Avery's 2nd Birthday Weekend

We had a pretty busy (but good) weekend!  Avery turned 2 on Friday, so we had her party on Saturday and all her peeps came.  And by peeps, I mean grandmas, grandpas, cousins, aunties, uncles - you get the idea.  On her actual birthday, we filled up what I will refer to from here on out as "THE BLOB."  Its our new pool that we bought for Avery for her birthday.

The water in the THE BLOB was FREEEEEEZING!  We had hoped the sun would have warmed it up more, but the sun was absent as usual so it had not warmed up much from the the time we filled it.

They were both shaking and shivering like crazy but yet I could NOT talk them into getting out.

Finally, I had to bribe them with cookies to get them out.  Worked like a charm.

Avery got a cute new dress from Jcrew from her Auntie Susan, so I made her put on a little fashion photo shoot.

Not very ladylike Avos!

Grandma and Grandpa H arrived with mini adirondak chairs for them.

Avery giving Mux the business.  She decided she needed to come OUT.  Milly had other plans and just kept running back in once she was set down.  Whenever anyone comes to our house that used to know "Minneapolis Milly,"  they are always offended by Mux (who Milly changed into when the countryside hardened her) and her inability to show them the affection they were once shown.  They are always amazed to hear that she puts up with these kind of shenanigans judging by her attitude when guests are here.  Hey - what can I say - she only likes US.  The rest of you are enemies!  Trust no one!

Okay, back on topic.  I wanted to get some pretty pictures of her holding a daisy, but she had other plans for that daisy.

Noooooo!!!!! You're ruining it!!!!

I missed the next picture by a split second.  It was her looking up at me with her mouth in a little "o" shape like, "ooooops."

I also spent much of Friday in the kitchen making her birthday cake, cookies and some food for the party on Saturday.  As usual, she wrapped herself around my legs.  Only now that its FINALLY warm out, I had a dress on over my swimsuit that she found to be verrrrry fun.

Sorry about the butt cheek shot, but she looks so cute here!

And look at her little dress!  So cute!

Grandma and Grandpa H brought a ginormous present that Dylan scoped out in the backseat of their car.  He got Avery all riled up and together they insisted that it be opened.

Sweet!  More kid crap for our patio!

Trying out the new table with some birthday cookies and ice cream!

And here is Saturday morning - party day!

Renae, Kelli and I went to hot yoga in Brainerd so we missed all this.  Eric took a ton of pictures of the kids playing on the beach.

Grandma Tone Loc helped supervise.

And finally it was warm enough for THE BLOB and the hot tub - which they hopped back and forth between.

Birthday lunch on the new picnic table.  Totally came in handy.

Party people!

THE BLOB.

More party people!

Eric worked on raising up the dock.  His dad brought some tool that he thought might work.  It did!

More party goers!

Heres the birthday girl having a snack!

Some more party goers!

And then it was present time.  Never a shortage of help.

Avery getting all blinged up for her birthday courtesy of Auntie Lulu (who was unable to attend).

Here she is putting lipstick on her new teeny tiny baby.

She looked so pretty!

Her birthday cake that I slaved away on.  I think this is the last one I'm making.  Not only is the frosting a huge pain in the you know what, but there's too many people between our two families.  I think each person got a tiny piece and then it was gone.  No way I'm making TWO of these PITA cakes.  If you don't know what PITA means...figure it out.

Didn't realize it until I looked at the pics, but her suit matches her cake!  Butterfly!

Everyone else had finished their cake (or eaten as much as they wanted and left some - these kids are chronic food wasters!  Even cake!  Can you believe that!?!) and Avery was still at the table finishing hers.  Here she is eyeballing the plate of one of her chronic food wasting cousins.

She said she was done and handed me her plate.

And then demanded that I hand her the next plate.  I figured it was her birthday, so she got her wish.

Everyone was cracking up at her stuffing her face.

Then it was time for a pontoon ride on Pontunia and Avery had decided to hang back and skip the boat ride in favor of some solo time in the jump house.

She was having an awesome time.

Next thing I know, she jumps out of the jump house and tears towards the lake yelling, "Boat!  Boat!  Boat!"  She had to get dressed first though, so I had to chase her down and take her back to the house to get her dressed.  The boat captain said he'd loop back around to pick her up.  She saw them leaving and started yelling, "Leavin'!  Leavin'!  Leeeeeeeavvvvvvin!"  I think she had a pretty fun birthday though.  She was in fabulous mood all weekend thanks to a few long naps (which is a rarity lately for her).

Then on Sunday it was another gorgeous day (we totally lucked out).

Avery was pretty tired tho and kept laying down in the boat.

She also gave me a little bit of attitude. Wouldn't be very Avery-ish if she didn't though!

So anyway, good times had by all this weekend!  Thanks everyone for coming!!  Such a fun weekend with perfect weather, good company, fabulous food and lots of laughs! : )