add to the powered sugar, I thought I needed the juice from 4-5 WHOLE LEMONS.  Opps.  I had to dump in a ton more sugar and we ended up with a whole lot of lemon glaze...)

Caught sticky-handed.  She was a little eager for her cake :)  She climbed up to look at it and immediately grabbed at it.

Trying to encourage her to blow out her candle.  She did blow once (though not hard enough to blow it out) and then wouldn't do it again, so I blew it out

Our little family (we only were able to get Ann to sit relatively still and be happy by handing her some maracas and then watching my dad be silly)

One cool little girl!  We put her hat and sunglasses on her and then she grabbed this bag to hold (she's also wearing my mom's watch, though I'm not sure you can tell in the picture).  She walked around like this for a while.

Ann is such a sweet little girl.  We love her so much!