Little Violet is a big girl now! I posted earlier this morning, but now the day is almost over and its been a great day! I'll give a short report on how the party went. We woke her up with a few songs (including happy birthday!) and videotaped it. We spent the morning getting ready and preparing the food. We cut up the fruit (pineapple, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries) and made the strawberry creamy dip, baked the pepperoni bagel bites, made the (dyed blue and purple) cupcakes and frosted them (purple and yellow dyed frosting), and mixed up the grape punch (made with red and white grape juice and sprite, topped with strawberry sherbet). We made the pumpkin muffins last night. Dave decorated the house with pink and white streamers. I kept Violet up later in the morning for a later nap...so that she would stay awake long enough to make it through her party from 2-4. She slept from around 11-12:30. She had her lunch which was potato cheesy soup. She's really eating a lot more food now and nursing less, maybe 4-5 times in a day, which is a lot less than a few months ago, which was around 8-10 times a day. So our guests started coming around 2. All in attendance were Grandma and Grandpa Hardinger, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Jay, Molly Hart, Nathan and Marisa Anderson and Devin Anderson. We all ate for a little while, then played the 3 games we had planned. They were: Guess how many cheerios were in the jar, guess how much Violet weighs, and a "how well do you know Violet" quiz. Rachel won the cheerio guess (actual was 633, her guess was 585), Marisa won the weight question (actual was 23 lbs, her guess was 22 1/2), and Molly got the most questions correct! Violet tried helping open her presents. Obviously, she didn't really get it. She loved finding new toys to play with though! She got a pink piggy bank with plastic coins, a couple new toys, a stuffed monkey, new books, some pink booties, some clothes, a silver bracelet (from Great Grandma Rowena!), and a contribution to her education savings fund. Oh, and yes, she stuffed her face with the cupcake we gave her. Frosting was all over her face! Her favorite thing to play with at the end of the day were the collection of balloons that Grandma Jo brought. She loved to squeeze them tight and let them go, and watch them float back up into the air.Soon everyone left and things got back to normal. We got the house cleaned up. Rachel is staying the night, and Jay is hanging out with us tonight, so we're all talking. I'm going to stop typing and join the conversation! Goodnight! Welcome to year 2 Violet!