I don’t think her birthday celebration could have been much better. She had an absolute blast…start to finish. Molly has no problem being the center of attention and that’s just what she was. All day long.
We celebrated on Saturday the 16th, the day before her actual birthday. We started the morning off at the Discovery Room at the Science Center. I absolutely love the Discovery Room. For those of you in the STL area who haven’t been…you need to check it out. My kids adore the place and could spend WAY longer than the 45 minutes you’re given to play. Owen’s more of a focused player, as you can see from the below picture. He would find a certain toy that he enjoyed playing with and he would devote several minutes to playing with it. In this case we couldn’t even get him to look up for a picture.
Molly is pretty much the complete opposite. She’s a total spaz and never spent more than about 30 seconds in one section. She flitted from toy to toy and loved every second of it.
One of the kids’ favorite areas of the Discovery Room was the Native American teepee and campfire. Molly found some drums and went to town.
While Owen found the costumes and got into character.
After the Discovery Room, we headed downstairs to the Build-A-Dino store (which is just like Build-A-Bear but they have dinos!! Awesome for Owen!). Trav and I really had a hard time knowing what to get Molly for her birthday. We thought Build-A-Dino would be a fun gift and also provide us with some fun memories. While Trav and I helped Molly build Georgette the monkey (to provide Molly’s very favorite stuffed animal, Curious George, with a friend), Owen and the grandparents made Terry the Triceratops (named by Owen and it makes me laugh every time I call him Terry). Here are the kids with their pre-stuffed animals.
The whole Build-A-Bear experience was a lot of fun. The kids loved getting to pick out their own stuffed animal to make. When the kids began the stuffing process, they got to choose a sound to put into their animal. Terry roars (very fitting), and Molly’s sings Happy Birthday. The choice between two different sounds didn’t make Molly too happy as is evidenced by the look she’s giving the Build-A-Bear lady in the below picture.
After dressing Georgette in a cutesy denim skirt and tank and Terry in a Mizzou football uniform we left the Science Center and headed to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. The kids were TIRED after our morning out. They snuggled up with their new friends on the way to lunch.
While the kids napped, Julie and I worked on Molly’s cake. As some of you may know, Molly is obsessed with princesses lately. She wants to read princess books constantly and loves to watch princess movies. Her current favorite is Cinderella but that pretty much changes every week. Because of this, I wanted her birthday party to be a princess theme. I found a picture of a castle cake online and thought I could copy it. Julie and I worked on the cake for about two hours and it was so much fun! I think it turned out pretty cute, too.
We used the cake as our centerpiece on the table because after you spend two hours on a cake, you need to enjoy it. Here’s a shot of our princess-themed table.
We opened presents before dinner so the kids would be occupied playing while the ladies got the food ready. Molly was completely spoiled by the grandparents, as usual. She got the movie, Tangled, and a lot of her gifts were Rapunzel-related. Here are some of her other gifts.
A grocery cart like the truck carts my kids are obsessed with at our grocery store with Georgette riding in the front:
A dollhouse with lots of people and furniture. (My parents built me a dollhouse when I was little and it was my favorite thing to play with. I can’t wait to see Molly play with this!)
And a gift I knew she would love…her own trampoline! The girl loves to jump. Beds, couches, the floor, etc… I’m hoping this trampoline is WAY more fun than any of those other places…I know it will be safer!
And last but not least…the joint birthday gift from Nana and Bubba. Owen loves cowboy stuff and Molly loves to jump on things. This horse was the perfect birthday gift for both of the kids. They love it!
After all the presents were opened, we headed upstairs for some Baked Ziti (one of Molly’s favorites). Here’s a shot of the whole group (including my brother Nate and his “special guest”).
And a shot of Trav with the kids…
Dinner concluded with Molly finally getting to enjoy her birthday cake. When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, the only thing she would say is CAKE! All her birthday wishes came true! The night ended with jammies and Tangled.
The day was perfect. It couldn’t have been much better. We are so blessed to be Molly’s parents and feel so privileged that the Lord has entrusted her to our care. We love every day that we get to watch her grow and become the person she’s going to be. Laughing at her antics is such a gift! Happy Birthday baby girl!
Great pictures! They capture a bit of the wonderful weekend forever known as Molly’s 2nd birthday celebration. Thanks for letting us share in it….we had an absolute blast. ( especially loved our cake decorating time. We love you all! Happy Birthday, Molly Moo! Now you are TWO! (or fee, or whatever you want to be!)….I’m trying to sound like Dr. Seuss.
We had a wonderful time celebrating little Molly with the whole family!! Thanks, Em and Trav, for all your hard work making the birthday celebration so much fun! And Molly, the NEXT time we celebrate, you will indeed be “fee”! But first we want to enjoy you as a two-year-old!!