The best party I've ever thrown!

Reina's expression during "Happy Birthday"

We had Reina's 2nd birthday party today.  It couldn't have gone any better.  In attendance were Emily and William (Emily goes to Reina's daycare and her dad, Brent, used to work with Chris), Emme (whose mom I work with), Albert, Andrew, and Malia Calamug (our old down-stairs neighbors), and Ako and Rana (our Japanese next-door neighbors).  Now, I've not been to too many birthday parties, so I was kind-of guessing what type of activities to have and what to eat.  It turned out perfect. We had golf, bowling, chalk, bubbles, and soccer outside, and some drawing and of course all of Reina's other toys inside.  The party started at 3pm, so we hadn't planned on much more than finger foods. It ended up being quite the spread, with chips, mikans, fruits, veggies, sushi, gyoza...and the Calamugs brought Popeyes (which is always good).  The kids had a great time playing outside; it made me really appreciate our house and nice yard.

The best picture of all of the kiddos!

I think I'm going to go ahead and say I've never seen Reina happier. We had been talking up the birthday party for a week or so now. I even stopped by the library and found two birthday books.  We practiced singing, blowing out the candles, and giving out the party favors for when everyone arrived. I think Reina's favorite part (aside from playing with everyone), was when we all sang Happy Birthday to her.  She had the biggest smile.  You could just tell she felt special. It was....precious.  She also loved opening her presents and wanted to play with each of them rather than opening the next one.  She thanked everyone and made sure to say good-bye to everyone. She made me proud.

The slideshow has been updated, so that most of the pictures in the January slideshow are from her party.  Hopefully they can say, what I cannot put into words.