Fiona's 2nd Birthday

Blowing out her candles during her birthday dinner at home

Our amazing girl turned 2 years old at the end of July.  This time last year, I was overwhelmed with a sense of awe, and frankly relief, that we'd made it through that first transformative year.  This year, my central emotion was one of deep, deep gratitude.  I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to be this little person's mother and have her in my life.   Yes, parenthood remains (and I suspect always will be) the hardest thing I've ever done, but it also is the the most joy-filled, most fun, most amazing.  Again, I'm reminded of just how true all of the cliches are:  The days ARE long, but the years ARE so short. I hope that Fiona will always have the curiosity, playfulness, persistence, adoration, intuition, - and sense of rhythm! - that she does now.

To celebrate her birthday, we continued last year's tradition of opening her present from us on the morning of her actual birthday and then celebrating as a family with a special birthday breakfast at her favorite restaurant.  

A blurry phone picture capturing Fi's first look at the new kitchen we gave her for her birthday.   In putting that sucker together, we joined the long line of well-intentioned parents who have stayed  up too late arguing, while attempting to assemble a kid's toy that promised to be easy.  Really, REALLY glad she REALLY liked this thing.

The Saturday following her birthday, we hosted a wonderfully low-key party - Fiona's Birthday Brunch at the Bungalow for family and her two best friends from preschool.  In honor of Fiona's deep obsession with Curious George, brunch had a monkey theme.  Everyone went bananas - and had a lot of fun!