Aubrey Ann is sitting at the table eating her breakfast. I told her she was doing a great job and she just told me, “Mommy, I am a big girl. I’m not a baby.”

I think I might cry. My baby is growing up for sure!

Well our little girl is finally two.  She is such a sweetie, and we have absolutely cherished every second of these last two years.

For her big T-W-O, we decided to base the party on one of her favortie books, Chick Chicka Boom Boom.  Aubrey Ann was so excited the weeks leading up to her party, she would always tell me, “I’s having a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom party!”.  It was a lot of work, but it was totally worth it in the end.

Here are a couple of pictures from the set-up the day before:

Hey what are these slackers doing? 

Aubrey Ann would have been happy just putting on ‘necklaces’ all day!

Helping Mamaw put on her necklace

Love from both grandma’s, just like this picture from the day she was born!

Balloons!!!!

There was a chance of rain on her birthday, but there was no way a little rain was going to soak our party!  We woke Aubrey Ann up singing her the ‘Happy Birthday’ song, and we should have known better.  She isn’t too fond of that song, and started her day off with tears.  Luckily some homemade banana pancakes with whipped cream and sprinkles cheered our birthday girl right up!

I had lots to do to get ready for the big party, so luckily all the family helped to get everything together.  Here are some pictures before the part started of all the decorations:

A picture of our big coconut trees with letters climbing up, and our little luau birthday girl!

Here is all the yummy food.  Aubrey Ann certainly looks excited!

Here are some mini-pb&j’s for our little party people!

This is the cake table.  Daddy made the awesome ‘coconut tree’.

Here is a close-up of the cupcakes, BEFORE Aubrey Ann’s sneaky little fingers made their way into the frosting!  I couldn’t keep her out of them!

Finally, the birthday girl, all ready to go!

Just in case you couldn’t believe that our sweet little Aubrey Ann was a frosting thief, well fiest your eyes on the above evidence.

Here are all the kids having a great time at the playdoh table.  It was very surprising how much all of the kids loved this.

Here is the big birthday girl showing she knows EXACTLY how old she is!  All of the kids really enjoyed the sandbox, and of course Aubrey Ann had all of her princess figurines with her.  We couldn’t possibly ask her to part with those!  She loved having all the kids in her things, and really enjoyed showing all the kids all of her play things.

She is a very nice Mamaw, but if you come between her and her salsa, she will knock you out!

Mommy and Aubrey Ann had a great time together as usual.  Aubrey Ann was in hog heaven, she ran from one activity to the next.  She loved all the attention, and especially loved all the big-kids.

Aubrey Ann had a great time in the pool with Mommy and Daddy.  It was a bit cold, but our little water-baby didn’t let that slow her down at all!

Just in case you forgot, our big girl is TWO!  Actually right before she flashed those fingers, she tried to convince us she was actually going to be five! 

I think Uncle PJ liked the playdoh table as much as the kids!

Here is the big girl having her “A’s”.  Right before this we sang her the dreaded, “Happy Birthday” song, and she cried the entire way through.  I guess she is just like her Mommy and doesn’t want to get any older! She ate the “A” frosting off the cupcakes and then asked for, “More A’s please, Mommy.”

Sharing her cupcake with her Daddy.

After eating BOTH cupcakes, Aubrey Ann looks VERY full!

Aubrey Ann got so many wonderful things for her birthday.  She especially loved all her princess stuff!  She was on princess over-load!  She was such a good girl, and sat very patiently and opened each and every present.  She then told each person, “Thank you SO much!” after she opened each gift.  What a sweetheart!

Hmmmm…what could this possibly be?

Aubrey Ann better investigate.

Now she is riding in style!  Thanks Mamaw and Papaw!

The birthday party was an absolute blast, and Aubrey Ann had the best time.  Thank you so much to everyone who helped make her party such a big success.  Also, thank you for all the wonderful gifts, everyone really made her day special.
Aubrey Ann, Mommy and Daddy are so blessed to have you, and we thank God each and every day that he entrusted us with you.  You are such a joy!  Watching you grow is the best adventure we could ever imagine.  Thanks for being such an amazing little girl.  Happy birthday big two year old!

As many of you know, Aubrey Ann LOVES to do art.  She loves painting, drawing, ’sculpting’, gluing, tearing, anything you name it!  So here was a project that we did several months back that started off as a good idea, and ended in a big, fun, wonderful MESS!

The idea was to have Aubrey Ann dip her feet in paint and walk across a paper, and then we were going to label her feet (left and right, the concept we were workng on at the time) count her footsteps, count her toes, and talk about how our footprints look different than animal footprints.

It sounded like a good idea, but it soon turning into a GREAT idea (according to Miss Aubrey Ann).

All that mess for one tiny piece of artwork.  It was SO worth it to see her smiles!

A few days ago Aubrey Ann had a few friends over. She had her cousin Micah (who has become the expert climber, WOW) and Benjamin and Desmond. They all had a fantastic time playing together.

Brandon shared a couple of stories with me about the night, and I couldn’t help but notice how much Aubrey Ann sounded like she was trying to “mother” the boys.

When they were all outside, Benjamin decided to climb up our rock wall on our playset, an easy task for him. Well, Aubrey Ann sat and watched in awe that he could complete such a task, and as he reached the top she yelled, “Careful Benny!”

Then later that evening during movie night, all the kids were laying down, and apparently Benjamin wanted to play with toys instead, so he got up to play, while the others sat to watch the movie. Well, Aubrey Ann looks straight at him and says, “It’s movie night Benny!”, as if she was in shock that he didn’t want to sit and watch the movie.

Oh yes, she has already started to pick up on some mothering skills. Now if I could just get her to stop carrying around her babydoll by the hair…

We just can’t help ourselves. Only 5 months from our last Disney trip, we were already itching for another. So, rather than deprive ourselves, we decided to give in and get our Disney fix.

We weren’t sure how things would go, because we had a few friends tell us that when their kids got to be around two they didn’t like Disneyland as much because they were more aware of the scary things, and they never really liked the big characters. But, we thought it was worth a try.

On our first day, the trip down was perfect. AA was in hog heaven as we purchased a DVD player for the car, and napped pretty well too. As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we went for a swim in the heated pool. AA hasn’t swam anywhere other than her bathtub since last summer, so we weren’t sure if she was going to still be an avid water baby. Well, she still is, and now she is quite the daredevil. She loved jumping of the sides to me and Daddy, and also “swimming” between the two of us. She now will kick her legs and doggy paddle her arms, so I am looking forward to all she learns this summer. She has also perfected the art of going under, and does that often.

The next day we headed for Disneyland early. It was overcast, but we thought we may escape the rain. Well, we were wrong, it started to drizzle just as we got to the ticket booth. AA kept saying “I’m wet, it’s a raining”. Luckily I had come very prepared and we were all dressed appropriately and had no problems keeping dry.

At first we were disappointed, but then the park cleared out and we basically had Disneyland all to ourselves. The rain made it possible for us to ride the rides over and over again.

AA loved riding the carousel, and we did that four times. She also loved the small world, and the Pirates of the Carribean. She asked to do those again and again.

The most exciting thing for AA was when she got to meet all of the Characters! She first met Minnie, and she was just star-struck. She ran up and gave her a huge hug and didn’t want to let go. When we finally convinced her to let go, she went back for several more hugs. It was so cute even minnie was laughing in her costume! She also met Pluto, Mickey (twice), Goofy, Brother Bear, and three princesses!

AA only knows three princesses, Ariel, Cinderella, and Jasmine. She only knows of these three because they are on her pull-up, but she just loves them!

In Disneyland there is a place where you get to meet three of the Disney princesses, but you never know which three are going to be there. Well, imagine our surprise, when it was our turn to go in, and it was those exact three princesses. Aubrey Ann was so shocked, and wanted to hug all the princesses and tough their hair, jewelry, and dresses. She especially loved Cinderella, and she twirled around over and over again just like Cinderella did. It was so cute!

Aubrey Ann still talks about meeting all of these characters, I never imagined she would be so excited.

Here are a couple other random pictures from that first day at Disneyland:

That night we went to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner where we sat right next to the elephants. Aubrey Ann just loved them and couldn’t keep her eyes off of them. She wasn’t nearly as thrilled with the gorilla’s across the room.

The next day the weather was perfect! We felt like we really got the best of both worlds! We headed to California adventures where Aubrey Ann was mesmerized with the huge letters! She LOVES letters and these are huge! She spent several minutes checking them out.

At California Adventures they have a show called playhouse Disney where all of the kids are encouraged to participate by dancing, clapping, and all other sorts of silliness. AA loved it so much, and spent most of her time trying to run up to the characters on the stage. Where is the baby leash when you need one!

Shortly after that, we were outside and AA spotted Mickey headed backstage for his break. He was walking rather fast, and AA took off, and chased him down! I could barely catch her. Finally Mickey turned around and gave her a big hug, and AA tried to follow him backstage. I wonder if she would have stayed with Mickey forever if she could?

Going…

…going…

…gone!

Later that day, AA was in a silly mood and leaned down and bit my sweater, something very odd for her. I looked at her and said “Aubrey Ann, you know we don’t bite clothes” to which AA responded, “No bite clothes, bite cats!” What?!?!? Anyway, that is just a testament to the silliness that Disney provided Aubrey Ann.

Here are a few more pics from our second day in DL (yes, I now feel comfortable calling it by only its initials because I am coming to know this place so well!):

AA riding, “A scewwwy ride”.

Aubrey Ann and her Knight in Shining Armor.

She loved every minute of every day we were there, never got fussy even once despite missing her nap both days. It was an awesome time, and something Brandon and I will remember forever. I am so glad we made the trip because it was so worth it. I loved seeing her with the characters and the wonder and magic in her eyes as she experienced all this.

Now the only question is, when can we go back? 

On February 25th, Mommy watched Aubrey Ann’s friend Ella for a few hours, and the girls had such a great time I wanted to share some pictures. Before they arrived I told Aubrey Ann that Ella was coming and her response was, “Maybe Ashee?  Maybe Ashee?”  She wanted to see Ella’s mommy Ashley as well!

When they first came Aubrey Ann and Ella played with toys in the playroom.  Ella wanted to explore all of the new things, but her favorite toy of all was a balloon she found.  Aubrey Ann and Ella played withe her dollhouses for a long time.  Then they played a few games of ring around the rosey, and chased each other all around the house.  It was so cute, Aubrey Ann was always doing the chasing, but they both were doing the squealing!

Then the girls had a snack and watched a video together.  Ella did more walking and looking at toys.  Occasionally she would climb on Aubrey Ann, which Aubrey Ann didn’t mind, she just kept looking around Ella so she could see her video.

Then the girls had some fun with arts and crafts.  They both made a painting.  Aubrey Ann had a great time because she got to sit up to the table like a big girl, she did an awesome job and didn’t make a mess at all!  Ella enjoyed the paint as long as it stayed on the brush, and not on her hands.  Every time she got it on her hand she would hold it up for me to wipe it.  She was very neat and precise with her painting.  This is in direct contrast to Aubrey Ann whose hands were covered in paint, as usual.

Then we made a handprint painting, for both of the girls with their names and the word “Friends” on it.  It came out very cute, and both the girls loved making it and asked to do more.

After art, we headed outside where both girls enjoyed playing on the playset.  Aubrey Ann loved swinging with Ella because that meant she got to swing on the big swing.  She looked like such a big girl.  Aubrey Ann had a great time dragging Ella from thing to thing showing her how to use stuff.  Can you say bossy?     They both had a blast.

Finally, it was lunch time, and right after Aubrey Ann headed off for a much deserved nap.  A little while later Ella’s mommy came and got her.  When Aubrey Ann woke up she immediatley ran into the living room yelling “Ella, Ella, see Ella”.  It was sad when she realized that Ella had gone home.

I think it is wonderful that Aubrey Ann has made such a good friend already.  It is my sincere hope that these two girls always remain close.

Brandon and I wanted to take Aubrey Ann to the snow, so on February 21st we finally did it.  We headed up 41 and drove until we found a nice place for her to play.  As we drove Aubrey Ann was so excited.  Finally we reached our destination and started getting her out of the van and dressed in her snowsuit.  Her snowsuit is bright green, and not very attractive, but as we were getting her dressed Aubrey Ann kept saying, “I’m like a princess!”  She just loved that snowsuit.
The snow was rather deep, probably up to our thighs, so we had to walk holding Aubrey Ann until we found a place that was packed down.  Then Brandon started to build Aubrey Ann a “castle”.  It was basically a hole in the snow with the sides built up around her.  Well, she loved that castle and spent most of her time inside.  She would pretend to curl up and sleep in it.

Aubrey Ann also LOVED throwing snow balls.  She would randomly pick up a snowball and throw it.  She thought it was very funny when Daddy threw snowballs as well.
The only thing Aubrey Ann liked better than throwing snowballs, was eating them.  She was constantly eating the snow while we were there.

One of the last things we did, was build a snowman.  Aubrey Ann had a good time patting snow on the sides to make sure our snowman was nice and round.  When we asked her what her snowman was named, she said “Ella”.  I wasn’t surprised in the least!

We played for over an hour in the snow, and it was finally time for us to go.  So we walked back to our car, but before we got in, Daddy had to throw Aubrey Ann in the soft snow just one more time.

I am always so surprised at how much Aubrey Ann enjoys nature.  Most of the other kids (that were near Aubrey Ann’s age) didn’t stay in the snow very long, and did a bit of crying, but Aubrey Ann just loved it.  She couldn’t get enough.  Daddy says we are heading back very soon, infact I already have our snow clothes packed that way we can go at a moments notice!

My little snow angel, we love you so much and feel so blessed that we get to share these times with you!