Happy 2nd Birthday, Big Baby!

Good morning! Happy Tuesday :) Today is Henry’s 2nd birthday! I can’t believe he is already 2! None of us can really and this past week has been spent talking a lot about how much life has changed since he came into our lives. Time always flies but looking at him running around, climbing on things and hearing his vocabulary expand everyday really makes it feel like it’s gone by so fast.

We had his party here this past Saturday and while it ended up being really nice I had a hard time getting to the point when I could relax and enjoy it. I had no less than three breakdowns, complete with tears each time before anyone got here. You might remember that I was doing a “construct your own kabobs” menu to make my life easier but there was a lot of prep work for that to happen and it really took it’s toll on me. Prepping the ingredients on top of preparing 3 other salads had me working in the kitchen from 7:30am until well after 1:30pm when guests were already here.

Thank goodness my best friend arrived first and watched Henry and her son (and sliced veggies) while I worked on some food.  Next to arrive was my sister-in-law who got right to work helping me in the kitchen. I was a frazzled mess and the two of them really came through for me! Parties are a lot of work, especially when you are 9 months pregnant and hormonal, let me tell you!

In any case the food was great and all of our family seemed to enjoy themselves. I’m not (nor have I ever been) a fantastic host, but Aidan really took on that roll. He was super busy with his own preparations and started entertaining everyone as soon as they came. We really do make a great team. Really, it was pretty high pressure (in my mind) and he pulled more than his own weight and did 70% of the work! I love him so much and feel so lucky that we are together.

I didn’t get any pictures of the food I prepared (hell, I didn’t even get to shower) but here are the links to recipes that everyone enjoys and asked for:

• Build Your Own Shish-Kabobs
• Perfect Potato Salad
• Melon and Mozzarella Salad
• Mustard-Dill Tortellini Salad

I tripled the Shish-Kabob recipe and left the others as is. We had 17 adults, 2 teens and 4 two year olds and this was the perfect amount of food! We also served salsa and chips and this delicious and awesome looking cake that my sister-in-law made:

Chocolate Cake with Cookie Dough Layers

I didn’t get any successful pictures of Henry at the party :( I took some but they all turned out blurry because of him running around, but today I will try to get some good ones!

He has a doctor’s appointment this morning (boo for shots!) Hopefully he won’t be too cranky afterwards, but it is what it is. Everyone will be at school and work today anyway so hopefully when they get home he will be cherry. I will probably pick up our traditional ice cream cake for his birthday tonight and I’ll try to get better pictures then.

Well, have a great day and while your at it turn it into a great week!