Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Munchkin Turns Two!

The last week has been kinda crazy and a bit stressful for me.  The munchkin turned two last friday.  I still can't believe that.  We had her party on Saturday.  The weather turned out beautiful and despite me putting off everything until the day of, things actually went pretty smoothly.

Last Wednesday night, I started feeling a sore throat.  I hoped it would go away but it progressively got worse the next day and by Thursday night it was so painful to swallow that I was certain I had strep.  I reluctantly made a doctor's appointment Friday morning and headed in.  Thankfully, there was no strep, but there was some other sort of bacterial infection and he assured me that once I started the antibiotics, I wouldn't be contagious by the time the party rolled around at 4:00 the next day.

I hate taking antibiotics.  Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do it though.  I had lots of people coming to my house the next day, including little childrent, and I didn't want to get anyone else sick. So I doubled up on my probiotics and cracked open the Z-Pack.  I laid in bed all day, got some rest and hoped I would still be able to get everything done for the party in time.

Late Friday night, I started feeling a little better and went ahead and made some of the food.  I whipped up the cheese ball, the roasted red pepper hummus and cut up all the veggies.   Joe decorated the kitchen.  I really wish I had taken a pic.  It was really cute.  He hung streamers and curled ribbons to hang around the lights in the kitchen.  He really stepped up and did alot since I wasn't feeling so good.  I decided to put off the cupcakes and the rest of the food until the next day.

Never put off baking and decorating your cupcakes or cake until the day of the party.

Talk about stressful!  The party was at 4:00am.  I started making my cupcakes at 10:30am.  I was making alot of cupcakes, plus a double layer 6" cake to sit on the top of the cupcake tower.  The batter had to be mixed, then everything baked, then cooled, iced and decorated.  Luckily I had already made the cream cheese icing the night before.  That helped a little, but not much.  I ran out of cupcake liners since I had ruined the first batch.  I made Joe drive to my mom's (less then a mile away) to pick up more.  Then as soon as he pulled into the driveway, I sent him right back to pick up some extra pans so I could rotate the baking more quickly.  I ended up undercooking the first batch and all of them fell in the middle.  I should have did one last practice run to perfect the cooking temp and time.  The muffins were still very warm when I was putting them on the cupcake tower and the icing wasn't as fluffy as it should have been because of it.

Oh well, atleast they tasted good, even if they looked a little sad.  Luckily I was putting a little Care Bear on each one, so it almost looked like they were supposed to be sitting down in the cupcake.  Almost.



I also had Joe pick up the munchkin from my moms, pick up one of her gifts from a coworker's house that had brought him home to her house because it had been delivered on Friday while I was gone.  I also sent him to the store to pick up all of the stuff I remembered at the last minute, like drinks for everyone.  That would have sucked if no one had anything to drink.

About an hour before everyone was supposed to arrive, I finally had the food all ready to go and could finally get myself ready.  I managed to get almost everything done in time, and anything that I didn't, no one knew any better anyway.

It had been raining all morning and the sun came out and started shining right before the party.  The temperature was perfect, which was awesome since the kids could run around outside.   I realized after everyone started arriving that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast right when I woke up.   I started shoving food into my mouth immediately before I got the shakes.



The munchkin was a hot mess for most of her party.  She was crabby and on edge and most of it was due to all of the other kids running around and playing with her toys.  Especially the boys.  I had a couple people come up to me and tell me that it looked like one of the boys was purposely trying to pull the cabinets off of her new kitchen.  She was probably about to break down from an anxiety attack.  That girl is very particular about her toys!

She perked up some after her she opened up some new gifts though.   Notice the look of concern on her face though in most of these pictures below.  I wonder if she is already concerned about the boys playing with her new toys.






Then we went on to sing Happy Birthday and blow out her candle.



Afterwards we all hung outside and let the kids run around.  Nothing cheers her up and lifts her spirits like being outside.  She had blast.



She was definitely worn out by the end of the evening.  She reached for my dad and snuggled up to his shoulder.



I don't think anyone was as exhausted as me though.   It was a fun party though, and it was great to see everyone and visit.   The munchkin has some new awesome toys to play with and lots of new zippered and footed PJs!

My little girl is two years old now.  Two years old!  She really is becoming more and more like a little girl and further and further away from being a baby.  She talks so much and we can even have little conversations now.  I just can't believe how quickly she learns things and picks up on stuff.  It is so amazing watching a little person grow up.  She is so sweet and polite (most days), saying thank you and you're welcome.  She is great with other kids and loves to share.  She has been really into pretend play and LOVES the new kitchen set we got her.  I also bought her little wooden fruits and vegetables that she can "slice" in half with a little wooden knife.  She spends forever cutting them up and putting them back together again.

She is also becoming very independent and wants to do more and more things on her own.  This can sometimes lead to tears and fits when she can't always have her way.  She definitely doesn't like to be told she can't do something!  She bounces back fairly quickly though and usually doesn't think much about it after that.  She HAS to buckle her own seat belt now in the car seat.  If I buckle it before she has a chance to, she gets soooooo upset about it.  It's pretty funny.

Sunday was spent recovering and running some errands.  Sunday night the munchkin decided she was deathly afraid of taking baths, so we have been having fun with that one.  More on that later.  She also has been backed up for most of the past week and that also has her crabby and not feeling so good.  I found out Joe was giving her too many cheese sticks and those, along with other servings of dairy throughout the day, I'm pretty sure are the culprits.

Tuesday, however things finally seemed to be getting back to normal.  After a week of a crazy crabby toddler and being sick and stressed, we had an amazing day.  The munchkin was back to her sweet lovey self and I was feeling so much better too.

Our bath situation seems to be getting somewhat better too, but that is an entire post of its own, so more on that later.

In the meantime, I am going to try to figure out how the heck I have a two year old all of a sudden!!

4 comments:

LWLH said...

Happy 2nd Birthday Munchkin!! :)
I can't believe she is 2 already.

Gina said...

I thought you seemed stressed at the party! I'm glad it wasn't me. :)

Sarah Smith said...

What a beautiful cake/cupcakes!

Lucy Marie said...

The cake and cupcakes are so cute! Happy 2nd birthday to your Munchkin.