For the 2nd part of Nate’s birthday celebration, and the most important part according to the girls, we had a party.  I waited until nap time to set up and decorate.  I had helpers (Steve, Elizabeth, and my house helper)... and before I knew it, everything was set up and arranged and we had fun doing it.  I love help!

When Nate got up from his nap he was just thrilled to see the house all decorated.  We had balloons everywhere and fun decorations.  I love seeing how much joy it brings the kids just to hang up a few balloons in their honor!

We had a simple dinner on paper plates of PB&J.  It was the requested meal.  Clean up was easy and then at 6pm friends started to arrive.

I knew that our foreign friends would come... I knew that our house helper would come... and I knew that our house helper might possibly bring a friend or two.  What I wasn’t expecting was a whole house full of people to show up.  Way more people than I had anticipated.  I was just relieved to see that they didn’t all bring Nate presents.  They just came to enjoy being here and celebrating with us, and that was more than enough for me!

I was thankful that I had made a larger than usual cake, and thankful that I had more than enough cute napkins and plates.  Whew.  Wouldn’t want to run out of cute plates.

With so many kids here and lots of adults, the house was at times overwhelming, but still fun.  Nate was not shy and had a great time with all our friends.  He started off the evening with some acrobatic tricks.

Yea, my 2 year old can do the splits.  He is cool like that.

Fun playtime.

After Nate blew out the candles and everyone had cake... it was back to playing with the toys.  The other kids were very ready to watch Nate open presents, but Nate was not rushed.  He sat at the table and worked on eating his small piece of cake for about 30 minutes.  He never did finish that piece.  He finally got up and we took the cake away so we could move on to presents. 

It was quite a challenge keeping the other kids from ‘helping’ Nate too much with the opening!

Nate had such a fun party and loved his presents.  And while Steve got the kids in the bath to remove green icing which was stuck to their faces and in Anna’s case, even stuck in her hair, I began tackling the mess pictured above! 

SO, for the last time - Happy 2nd Birthday Nate.