We had a blast celebrating Hans' 2nd Birthday!
Hans woke up on his birthday with a room full of balloons. With Daddy's help, he promptly filled his crib with the balloons and began a game of hide-and-seek. Needless to say, he woke up pretty happy!
His birthday-balloon-fun was followed by a delicious snowman pancake breakfast before heading off to Bible study with Mommy and Caroline.
He loved having his snowman pancakes! If you ever want to spice up your meals with toddlers cookie cutters work wonders! I will sometimes cut out his sandwiches with our cookie cutters and that sure keeps him occupied for awhile. He enjoyed driving around PB&J trains all over his plate the other day.
After naps, we took Hans out to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. The animals and thunderstorms really did their trick at keeping him distracted during the (looong) wait for the food. We also let him open up one of his gifts (Lightning Mcqueen) before dinner arrived. He loved playing with Daddy and his new car. "Hook-em Up, Mater!"
Moving forward to his birthday party day that Saturday....
We had a Sledding theme birthday party for this year. Our house has a good size hill and the backyard and so we thought we'd take full advantage. And we didn't let the record setting temps and no-snow winter slow us down ;).
Hans woke up that morning excited for "Snowman!" He was very excited because we had told him earlier that he was going to have a snowman birthday cake.
The table was already set for the bday party when Hans woke up, so he was able to eat breakfast downstairs in the "big chairs" aka bar stools. He was really happy about that but you can't really tell by the picture.
Is he coping an attitude already at TWO?! Nah.. ;)
Waiting for his birthday guests to arrive!
We invited our family and small group kiddo's over to celebrate Hans with us.
My mom and dad were the first to arrive. Just in time to give some cuddles and kisses and take some pictures.
Downstairs we had a "hot chocolate bar" and some snacks.
As soon as our guests arrived, we bundled up the kid's and headed out to the backyard for some sledding fun!
The birthday boy sledding with Daddy and rolling around in the snow!
Mommy had fun taking pictures of it all!
Papa pulling the kids...
The adults managed to have a little fun too...
Some friends stayed inside to hang out...
Next, we went back upstairs for some lunch! The kids sat at the birthday table and had corn dogs, diced pears (or "icebergs"), and carrots ("snowman noses"). The adults warmed up with white bean chicken chili for lunch.
It was noisy and fun although some preferred it a little quieter apparently... he he...
After lunch, Hans opened his birthday gifts downstairs...
Keeping with the sledding theme, instead of traditional party gift bags, I made some felt mittens and stuffed them with party favors and strung them across our mantel.
This was a party of mostly two year olds so we kept it simple, no games, just sledding. I found these wooden snowman ornaments so that was an activity some of the older kids could do. It was really cute to see big cousins Ellen and David go to town decorating their snowmen!
Finally, after gifts, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Hans and enjoyed some...birthday cake!
Tom and I made the snowman cake together. Hans was talking about it for days before his birthday.
He was so cute when we all sang Happy Birthday to him. His smile was priceless and his face was beaming as he was realizing, "That's why everyone came over to my house, for my birthday!".
Whew, what a fun time we had celebrating Hans 2nd Birthday! Thanks to all of our family and friends that came over and helped make it special for us!
the picture of your family at the Rainforest Cafe is priceless. You and Tom are so posed and smiling and the other two are wondering just who was barging in on their party to photograph them! Their expressions are sooo funny!!!
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