Happy Birthday Our Beautiful Girl...

Elizabeth has turned 2! Where did that last year go? It feels like I've only just had time to inhale and exhale and the last 356 days have flown by.

What a day we had! We were woken up at 6:45am... Beth was excited about it being her birthday... I think she's really developed an understanding about how much fun it is when it's your birthday ... it helped that we had balloons all over the house, so the first thing she saw were the balloons and then she started chasing balloons around our bedroom. We brought out her presents and she kept doing this excited "Oh!" noise with the most adorable matching expression... and when we brought out her wrapped easel she went "Wow! Wow! Wow!" ... it was hilariously cute! She opened the personalised ABC book I had made for her with photos of her and us and things she knows... she loooved it the moment she saw it and recognised everything in it... Next she opened the package with a cute little saucepan and utensil set we had bought from Ikea... She loooved that too... and when combined with the next package she opeend which contained the felt food, it went down a treat... she loved putting the food in the saucepans... She finally opened the big easel package... and wanted to open the box right away (however, we had to distract her with balloons for the moment, because the easel needed assembly!)

After that, it was onto practical stuff... breakfast... getting ready... and some last minute preparations...

We had a wonderful little party on Sunday morning with a few of our little friends ... This has been our first "kids" birthday party we've thrown where the focus has been on the kids having fun... and I think we managed to achieve that... our little guests started arriving from 10am and were entertained by the masses of balloons that Phan had blown up last night... Once all our guests were here, we played a game of pass the parcel (with a freddo frog wrapped in each layer as it was unwrapped and then a box with bubble blowing things and kitkats in it at the end for everyone to share).

The bubbles were a cue for all the kids to go outside, run amok and blow bubbles... Phan and I had decorated the pergola with vertical hanging streamers which looked really cool and the kids loved running around amongst them... we all lasted about 15 minutes before everyone (well the adults anyway!) started wilting in the heat... it was forecast for 31 degrees... and boy did we feel it! So back inside where everyone tucked into some food... Beth and I had a lot of fun on Saturday making and baking little goodies for the party... we had honey joys, cheese and corn muffins, jelly oranges, fruit platter, mini quiches, mini teacups... Once everyone had their fill of food it was birthday cake time, which was a bit of a hit with the kids who wanted to pull out the flowers before Beth had even blown out the candles (very funny!)... And once the cake was demolished, we opened the presents and one and half hours had flown by and our party came to a close. She got some lovely presents - a collection of Mem Fox books, a cool arsty crafty Eric Carle book, some beaded jewellery, a huge tub of wooden blocks (awesome because I was thinking of getting them for Christmas!) probably her most favourite present from the party was an umbrella with "In The Night Garden" characters all over it... Beth is totally obsessed with the umbrella... it's a very cute umbrella - I can't wait to take some photos of her with it...

Beth is quite a shy child, so overall she was pretty good with having the little friends over... whilst she didn't looove having the crowd and attention, she didn't hate it either... just a little bit nervous now and then... but the balloons made her happy whenever she got a bit worried!

After the party, Beth crashed and had a massive 2 hour nap... and once she woke up we chatted to the aunties over skype so they could see Beth open the presents they had sent up for her birthday... She loves the bath magnet things that Bao got her (tonight she had a ball playing with them) and she is so funny with the animal figurines Emmi got for her... she keeps making the animals kiss each other... (apparently the tiger and the horse get along well enough to kiss each other)...

After that we headed out to have dinner at Trangs... it was actually quite a blessing that we went out for dinner, because I think it would have been very scary to have been at home when the massive storm hit... Beth had her favourite pho for dinner and then whilst I was finishing off my dinner (the bun bo hue is sooo yummy and addictive here!) Phan took Beth for a walk outside with her "In the Night Garden" umbrella (it was actually raining which is why we had the umbrella with us)... while they were having a walk, a little boy who was about 4 or 5 came up to them and asked to have a look at it - it's obviously a very popular and very cool umbrella to have!

Back home through the crazy devasation of the storm... Beth had a micro sleep in the car (which was kind of good so we could sort out what kind of damage the house had sustained and then sort out candles and torches so we could see where we were going)... and then had to wake our poor girl and give her a bath in candle light (she was a bit nervous about that!)... and then we spent the rest of night sitting in the living room in candle and torchlight... cooking our play felt food in our new saucepans and eating it... Beth looved cooking the food and feeding me and Phan... over and over again. I think the lack of power made Phan and I go a bit loopy... we started making bets about when the power would come back on and then laughing like lunatics about random things... Beth must have thought we were crazy... although she did laugh along with us... she must be crazy like us... it was kind of nice to have that quiet time together as a family on her birthday though... whilst not the most ideal way to end her 2nd birthday, it was memorable in a funny way for the family time we spent together...

Post coming later with photos... I've got to sort and put them together... stay tuned... :)