Lilli Turns Two!

A week ago yesterday Lilli turned two years old. While I was at work, Lilli helped Leann make the cupcakes for her birthday. Well, maybe she just helped lick the frosting off the beater… I came home half an hour early just for the occaision. When I walked through the front door I saw that the apartment had been transformed during my absence. There was yellow crêpe paper strung all over the kitchen—including streamers attached to the blades of the ceiling fan (which is actually pretty cool when you turn it on). Lilli was running around with two punch balloons (Leann prefers these because they're less likely to pop). And there was a big pile of presents in the living room. For dinner we ate her favorite food: beef pot pies.[1]

The rest of our family is in Texas and Utah, so they couldn't be here (Wisconsin [2]) for the party. They had to take turns watching on Skype. Sometimes you can hear them talking in the background. On the left you can see Lilli's Grandma and Grandpa Crook and her cousin, Elyse, watching through the computer. Even though they couldn't be here, they did mail some presents which arrived in time.

Lilli's final haul was: The Little Blue Truck; The Foot Book (by Dr. Seuss); I'm a Big Sister [3]; Curious George Rides a Bike; One, Two, Three (by Sandra Boynton); four boxes of band-aids, My Little Pony stickers; a cowgirl hat; sunglasses; a beach ball; three puzzles; sidewalk chalk; foam letters; Teddy Grahams; and Skittles.

I won't make you watch her opening all of those presents. But above are some of the highlights.

Here she is modeling some of her new accessories.

And here she is trying to blow out her candles (be warned that my family intentionally sings "Happy Birthday To You" terribly and I do so here).

Two days later was Independence Day and Lilli got to hold a sparkler for the first time!

We were going to take her to a petting farm the weekend before her birthday, but we got rained out for a week. So that will have to occupy another post.

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Notes:

[1] My side of the family usually chooses spaghetti for their family dinner, so this was a break from tradition.

[2] See my post Move to Wisconsin.

[3] If you don't know why she's getting this book, see my post Supercali…What?!!

Attributions:

Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. claims © 1935 for "Happy Birthday to You". This claim has been disputed. But even if said claim is upheld, the terrible manner in which it is interpreted here can only mean that it is used in a parodic manner.