Cheese Mouse Birthday Party

We celebrated Hadley's 2nd birthday with a fairly loose interpretation of a cheese mouse theme.  She loves the mouse from the Tinkerbell movies named Cheese, so it seemed like a good theme to follow.

I created the invitations on PicMonkey using a photo from our summer vacation.

Since Hadley's birthday falls during 3rd quarter closing and I'm an accountant, I kept things simple and elaborate preparations to a minimum.  For cake I purchased three dozen mini cupcakes and one regular sized cupcakes from our local cupcakery, The Gourmet Cupcake Shoppe.  An edible arrangement for fruit - those things are pricey but soo yummy!  Cheese, sausage and crackers plus some other trail mix-ey nibbles and I couldn't resist some sixlets.

Where I did take some time were these Cheese Mice Appetizers.  I thought this might turn out to be one of those Pinterest "nailed it" moments, but I think they turned out really cute!  You can see my pin here.

They're wedges of Laughing Cow cheese with either almond slices or sliced hot dogs for ears, olive noses, green onion tails and caraway seeds for eyes.  The eyes were supposed to be black sesame seeds but I couldn't find those anywhere and I think the caraway seeds were actually a better look and more tasty to boot.  I made fifteen of these and they were all snatched up quickly once we began eating.

For activities we covered our breakfast nook table and one wall in a hallway with freezer paper and put out tins of crayons.  I don't have any pictures without child guests, so you'll just have to use your imagination.  It was fun seeing what the kids drew afterwards.

My other grand plan was to play "blind mice" and stick post-it "cheese" onto mice I had drawn on our French doors with window markers.  The kids either a) didn't want to wear the blindfold, or b) they peeked and landed the cheese on the mouse directly.  C'est la vie, it was an interesting distraction for oh, about five minutes.

Hadley seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself and wandered around the party visiting guests.  She loved opening presents and every gift was her new favorite.

Hadley Turns Two

My funny, quirky, opinionated, pony skipping Hadley.  You do nothing halfway.  From the moment you wake until the time you drift off to sleep, you are either the picture of happiness with your double dimples and contagious giggle or shrieking "notankyuu" as fast as you can while waving your little hand frantically!

We went berry picking at my Aunt Cathy and Uncle John's house and you absconded Aunt Cathy's straw hat and wore it the entire time.

You ran through the big spray tunnel just like the big kids this summer.

After refusing to even sit on it for the better part of the summer, you now are usually content to swing for a bit.  Slides are still the preferred equipment; the bigger the better.

"I do it" is your mantra, along with "I got it", though these phrases didn't begin until a few weeks before your birthday.  Said with matter of fact sureness, you're usually correct.

You've now tagged along on enough photo shoots with your sister modeling that you're getting in on the action.

"I watch" and dragging your little step stool to wherever anyone happens to be standing at the kitchen counter.  Daddy has been making batch after batch of apple butter and applesauce and you are sure to check each apple to be sure it's okay to go in!

Not only are you running like a big kid, you hop, jump, skip and trot like your sister does at 4 and a half.  I've heard the younger sibling picks up some things more quickly, but this seems a little excessive.  And the little sauntering walks and booty waggling dance moves - I die!

Happy 2nd Birthday my dear Hadley!

Hadley's 1st Ballet Class

With much anticipation, Hadley had her first ballet class this week.  She had been longing to join in with Arden's class most of last year so we knew we had to enroll her this season even though she's a little shy of the two year age expectation.

I'm posting these photos chronologically so you can see the succession through the half hour class.  Let me set the stage a bit: Arden has a 45 minute class from 4:30 until 5:15 and then Hadley's class begins a half hour after that at 5:45.  The studio hallways are crowded with dancers, parents, teachers, staff and all the accompanying gear.

Hadley's class begins with a little barre time, though not in the traditional sense...

Checking out the cute dancer girl in the mirror.  I had to put her hair in the classic ballerina bun even though it makes it look like she has very little hair which is not the case.

And then this is the reaction we got when the teachers tried to get her to join for a group picture before class began.  Normally I wouldn't post the other kids faces in the background, but the focal point is not on them and the looks on their faces are priceless.  "What's her deal?"

A little better when they started the music.

And back to this.

Marching in a circle holding hands...  getting better.  Plus I gave her pacifier back to her as a little security blanket.

A few more bouts of crying with a lot of hand holding in between.  She latched onto this little girl and would not let go for well past when the hand holding portion of class was over.

And the sucker at the end of class - her big reward.  I should point out what a horrible Mom I am that I wouldn't let her have one along with Arden's class even though they surely would have given her one.  I didn't want her to be all sticky and covered with sucker juice for the pictures of her first class.  Might just have backfired on me since that's all she wanted - even as her class was beginning and they were giving them to the previous class.

I guess I deserved some of these shots...

Sleepy Eater

Tried to rush through lunch because Hadley was getting sleepy.  Didn't quite make it...

Hadley Marie: 18 Months

Our big little girl Hadley Marie is 18 months old.  She is 34 1/4" tall and 29.7 pounds which puts her right at the bleeding edge of the charts for each.  She's a big girl, but she's proportional.

Every so often we capture the illusion that they're not always picking and poking (and pulling hair - Hadley!) at each other.  Makes my heart happy!

She loves to color just like her big sister.  Anything her big sister does, really.

We went sledding for the first time.  She yelled "mooo" (her version of "no") but then squeeled in delight once she was going.

Our little monkey.  Always climbing onto anything she can get to.  I don't have a picture, but the way she climbs up onto chairs is to flop across on her belly and then drag her body up (Dave calls it her Shamu impression).

My good eater.  I made some oatmeal and handed her a spoon and she just started shoveling away.

She didn't require much assistance at all for her first Easter egg hunt, she was spying them on her own just fine.  I should have suspected since she's always into EVERYTHING.

Her first ponytail!

She's cut three more teeth this quarter - all within the space of a couple of weeks.  She's always climbing, running (with crazy legs flying in all directions and a giant dimpled grin on her face), and dancing.  A little non-stop ball of energy.  Lots of new words have been added - "bay-bee" is so cute when she says it.  She knows most of her body parts and will point out her own or other's belly button, nose, mouth, eye, ears, etc...  She seems to be fascinated with socks and shoes and repeatedly says "sock" or "shoe" when it's time to put them on.  She surprised me with a very clear "'scuse you" when I said it to her after she burped a little.  If you catch her in the right mood she'll lay some big ol' open mouth baby kisses on you!

I sing to her when I put her to bed each night, always beginning with Row, Row, Row Your Boat.  She's started asking to be sung to by saying "woa, woa, woa" - so super cute, and I'm pretty sure she's the only one who's ever asked me to sing.  I have no illusions that I have a nice singing voice.

Hadley Marie: 15 Months

Now that Hadley has passed a year, I'll do quarterly updates until she turns two.

Since her birthday, Hadley:

Attended her first parade.  We went with gMa & gPa Sunshine to CMU's homecoming parade.  That's my sorority house in the background.

Went Trick or Treating for the first time.  She is so definitely an extrovert.  She was waving to passersby the entire time, often with both hands.  It was like her own personal parade.  Hi-larious!

Started walking.  The week before Thanksgiving she took off and never looked back.  She also weened about the same time.  It was her choice and it went very smoothly.  

Traveled with us to Chicago and met Aunt Jean and Uncle Matthew.  She had a cold and the beginnings of an ear infection and slept through most of the commotion.

Found Thanksgiving dinner to be most enjoyable.  She was incredibly suspect of the mashed sweet potatoes until I managed to get some on her tongue and then she was smitten.

Helped set up our feeble attempt at outdoor decoration for the Holidays.

Was WAAY not into Santa Claus.

Was simultaneously confused and excited by our little New Year's Eve celebration.

During this span, she also cut six new teeth; three of them within the space of a week.  Ouch!  And graduated completely from bottles, another smooth transition.

She took a little break from working on her vocabulary while she was perfecting walking, and is now back to jabbering away.  She's at that stage where she's stringing an unintelligible litany of gibberish with full expectation that we understand her.  Sounds more like Chinese, and I've heard "she she" or thank-you in Mandarin multiple times which only provided more evidence.  She's also displaying baby signs with proficiency - "more" being her favorite.

See you in three months!