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When we were kids, my mom did lots of little things to make our birthdays great.  It was like the whole day was a celebration.  We got to sit in the front seat and mom would fix our favorite food for dinner.  I try to do the same thing for my kids, so I did my best to fill Nicole’s special day with the things she likes to do.

Zach picked up some balloons the night before and we put them in her room after she fell asleep.  So that she’d wake up to them.I heard her call out in the morning when she woke up.  She grabbed a hold of the balloons and held onto them as I changed her diaper and put on her pants (I left the PJ shirt on to avoid prying the balloons out of her hands in order to change it).  She took the balloons with her to the kitchen. She clung to her balloon as she ate her breakfast of vanilla yogurt. Ila was intrigued by the balloons, too.

After breakfast, she played with balloons. Then I gave her a bath because she loves baths and playing in water. After her bath, we went to the park where she spent the majority of her time on the swings. After using the baby swing for a little while, she insisted on trying the big swing.  Right after this picture she started to lean forward to get off and before I could catch her she fell on her face.  The fall wasn’t far, but she scraped her nose in the process and needed a hug. The next stop was the library.  You can see the results of her fall in the picture below.  We looked at books, checked some books out, and then went to part of a story time.  We left story time early when Nicole decided she’d much rather play with a door than listen to stories. After the library, we headed home for a lunch of spaghetteos and mandarin oranges.  Then she played with balloons and toys until naptime.  After nap we watched an episode of her favorite show (Curious George) before heading off to the “french fry store” for dinner.  We let her enjoy the ketchup this time so as soon as she came home we gave her a second bath.  We invited her to open presents right after her bath (that’s why her hair is wet in the picture below).  At first we had trouble getting her to open any presents, she just wanted to run around with balloons. She had a little time to play with her new presents before my Aunt Dee came over followed by my cousin Brent with his wife and sons.  I’m really pleased with the Play Mobil farm set pictured below.  It’s a great sturdy gift that all three kids enjoy playing with. We gave the kids Curious George hats and toys.Next we had cupcakes and ice cream.  As soon as she sat down she picked up one of the cupcakes with a candle in it and started to place the cupcake in her mouth, candle first.  Fortunately, they weren’t lit yet.  She didn’t seem to understand the concept of blowing out the candles so, after some encouraging, Zach ended up blowing them out. After cake, we played until our guests left then put her to bed.