Anatomy of a Birthday

SJ's birthday began with chocolate donut holes and a viewing of her JoJo show. Notice her new cupcake pj's which have been a big hit this whole week.

Mid morning we went outside for the bye-paci ceremony. Unfortunately, it was was raining, but we did not let that deter us. SJ proudly dropped her bag of pacis in the recycle bin and was ready to head back inside for her big girl toy.

SJ was thrilled with her new doll house. It's still under construction (mostly painting now), but she thought it was so beautiful. She got to open 2 presents at this time - a doll and some furniture for the house. She even said, "Thank you, Mommy and Daddy." without any prompting. I guess she is becoming a big girl!

SJ did not nap today. She tried, but no luck. I don't think it was paci related - she didn't even ask for it. I think she was super excited about her new toys and was generally excited about her birthday. Instead, she had fun with Grandma and Grandpa and thought they were all twins since they all donned OSU outfits. About an hour before her party started SJ handed out birthday hats and declared, "It's party time!"

SJ had a great party - lots of friends and family, 2 pieces of her Little Einsteins themed chocolate cake, fun presents, and the singing of "Happy Birthday" about 5 times. She was just beside herself with happiness!

When it was time to finally wind down I felt for sure she would have problems without her pacifier, but she was perfect. She asked for it once while I was putting her to bed. We talked about what happened earlier in the day and she laid back down. She was asleep before I finished her good-night songs. Let's hope the next several nights are just as good as tonight. We are so proud of our little, I mean BIG, girl. 2 things can top this day off to being even better - 1 is a RedSox win and the other is an OSU win. As of this post, both teams are ahead!

The End of an Era

Today is SJ's last day of being 2. Tomorow she turns the big 3 and therefore has to say good-bye to her pacifier. We've talked it up for weeks and have a whole plan set for how it's going to go down tomorrow morning. When she places her paci in the recycle bin (so it can be taken away to be made into a new paci for new babies) she gets to come inside and get a big girl present (a great doll house that Nathan's been slaving away on all week.) We are hoping the distraction of her birthday and its many presents and surprises will keep her mind off the paci. Hard to know what will happen at nap or tomorrow night. I've heard it takes 3 days for the kid to get over it. We can do it, right? We have to. The paci is getting so annoying. She talks with it in and we can't understand her, she needs to take it everywhere, she only has one that she likes so you can't lose it, and she often misplaces it in the night and wakes me up to find it in the dark (the most annoying thing, in my opinion!) So, I am really looking forward to it being gone. I know it's going to be a hard couple days, but, to borrow a phrase from n*sync, bye-bye-bye-bye-bye!

Funny thing though...SJ has a little baby box with little things from when she was a baby. One of the items in the box was the hospital issued pacifier. She never liked this as a baby so since she was a few days old she used the Nuk ones. 4 days ago she wanted to look in her box. She found the paci and has adopted it as her own now. Interestingly, she lost her beloved pink paci at school on Wednesday...the same day she took the baby paci in for show and tell. So, the baby paci has been used since then. I am very glad that the adoption of this baby paci was only 4 days prior to paci-be-gone day because I think she looks absolutely ridiculous with this big, round, green one in her mouth.

On a side note, SJ is really enjoying a visit from Grandma and Grandpa. They had a full day of fun today!

Practicing

SJ was thrilled to get her Jo-Jo Halloween costume in the mail. She wanted to put it on right away and go Trick-or-Treating instantly. She was a little sad when we told her Halloween wasn't for 2 more weeks!

She also got a Trick-or-Treating bag and she's been carrying toys in it. It has also gone to bed with her the past few nights. I don't know what it is with toddlers needing to take their loot to bed with them!

Cookie Gal

Just a cute picture of SJ making cookies!

SJ style sleepover

SJs newest "game" is to set out beds for all of her stuffed animals. Each one gets a blanket, but some have to share. Tonight each one also had to have their own cup. SJ would collect the cups, then redistribute them. Suprisingly each animal had a specific cup. If you asked her "Which animal gets the buckeye cup?" she answered matter-of-factly, "Arthur." "Which animal gets the blue cup?" "The Daddy Bear." 5 of her cups went to bed with her tonight, too!

Ahhhhhhcadia

This past Columbus Day weekend we took a break from the ever busy get-your-house-ready-to-sell mode. We dropped SJ off at Gami and Papi's and headed up north to Bar Harbor, Maine, home of Acadia National Park. It was so nice to be away for a short while. The scenery was beautiful, the nights were long (not only because we were very far East, but because we didn't have SJ to get us up early!), the air was crisp, the sounds were quiet, and the rush was stilled.