2nd Birthday Party

I sent out homemade invitations to Linus' birthday party.  Since we were still unpacking and settling into the house, I made simple ones with a bright blue and green palette and pasted a plaid bird on the front of each one.  We had four children attend the big event: Chase, Lucero, Lena, and Lena's four-year old brother Gabriel.  I was relieved that the weather was pleasant so the children could play outside with balloons, a crawl-through tube thing, and a giraffe tent I picked up on sale a number of months ago.

We gave each child a bird water whistle.  With water inside of it, blowing can produce a warble instead of just a loud whistle sound.  The whistles were a hit, especially when Matthew put down a big bowl of water so the kids could refill their whistles themselves. Water and noise makers! What fun!

I made Linus a pistachio cake with a light green cream cheese frosting.  I really surprised him with the Playmobil bird feeder set on top of the cake.  I was most pleased with myself for thinking to use cookie sprinkles as a stand-in for bird seed.  He got a kick out of that.

Linus liked all of the neat presents he received from his friends. Lena and Gabriel gave him a remote control train. Chase gave him an unfinished wood bird house, paint for painting the bird house, a little notebook for his bird watching notations, and a bird checklist.  Lucero gave him a real china tea set in a wicker basket.  He especially likes to serve us tea in the dainty cups.

Then the kids went home, we tucked Linus in for a nap, and I sank down into the couch next to Matthew and proclaimed that we'd properly feted his birthday.