27Oct2008: Day 154: My Two Year Old Girl!

Happy Birthday Makenna!!!! We now have a two year old girl. I can't believe two years have passed so quickly. I was thinking back today about how we were trying to get pregnant and all we had to go through to have this precious girl and now she's two.

The day started out as a normal day and we didn't celebrate until tonight when Chris got home from work. We had the neighbors come over to drop off a present for Makenna. The guy, Paul, works with Chris, and his wife Karen, and their two kids, Sophie and Daniel came over. They gave her a small doll. She was of course, more interested in the tag attached to the doll.

Makenna did help me to make her birthday cake...which was really brownies. We figured that she would like brownies better than cake and they don't really have cakes that you can order from Tesco's (the main grocery store here). At least I don't think you can. They have some already done in an isle that who knows how long they've been sitting there. We made a small one just for her and then a large pan for the rest of us. The picture above is her small one that Chris decorated. She loves sitting up on the counter as I cook. She gets really upset when I don't let her sit up there, but I get nervous that she's going to fall off, or get burned because we have a "hob" as a stove which is built in to the counter, basically. Or I just have too much stuff up there already and no room for her.

So after dinner, we put candles in the brownies and Chris did a nice job of writing in icing on them. We sung happy birthday twice as she really loves the song. She didn't really grasp the concept of blowing out the candles. But she certainly enjoyed the brownie and ice cream. She wanted more, so we had to limit her.

Then we went in and opened gifts. She mostly received books and it seemed as though she got tired of all the books and was excited by the clothes. The one toy she really liked was one I bought at the pound store. It was a swimming ring that you blow up that has Dora on it. We hopefully we get a chance to use it on Friday. What was really funny was that I so wanted to buy her these foam letters that you can use in the bathtub to play with, and learn with, being the goal. I couldn't find them anywhere, and since Toys R Us is banned per Chris (you'd have to see an earlier post from over a month ago,) I had no luck. Somehow out of sheer coincidence, Grandma and Grandpa Jones bought her some. I was shocked when she opened them. They had actually won them back in the states, at some thing they want to. Chris and I had also bought her these drums that you are supposed to be able to play with in the bathtub. She has some bath toys that I want to get rid of so now I'm happy that she has these other toys.

We also got her this little people farm and Chris and I spent more time playing with it then she did. She actually liked the box...of course. I think that she was a bit overwhelmed after the third gift or so. She started out opening gifts fairly well. She needed encouragement to keep ripping, which is funny because she usually rips stuff I don't want her to. Maybe that's why she was hesitant.

Tomorrow is the last day that she'll have to spend with grandpa and grandma for a bit as they leave on Wednesday to return home. One other thing that happened this past weekend is that we turned our clocks back. So now we're only four hours difference from home, compared to five. I'm not sure why we do it a week earlier. Next week we'll be back to the five hours difference. It certainly makes a difference as it's really dark by 6pm.

Well, Happy Birthday my beautiful baby girl....Makenna Jean...