2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated Zane & Zander's 2nd birthday on Saturday May 8th. (one day before their actual b-day).

I wanted to do a cute Mod Monkey theme party like this....

But I went soft and did a party from the boys current fave character....ELMO! Here is a scanned copy of the invitation I made and sent out to a few family members....

My friend Bridget, who I didn't think was crafty but has clearly gotten that way, made these shirts for the boys to wear for the party. She is truly a remarkable friend!

Wouldn't you know that it was a bit cool the day of the party??? Everything was planned to be outside, so I had to layer the boys so they could still wear their awesome shirts!

Here's Mimi and Papa with birthday boy Zander before the party started...

Daddy with his birthday boy buddy Zane....


We opened presents first!

Grandmother and Granddaddy got the boys their own Bibles that were just the right size for their 2yr old hands....

A soccer goal and soccer ball for each boy from Grandma and Grandpa....

Eli picked out "big balls" as his gift to the boys....

Aunt Kim sent them each a T-ball set....

Mimi and Papa got the boys a fun Roller Coaster....

After opening presents, all the kids played for a while. Here is Eli with cousins Cole and Haley....

Elmo's favorite food, as well as the birthday boys, is pizza! So of course that was our party food!

and Elmo drinks....

Mimi, Aunt Katie, Papa and Daddy getting their food....

Zander and Zane enjoying their pizza....

Grandma and Grandpa also bought the birthday boys this picnic table which came in very useful as all the cousins sat down to eat....

Absent from the picture above was my sweet Emmy Kate. She had a scary fall off the trampoline right before the party started. She wasn't feeling too good afterwards, so she stayed out of the middle of the excitement and hung out on Momma's new swing.

We came inside for cake & ice cream. Grandpa is always such a good sport at parties. Joining right in with the kids....

The cake table....

The Elmo cake that I paid WAY TOO MUCH for and was SO DISAPPOINTED with.

Singing Happy Birthday....

The boys were amazed with the smoke that went "up to the sky" after we blew the candles out...

So, we lit the candles again and did it all over a 2nd time so they could see more smoke. There are 2 birthday boys after all, so it only makes sense to sing the song twice!

Happy 2nd Birthday Zane and Zander!