Birthday recap

My little girl is 2.  It's so hard for me to believe that I have a full-blown toddler, but it's true.  I do.  She had a pretty good birthday weekend, which was my goal.  She may not remember her 2nd birthday, but I will so that is all that counts, right?
Saturday was her actual birthday so we decided to just spend it the three of us together.  Indianapolis has a fairly good Children's Museum, and yeah...we were worried about taking her there after the disastrous attempt we had at the Ann Arbor Children's Museum, we decided to brave it.  And the little girl totally geeked out. She was all over the place.  They have this awesome Playscape area for preschoolers, and she hit the water table right away.  I think hands down that is her favorite area in any museum.  Or at least that is my experience.  But we let her do what she wanted, and she was running all over that area from exhibit to exhibit, not sure which one to do first.  It was so much fun getting to see her explore.  We were only there for a couple hours because, of course, we did hit the nap time down slide towards the end, but she had a blast and so did Tim and I.  We headed for home, hoping she'd get a good nap in, other than the cat nap she took in the car but....not so much.  She got her presents from Mom and Dad in the afternoon, and I think I did pretty well in terms of gifts this year.  We don't do much, but she LOVES to read and at school they do this series called Alpha Tales, which I had no idea what it was until I saw the set at Half-Priced Books.  It's 26 books, one for each letter, and she flipped out when she saw it.  It had to be opened immediately as she pulled each book out excitedly saying the letter for the book.  She also got some play food and dishes, but hands down, the books were the hit.  She had spaghetti for dinner and of course, a cupcake`to celebrate.  The look on her face was priceless when we sang to her.  I love that she knows it's her birthday now, but she also says happy birthday to everything else, too....Mommy, Daddy, her puppy....it's cute.
The next day we headed up to my parent's house for a family celebration.  After a major exorcism outside of a Bob Evans restaurant during a ill-advised breakfast out with the kid, we had a good day.  She loves playing with her cousins and grandparents and it was a good celebration.  Definitely a lot more low key than last year, but I'm good with that.  Honestly, I'd rather enjoy the time with my little girl than worry about whether Subway is going to deliver the sandwiches on time to her party like last year.  The memories we made this year were so much better.  
So here's to another year with our little girl.  It is so amazing to look at the pictures of when she was one and see how much she has changed.  (I say this, of course, not having posted pictures....), and how much she has grown up.  She's talking a storm, knows 22 of her 26 letters, knows objects, colors, numbers...I mean the kid saw a picture of an octopus the other day, pointed at it and said "O!"  I have a feeling the next year is going to bring a lot for us - good and tough (note I don't say bad....but I am well aware that a two-year-old is not always "good").  
So onto the next birthday....wait, no, that's mine.  Yeah, let's just skip over that one....celebrating a kiddo's birthday is so much more fun anyway.