Happy Birthday, Aynsley!

Aynsley turned two a couple of weeks ago, so we had to celebrate! I can't necessarily say that the time has flown by and "I can't believe she is already two"...I don't say that in a mean way, but in some ways it seems like she should have been two a long time ago. I guess it helps having a brother who is just ten months older than you are. She really seems to have caught up to Jaxson developmentally in a lot of ways, so it seems like they are more like twins.

Anyway...Aynsley has liked "Finding Nemo" for the past several months, so we decided to have "Nemo" inspired party. I wanted to keep it somewhat low-key, but we did plan an underwater themed menu (submarine sandwiches, "seaweed" (aka salad), "seashells" (pasta salad), etc). We also borrowed a huge blow-up swimming pool from Mike's mom, thinking that the kids would have fun swimming and playing in the water, while the adults mingled outside. Unfortunately, it started to rain as soon as all of our guests started raining. Between the rain and thunder, nobody dared to venture outside, so we had to squeeze into our house.

Aynsley was excited to see her presents, but once she opened the first one or two, she was done. She was just happy to try and play with what she had already opened and didn't seem to care that she still had more. Jaxson was more than willing to help her out and proceeded to open up most of her presents. Unfortunately, he ended up being quite upset when he was told that the gifts were for Aynsley and that he couldn't keep the toys away from her. He was not happy to learn that his birthday is not for a few more months!

Next up was cake and icecream. I tried out a new recipe for Aynsley's cake, and it turned out good, which was a relief! We had cupcakes for the rest of the kids (didn't take any pictures) and let each of them blow out their own candle.

Right after we finished up with cake and icecream, the weather seemed to clear up a little bit and a few kids decided to go outside and swim. Aynsley insisted on wearing her sunglasses when she went out to play. Despite the weather, the party was still a success! We are so glad that we have such great family to come celebrate with us.