Charlotte's 2nd Birthday Pictures

I won't bore you with a lot of stories... we just had a quiet family afternoon with some present opening and dinner. For posterity's sake, here are the photos with some brief explanations.

Charlotte received a new chair from her G-ma and Grumpy. It rocks and has a great stain-hiding pattern on the fabric. Good thinking G-ma.

Next was a gift from her Grandpa, something I know we will all enjoy, and something Charlotte recognized immediately. She eagerly said, for the first time, "Signing Time with Alex and Leah." Usually she leaves Alex off, but today she got the whole line from the song. We still love signing and she knows about 200 signs by now.

A gift from Bruce and I - a choo-choo train alphabet puzzle. There are a lot of pieces to this one, but I know we can work on this one for a long time. She likes puzzles, trains, and is starting to learn how the alphabet works. Because she has been so blessed with new toys recently, Bruce and I kept the gifts from us to a minimum. I bought her the pink dress she is wearing and this puzzle at a recent consignment sale, as well as a Sesame Street doctor kit that we gave her earlier in the week.

Her Aunt and Uncle gave her a cute hoodie outfit which she immediately wanted to put on. Then, she ran to the door and declared, "outside, outside." She looked so disappointed when we said no, but we still had more gifts to open!

Her grandpa on Bruce's side also gave her a bag of Mega Blocks. I am excited about this one because it gives us so many opportunities. This was one of the gifts that she had to play with this afternoon! Here she is offering a piece to her Grumpy.

Another big hit was her new baby doll. She spent a lot of time rocking her in the new chair and asking Aunt Michelle to put the doll's hat back on.

But, I think her favorite gift of all was her kitchen play set. We don't have enough room in our home for a full-size kitchen, but when my mom found this Fisher-Price box at Target, we knew it was the perfect compromise.

The kitchen set above all fits inside the red box, with the lid functioning as the stove top. For some unknown reason, Charlotte decided every dish she made, even the invisible ones we couldn't see, needed to be sprayed with ketchup. I don't know where she got the idea to spray her food with ketchup (she's never even had it!), but it was cute to watch her pump her little finger up and down on top of the bottle.

And finally, we ended the gift opening with our family dinner. I didn't make a cake this year because Charlotte really isn't into them. She would much rather eat a sugar cookie and have fruit, so that is what I served. Even then, with a plate of fruit in front of her, we had to remind her she even had a cookie. This birthday girl loves her grapes and strawberries!

Happy birthday to my Charlotte Moon!