Nurse Loves Farmer: party

Braden's 2nd birthday was just awesome! It was everything I'd hoped for and more. He slept in and was SO happy that my Mom was still here, as she came the day before and slept over. "POPPY!!!"

Jay and I got him his Thomas Power Wheels and he was excited at first, but then when he was riding it the sound of the battery kind of scared him! But he was over the moon about his first wooden track set and all the little trains that Mom brought for him.

I really didn't go above and beyond with my Thomas decor for the party. I bought the hats, banner, and cupcake wrappers on eBay for ridiculously cheap...and I am so glad I did. I had plans to make a "Braden is 2!" banner from Thomas scrapbook paper...but I just didn't have it in me, and that's okay!

All of Braden's cousins were here, his friends Katie, Tessa, and Sophia were here too. There were 12 kids age 7, 6, 4.5, 3.5, 3.5, 22 months, 22 months, 17 months, 14 months, 14 months, 1 month, and our 2 year old...and you know what? They were GREAT! They all behaved so well! I have a "no running" rule when there's so many kids over, they all (for the most part) listened to that, there were hardly any tears, no meltdowns, no fighting...they were all AMAZING!

Braden found Gus...can you spot him?

And then it was time for cake! I made this Thomas cake from a Wilton train pan before we left for Maui and I froze it. I'm so glad I did...it was all ready to go!!

Thanks, Natalie, for taking the videos with our iPad!!

A little Thomas humor...my niece Danika wanted to eat his head!

What a little sweetheart, that Sophia!

And then it was time to open presents!

He got a lot of great Thomas stuff, he's starting to collect the wooden trains for his train table that he doesn't know he was yet! He also loved this Cookie Monster from his Rayton cousins!

I didn't take pics of the goodies...but I just bought these blue treat bags from Walmart, put the treats inside with a Thomas sticker on the outside - voila! I made Thomas cupcakes for the guests to go home with and the other goodie bag had a Thomas train whistle, a few chocolates, a Thomas coloring sheet, and these Thomas crayon holders from Etsy with crayons included. Very reasonably priced! I didn't even do treatbags last year...oops!

And, since Grandma & Papa will probably never be here to celebrate Braden's birthday, we had an early celebration in Maui too! Lucky boy! I went to Safeway, got a $9 cake on sale, and she decorated it "Maui" style for free. And it was YUMMY!

We love you so much!!

Now we're linked up for Toddle Along Tuesday! Hi Growing Up Geeky readers!

It was looking VERY bleak at the beginning of the day. Laura texted me on her way from the city and said they were going to be late due to road conditions and that she thought Joy wasn't going to be able to make it because she had no help to get all 3 kids ready to come. I was really praying that Joy would be able to make it, as she hasn't gotten out of the house much and I knew that she would have a lot of fun and a lot of help if she made it here. Then 1/2 hour before the party was going to start...I got a text message from Mark saying "sorry but they can't make it". WHAT? There's just going to be us, my parents, and Nelsons for Braden's birthday? I had the whole table set for all of us and I was just moments away from tears... But then Jay called Deah and she ended up bringing the girls while Mark stayed home, and Joy surprised us by showing up. It meant so so SO much to me that everyone made the effort to come, the roads weren't the best and there was a lot of fresh snow, but it made the day so special for all of us. So here are some of the decorations:

Blue, green, and white balloons with green ribbons hanging from the light and streamers and balloons all around the dining room. I thought it looked pretty great!

I know how much kids, in particular my nieces and nephew, loooooove balloons, so in order to hopefully avoid a conflict I blew up a balloon for each of them, tied a ribbon around the bottom and wrote their names on it. It actually worked really well and they had lots of fun!

I made these cupcakes, but then bought the fondant toppers from Clineffs Confections off of Etsy. I was thinking that making fondant would be no problem, so I tried it myself, just to cover the board for Braden's cake. So I made a marshmallow fondant and it was easy, but a pain in the butt all at the same time!

So this is the cake I made for Braden with my cake decorating supplies I got for Christmas. I think it turned out great!

Then the guests started to arrive!

Braden suddenly remembered the retired excersaucer that Trinity was playing in and thought he should play too...and then crawl right under it!

Luke had fun on Braden's dog rocker...

And then shared a ride with Braden!

Laura with Chaz and Deah with Trinity:

Auntie Laura and Auntie Joy were trying to trick Braden into walking on his own by bribing him with Chaz....but he's just not ready to take his first steps yet so they couldn't fool him!

The birthday boy is ready for his cake now!

Braden was VERY mellow about all this cake business...

I was a VERY proud mama!

I also thought the older cousins would appreciate their own cupcake and candle...

Instead of a piece of cake, I made a smaller cupcake with a giraffe topper for Braden to eat on his own:

Yum yum!

He really didn't seem terrrrribly interested at first, but the next time I looked over at him, all there was was crumbs! And he had to wash it down with some cold milk, mmmm!!

Braden was OUT of it by this time, it was pushing it to nap time...but he had to say goodbye to Grampa before he left.

Jay tried to put Braden down for a nap, but he was too hopped up to settle, so Jay took him outside for his first GT ride down our hill! (Jealous, Steve Huska?? :)