Maia's 2nd Birthday!!
My sweet Maia had her birthday party today!!! I will admit I spent a lot of time waffling over the plan for this party. Winter parties are hard! And the age range of my guests is widening, but I still want it to be fun for the older nephews and niece as well as my two year old! But I think it all worked out! The theme for the party was Winter Woods. Maia's nursery was baby deer themed, and I had bought one book in particular, Dotty, which was about a baby deer eating strawberries. Since berries are her absolute favorite food, and I read her that book about a thousand times, I settled on forest animals. (We also read a lot of Reindeer Run, Eight Jolly Reindeer, and a LOT of the Bunny Rabbit Show, all woodland creatures themed =) Abbey also gave her this little purple bunny at Everett's birthday, and I often heard her through the monitor saying "Hop, Hop, HOP HOP!" while playing with that.
After Eric talked me down from hiring a wild animal petting zoo, I thought of building a forest out of cardboard. Then I thought maybe the big kids would have fun with the actual building of dens. So we collected cardboard, fabric, animal cutouts, a camouflage netting, curly willow branches, and our snowball collection. We moved the Christmas tree upstairs, and it was Welcome to the Forest. I think they all had a blast! And it turned out so fun, with tunnels, a tree, rocks, rivers! Lots of snowball fights too =) I bought this cool yoga swing that I thought would be a fun little burrow for the forest, and a great way for the kids to swing indoors, or just use like a hammock for reading.
Downstairs the activity was based on another of Maia's favorite things, digging in the sandbox. She hasn't gotten to do much of that lately, since the weather is chilly and she refuses to wear shoes. At all. So I made a giant sensory tub filled with rice! I hid a bunch of forest animals figures and rings in it, and put out measuring cups, spoons, bowls and little buckets. Maia spent HOURS there today. I barely got her to listen to us sing Happy Birthday! So I'd say that was a success! Other kids loved it too. Sweet Everett lay down in the tub and just enjoyed it like it was his own personal beach. Only a few times did the rice get out of control, and several kind friends helped sweep up those mishaps. I'm on my own tomorrow though so that will be another story. After her bath she started her usual litany of "Pablo? Paw Patrol?" And I asked her, do you want Paw Patrol or do you want rice? She shrieked "Rice! Rice!" and ran to the tub. Yay, sensory bin beats tv. =) At least for today.
I made a lot of woodland creature masks. Foxes, bunnies, owls and deer. The kids were so cute in them! Maggie especially wore her owl all day. And of course, baby Athena needed an owl mask too =) Serenity chose a deer, and DZ claimed a fox. Eric, Carson, and Barrett were rabbit jedis together. Love it.
My sister made an amazing cake. It was so delicious! Cinnamon and a touch of coconut, SO good. Maia woke up from her nap and asked for more so I'd say it was a hit. Maia won't eat just any cake =) And it was so cute with the cinnamon sticks and rosemary! Maia was not as thrilled with the singing part of Happy Birthday. Not sure if she didn't appreciate all the sound or if she just didn't want to be distracted from the rice. Serenity helped her with the candles. =)
We had such a wonderful day! Several families spent the night with us the night before the party, so we started off with a slumber party. I just love these friends! We've been friends half of our lives now, and watching our children together is just amazing. Plus we got to visit and play a lot of games together while they were busy having fun =)
