Naomi had rice cereal for the first time last night.  She LOVED it and cried when I didn't give her more fast enough.

Naomi turned 5 months today and her personality is really starting to come out.  

She loves kisses, and with her scrumptious cheeks, she gets kissed quite a bit.

Her sister is her best bud and the only person that can get her to laugh, which she did for the first time this month.

 She spends most of her time on her tummy because every time I lay her on her back, she flips over. I'm guessing she will be an early crawler, but who knows!

 She does a good job entertaining herself but loves attention and really loves when daddy and mommy hold her.

 And, she as I mentioned in an earlier post, she loves her mommy so much that she has to see me every couple of hours throughout the night.  I guess I should feel honored. ; )

I'm having a hard time getting ahead right now due to lack of sleep and lack of naps.  For all of you that hated me a few months ago when I bragged about Naomi sleeping through the night, she is doing quite the opposite and now waking about every 1.5 hours.  It's absolutely brutal! With that said, I want to catch up on a couple of posts that I have missed.

Last Saturday, before Mia's birthday party, Joe took Mia to a park where they had all kinds of trucks and different support vehicles on display.  Joe said that Mia was unsure about all of it at first, but halfway through she was having a blast!

 This girl loves seeing school buses, so I can only imagine how excited she was to sit in one!

 The Ambulance was her favorite.  She and daddy hung out in there for awhile.

 Watch out drivers, Mia is behind the wheel!

I'm so glad that Mia and daddy got some bonding time at this super fun event!

Mia Kathleen

2 years old

23 lbs (8 %)

33 1/4'' (30%)

Clothing: 2t-3t

 Mia can now sing her abc's and count to 15,

 she loves watching Barney and can sing the "I love you" song.

 Taking care of her babies, singing, dancing and reading books occupy most of her time.

 She gets very nervous going to new places/doing new things,  but usually loves the adventure once she feels comfortable.

 She has great manners and will even say, "bless you" after you sneeze.

 I often describe her as a little pistol because she is definitely my strong willed child, after all, it did take 3 hours of pushing for her to come out.

She LOVES her family and friends and talks about them frequently.

I have no doubt in my mind that this one will do great things.

Thanks for 2 amazing years Miss Mia!  We love you more than you even know!

 I love planning birthday parties and Mia's 2nd birthday was so fun because she was beyond excited!  We decided to go with a zoo theme since Mia loves going to the zoo and seeing all of the animals.  All of the kids that attended were 2 and under so I had to get creative to find activities that were age appropriate. 

No sew birthday banner: card stock (cut to your desired size), letters (I found the animal print letters at Lakeshore Learning), hole punch, and ribbon.

 Goody bags for the animal safari and animal crackers and sunglasses (from Oriental Trading) for the little ones.

I got these  Zoo stickers from Walmart and set out construction paper with each child's name so they could create their own zoo.

 I was going to make elaborate animal faced cupcakes, but my very smart husband talked me out of it.

 And I was so happy with the simplicity of an animal cracker on top. 

 We set up all the decorations while Mia was napping.  When she came downstairs, her excitement was priceless.  

 She was running around the house counting the balloons, while smiling and laughing.

 

Mia wouldn't take a picture with me, but luckily I was able to snatch up another cutie.

 Leopard print sisters.
Mia's outfit: Carter's (from Costco) Naomi's outfit: Gymboree

 The animal safari was super fun.

 I bought this tub of 60 jungle animals that we hid placed in the yard.  Each child has a bag with their first initial, which was super helpful to avoid mix-ups and toddler meltdowns.

 They all enjoyed being outside and did a great job finding the different animals.

 We loved that we had an elephant at the zoo party!

 Emily, Laura, Me and Hillary- my dear friends

Presents!

Beautiful chaos!

 Mia didn't want to get too close to the candles since they were hot,

 so her friend, Rebekah, blew them out for her. : )

 Yum!

 The best day!