a backyard birthday

this is the last post about jia's 2nd bday...i promise...but i couldn't leave out the party!

compared to last year, we had a really simple party for jia this year. it was pretty much just a family party this time around.



i loved jia's party last year...we kind of did the whole big first birthday thing and invited all her little friends, but even though it was adorable and cathartic for me, i don't necessarily think it was her idea of a good time. it may have been a little too overwhelming. there were several tearful moments.

so this time we just celebrated with relatives and people she is really familiar with and she had an absolute blast, and it was way less work for me too!

the theme was just a simple backyard birthday. i wanted to take full advantage of having our new patio!



shomik made her a little picnic table for her bday, and we set up her kiddie pool and the kids had the sand box and water table and bubbles to play in as well and the kids were all set.





the girls raided the gift buckets.





once it started to get a little darker we put in Frozen for the babies on the outdoor screen. it was jia's first time to really get into a movie...she was totally focused!



for food we just cooked out. to go along with the backyard summer time theme we also had s'more cupcakes, root beer floats, and watermelon!





we served all the food out of our kitchen window! it opens up onto a small bar in the backyard, so we kept the things that we wanted to keep away from flies on the inside so people could just slide open the window for those. i can't believe we'd never used that feature before...it was great!

jia has fully embraced being two, and even blew out her candles all in one try! such a big girl! she needs to stop growing up so fast. love her!