Grace's 2nd Birthday

I know I haven't blogged in a LONG time.  I will be post dating some blogs soon... or maybe I'll just put them up as I write them... but I wanted to start with the 2nd birthday of my little Grace!!
The theme for Grace's party was We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  She loves this book, so after some research we decided we could do a bear hunt for her party.   The idea was going to be to do the bear hunt and at the end the kids would find a bear and then come out and stuff it.  We found decently priced unstuffed bears... but seeing as almost everyone we invited replied as yes to coming, this party was quickly becoming quite an expensive endeavor.  SO, we decided to MAKE the bears.  I found a free bear pattern on line.  We thought the bear was too small, so went to Kinkos and enlarged it, bought the fabric and the eyes, and little t-shirts.  Then started working.  We set up our own little sweat shop.  I traced all the patterns out and then we both cut them out.  I sewed the front and back quarters together while Jerry put the eyes on.  I then sewed the halves together while Jerry stuffed the bears.   The last step was to sew up the back hole and then put the t-shirts on them.
Amazingly, all that took a lot less time than I thought.  And once they were all made, things seemed much easier.  We made little emblems to go on the t-shirts that matched necklaces that each kid would pick out (this is how they would find their bears at the end of the hunt.) 
The bear hunt was fun to set up.  The long wavy grass we made by stringing up grass hula skirts from the swing set and the fence:

The thick, oozy mud and the deep, cold river we made by putting mud on one piece of cardboard and ran water over another piece:

The deep dark forest were streamers hung up over some string.  The swirling, whirling snow storm was a lot of bubbles.

The final stop was the bear's cave.  We gave Grace a parachute for her birthday and we used that to make the cave.  We put all the bears in the cave for the kiddos to find them:

So since all that was set up inside the fence we had to distract the guests (19 kids + parents!!!) until everyone got there.  We had some color pages of bears and I face painted the kids' faces.

Before we went on our own bear hunt, we needed to read the story.

After we read the book, we went on the hunt and I gotta say, it was pretty darn successful. 

Afterwards the kids were set loose to play in the yard, splash in the pool, and all in all have much merriment.

We had cake and snacks and juice.  Unfortunately, the only pic I took of the cake is one with my phone.  It was a chocolate rice krispie cake in shape of a bear...also a raging success!  At the end of the day it was a successful party.  Elijah I think was the only one that was not really happy.  He seems to get overwhelmed when people are in his house in large numbers.  But Jerry and my folks kept him calm (enough) through the party.  Grace seemed to have fun.  She's pretty much happy swinging and swimming and playing, so ya know.

I can't believe that she's two.  Actually, I can't believe that she's JUST two.  She seems much older and I find myself daily having to remind myself that she is indeed her age and not older.  I have to realign my expectations constantly.  She went to her well child check is healthy and growing.  She is on the small side though.  Her stats:

weight: 23.4 pounds (10%)

height: 35.5 inches (50%)

head: (75%)

We got her allergies retested and had them test for environmental allergens.  Her eczema is MUCH better, but we have been diligent about no eggs and dairy.  Turns out that they are indeed diminishing and hopefully within another year, she will be food allergy free.  We are giving her small amounts of both dairy and egg infrequently and thus far she has had no adverse reactions.  We did find out that she is HIGHLY allergic to cats.  Not too big of a deal actually.  She was a good girl throughout a booster shot and having to get two vials of blood taken, as was Elijah.

So, this is it for now.  I know that there is a ton more to say.  But that is for another day and I PROMISE it won't be as long.  There is indeed MUCH to blog about.