Juliet's 2nd Birthday Celebrations

For Juliet's second birthday, we decided to celebrate at The Most Magical Place on Earth - Walt Disney World! This was fitting for a couple of reasons, 1) obviously... we all love Disney! 2) Our family already had an early October trip planned 3) we also celebrated Olivia's second birthday at Disney World and I just love the symmetry of both girls celebrating their second birthdays at the same place!

We stayed at the Cabins at Fort Wilderness, along with my parents and my sister and her family. The first night of our stay, we invited everyone over to our cabin to enjoy a little party in Juliet's honor.

My sweet friend, Emily, made an adorable Mickey Mouse birthday banner. We brought cake and cupcakes with us from a local Savannah baker and continued the Mickey Mouse theme there. 

Cousins

We brought in dinner from P&J's Southern Takeout (at Fort Wilderness), sand and ate cake, and then opened some presents. 

Juliet enjoyed her gifts and being with her favorite people. It was a low-key evening and I'm so glad we were able to celebrate with family.

Even though we celebrated early, I couldn't let Juliet's actual birthday day go by without any celebration! I asked a couple of friends to meet us at the neighborhood playground for some lunch and cake on Juliet's birthday. However, it downpoured day of, so we quickly switched plans to meet at the local toddler-play business, Giggles. 

Juliet was obsessed with Moana around this time, so we had a Moana-themed birthday cake... which for some reason Publix wouldn't put the actual decorations ON the cake. But that's neither here nor there. Juliet was thrilled. 

 

Juliet just wasn't up for taking photos at the end of the party... Crashing HARD.

 

Our good friends Maddie, Penny, AND Emilia were all sick on Juliet's birthday, and they were very missed!

Later in the day, once Miguel was home from work, we opened one more present from Mommy and Daddy. JuJu decided it was a great idea to wear her bike helmet to open her present.

We gave her a Pottery Barn Kids doll bunkbed with bedding I attempted to sew. 

I think Juliet really enjoyed her second birthday celebrations! So grateful for our sweet two year old and all those who helped us love on her and celebrate her birthday!

Juliet TWO Years Old

Juliet, precious and sweet girl, you are TWO years old!! I blinked and you have turned into a toddler! You are SO much fun and the past two years have been the best with you in our family!

You are my absolute cuddle bug. Our friend Emily says it is as if you are trying to crawl back in my belly. You want to be ON mommy at all times. The first hour of the day, at least, you need to be attached to me or else big tears and fits ensue. You give the BEST hugs and I adore them. You love to hug mommy, daddy, and your big sister! You are selective with "your people", but once they're in your circle, you give them big hugs too. 

You are becoming more and more verbal each day and have even strung together some short sentences. Until just recently, you said "yesh" for yes and it was THE cutest thing. 

You are a good climber, intentional runner, and bike enthusiast. You love to kick the soccer ball, hit plastic golf balls, swing and slide on the playground, and bounce in your crib. You sing continuously when you color.

You still give us nice, long afternoon naps. Thank you, princess! You are a good sleeper at night as well, though you protest every single night about bedtime. You are still in your crib, but have to be in a backwards sleep sack to prevent you from crawling out. You insist on having about a thousand stuffed animals in your crib and have a different favorite one every couple of weeks. You call the dog, "woof" and your unicorn "neigh". 

You love screen time (oops, mom fail) and ask to watch Moana constantly. It is your favorite movie and I've seen it enough at this point to last my lifetime. You think Hei Hei is hilarious and you try to sing along to some of the songs. 

Your favorite foods are mac and cheese, bananas, applesauce, apples, dog dogs, yogurts, MILK, and pirate booty. We offer you fruit consistently, but you reject it most of the time. Unless we give you clementines! You LOVE clementines.

You would be perfectly content to sit in the dirt and dig all day if I allowed it. You don't mind playing independently, as long as someone you love is close by. 

You miss Olivia when we take her to school, and even verbalize this. I love your sweet relationship and how excited you are to see each other after being apart for a couple of hours. No one makes you laugh like Olivia can. Especially right before bedtime. 

Juliet, there aren't enough words to describe how much we all love you. You are tender and tough and sweet and stubborn. I cannot wait to continue seeing who you grow to be!! Love you and we are so thankful to God for allowing us to be your parents!!

Olivia's 3rd Birthday Party

Sweet, Olivia. Your life has sped up and I'm writing this almost a whole year late. I think I should get partial credit for at least loading the photos to the post last December though! ;)

For a long time you have been obsessed with finding the moon. It's pretty precious and sweet. We even have a video of you hopping of your bike and trying to jump up to the moon once you spotted it.  Since you love the moon, we decided we'd celebrate your third birthday with a moon theme. 

We invited your family, friends, and classmates. Our original plan was to host the party at the neighborhood playground, grill food, and rent a bounce house. Unfortunately, due to the weather, we had to move the party to our home. 

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For food we served hotdogs, mac and cheese, fruit, raisins, and chips. For sweets we served beautiful star and moon cookies and, of course, cake.

We kept the decorations minimal since we were hoping to be outside, but we had some pretty balloons and things. 

 

We attempted to play some games while we waited for your special guest. Playing games with two year olds was about as successful as you would imagine it would be. But it was a nice way to pass time at the party. 

While we were playing games, your special guest arrived. To your delight it was Rapunzel!! The few months leading up to your birthday you were obsessed with Rapunzel. You were SO happy she came to your party!

Rapunzel brought lots of fun activities to your party. She gave you all makeovers with colorful makeup, made jewelry with you and your guests, and played games with her hair!

Rapunzel even sang Happy Birthday to you! You were quite delighted to be the birthday girl and center of attention. I love that it was caught on camera. 

It was so special and fun that Karis, Evan, and Charlotte came to your party all the way from Atlanta! They stayed for the night which you also thought was pretty great!

After our guests arrived we opened presents with the family. 

Safe to say you had a pretty wonderful and great day. We loved celebrating you and are always telling the Lord how thankful we are that he gave us YOU!! What a blessing you are to our family! Love you Olivia!