happy #2, naomi!

Today we celebrated Naomi's second birthday with a small family party and our friends Kim, Fifi, Sam, and Jacob. We also had my aunt Natalie there as a special treat and it was a very sweet party. I had felt a little bad about not having a big to-do (yes, yes, I'm repeating my Birthdays Without Pressure mantra...), but when it all came down to it, it really was fine that the two year old hostess with the mostest didn't have a lot of other two year old friends over since the rule of birthday guests per age is a good one for a good reason (okay, we didn't follow it, but our guest list with only one other one year old was a nod in that direction--nevermind the six other older children).




Also, Naomi had only gotten a 45 minute nap instead of her much longer one (thanks to a loving sister who was way too excited about the party!), and I'd been suckered into making homemade cupcakes and frosting by Boaz, who convinced me it'd be such a fun thing to do with the kids, and then when he saw my reaction, then kindly offered to bake them himself, but left it to the last minute and was then called out for a work emergency leaving me to powerbake said cakes a couple of hours before the party. But I'm not at all bitter. Not at all. Especially since I have the phone number to Cupcake Royale programmed on my cell's speed dial and I grew up thinking that using a box cake mix was the same as homemade.

Nope, not at all bitter.

And were the cupcakes better than box? Um, yeah. They totally were. And the homemade frosting was also quite yummy, though the consistency was wrong and on most of them, I ended up using the back-up can frostings I had pre-bought in case of an emergency. That didn't stop us from digging into the home brewed stuff with spoons after we'd tried the other frosting.


And Boaz did all the party dishes, which made him a hero again.

But most importantly, the birthday girl LOVED her cupcakes.

She loved opening presents...

And everyone had a good time.

Uncle Dan especially had a good time with the party hats.

Happy Birthday to my little Noemi, who is strong and sweet and deliciously curly. We are all so lucky to have you in our lives.

P.S. I think you should know that even though it looks warm in Seattle in these pictures because most of us are wearing summery clothes, it is not. The sun came out for about an hour and we all sat outside (some of us in our winter coats), and then gave in and came inside where I passed around wool socks like party favors. Maybe my cousin Becky is right and I should try to appeal to Spring instead of writing hate mail to Winter.