The Collins Family: Party Girl

We had our usual get together at our house for Austen's 2nd birthday party. Low-key, with food, cake pops, friends, and presents. Austen lucked out with the weather, and we got to drag out the 'ole bouncy house for the first bounce of the season. The kids had a blast, and the parents don't complain about their children being well-occupied for a bit. :)

I am tired and a bit overwhelmed, so here are a whole bunch of birthday pictures for the book.

Both girls love balloons, so this was an exciting surprise from mama

No, the sky isn't yellow in real life. I mess with editing and am too lazy to go change it back. So, have some yellow sky

Austen got a disco ball and capes from Mama and Daddy. The disco ball because these girls love to shake their booties, and the capes because of a favorite bedtime story. You know those Mercer Mayer books? My brother and I used to have them when we were young, and the girls got a huge stack from Aunt Stacey. They like them because they are fun stories, and we like them because they have some substance, but are a reasonable bedtime story length. ;)

Anyway, in Just Go to Bed, the main critter says that he's going to fly over the city like Supercritter to avoid going to bed. Our girls use anything they can get their hands on - jammies, cloth grocery bags, towels - for "Supercritter capes." The first night Austen asked me to be Supercritter was when I was putting on her jammies and she started to get frantic about not putting her feet in. "I wanna be Supercritter!" (a.k.a Leave my feet out so I can use my footy jammies as a cape). Well, if you are going to be that cute about it, how I can say no?

So I set her down and she flew around the house chanting "Supercritter!"

Kaitlyn is getting so good about helping her little sister

The birthday girl didn't want anything to do with her cape, so her big sister obliged and let me take pictures.

Cake pops are going to be the death of me. I have a love-hate relationship with these little buggers. I do enjoy making them, which is why I keep doing it, but I don't love how long it ends up taking. I am usually up late two nights before creating the pops, then really late decorating the night before. But, the girls love them, they taste good, and they add to the half ****ed decorations I come up with.

This year, I decided on a spring/Easter theme. This means that the pops followed the theme, and I sprinkled some colorful confetti on the table. I don't even know if my efforts meet the definition of "theme." Oh, well...I'll continue to enjoy going to others' parties with real themes. :)