two for the show.

We celebrated Carly's birthday on Saturday with a little party of 3.

It had been a crazy week, and we took the opportunity to soak of the day as a family.

For dinner we had Carly's favorite, sloppy joes and green beans.

Carly wore her "2" shirt, which I whipped up the day before (I'm currently living life a few days behind).

We had cupcakes, which may or may not have been Little Debbie since 1) Chris is on some "eating healthy" binge, 2) I can't eat wheat, and 3) Carly isn't a real cake girl. But they looked cute anyway.



We lit candles and sang the song and Carly was an expert at spitting on/blowing out the candles.

And she looked pretty darn cute doing it.

After we forced a few bites of cupcake in her, we offered a popsicle, and she was all over that.

So instead of messy cake pictures this year, we get messy popsicle pictures.

I'll take it.

In fact, I had a Firecracker of my own.

Yums.



And we opened presents.

Carly was very good at this.

She kept pointing at the presents on the table and saying "Presents now, pease?".

She was spoiled with puzzles, books, clothes, a mini pillow pet monkey, and a Little People school bus from her mom and dad. We are pretty proud of our selection because she loves it, but didn't realize it played music. Oh, boy, does it play music.

But perhaps the biggest news from the day was our pre-party activity.

We went to our local store and got Carly a fishy for her birthday.

We debated between a basic 19 cent goldfish and a little more expensive one.

We finally decided on a betta, hoping it will live longer and won't be too hard to care for.

And its pretty too.

We picked him out, and Carly wanted to hug him.

We had to teach her that you just wave at him,

you don't try to get him out of his house because he likes to swim.

So far so good.



Introducing . . . . Harpo.

It took all of 15 seconds for me to get really attached to him, and 20 seconds to decide we're never getting a dog, because all the responsibility falls to the mom. But I'm glad we have him. Chris says I talk to Harpo more than I talk to him (ha!).

And want to know where we got his name? Well, of course we were initially inclined to name him Nemo, but he didn't look like a Nemo. So Chris quoted Dory out of the blue (ha!) and said "Not much fun for little Harpo", since Dory always gets Nemo's name wrong. And . . . . we had Harpo. And hearing Carly say "Har-po!" is a definite bonus.





But really, how did we end up with a two-year-old?

We took Carly to her 2 year appointment this morning and she came in at 27 lbs 8 oz and 36 inches tall.

She has gained exactly 20 lbs in her two years, and grown 17 inches.

Its bittersweet to see the strong, smart, fun girl she has become.

Here's to the best two years

(so far, anyway).