HAPPY BIRTHDAY LYZA DEANNE
Warning! This blog post contains lots of pictures, videos, and fun! Proceed at your own risk!
Lyza is 2 years old today! What an amazing 2 years it has been. This little girl has blessed our lives more than we could have imagined. The happiest moments we have had have been with her.
Words cannot express how much we love this little girl.
But before we give you coverage of yesterday's birthday party extravaganza we should fill you in on a few happenings since our last post:
Here is a cute little video of Lyza singing one of her own versions of "If you're happy and you know it." Notice that she was not able to touch the ceiling because she was in her high chair. So she had her videographer touch the ceiling for her.
We made ginger bread houses together earlier this week
What a doll!
We went to the Nativities Around the World exhibit here in Moscow this week. It was a lot of fun. They had a kids room set up with lots of different kid friendly nativities that Lyza enjoyed playing with. Her favorite word of the night was "more"
Lyza wasn't quite as happy about the manger room. She felt a little overwhelmed with how friendly everyone was and how eager they were to get her dressed up in a costume. So the costume never happened.
Saturday night we had a ward Christmas party. Here we are waiting in line to see Santa. That smile disappeared as we got closer and closer to Santa.
Until finally she decided that she had gotten close enough
And the obligatory photo of a child crying while on Santa's lap...
With a little animated snow over top the experience doesn't look so terrifying, right?
Here is Lyza and Kim all ready to go to church on Sunday
Aren't they beautiful?
Playing with her quiet book
So for the last week we have been preparing Lyza for her upcoming birthday party. We have been asking "how old are you" and helping her answer "two." She has been really excited for her birthday party. After church she just had to get some last minute dancing out before her nap and following birthday celebration.
This next dance is inspired by Scottish highland dance
Getting presents ready before we wake up the birthday girl (she ended out taking two hours to fall asleep, so we had to wake her up after about 45 minutes)
Here she is emerging from her room after a long nap time (and not so long nap)
Let the paper tearing begin
Lyza loves Minnie Mouse
Her Minnie came with a book, Lyza loves books
If you recall, a few blog posts back we had a video of Lyza reading along to one of her favorite library books. We decided to buy her that book because she loves it so much and it discusses welcoming a new baby brother into the family. Here she is opening that book.
We read it right there
Here is Lyza playing with her new dress up dolls. She loves them!
Here she is opening up her large gift
She could not open and close all of the doors and organize all of the food and dishes enough
Here she is calling grandma and grandpa with the new phone that came with her kitchen
Kim: "Lyza, how old are you?" Lyza: "Two!"
Birthday-fun overload!
Here's Lyza reading that baby brother book. What makes this video even better is that it also shows her noticing that her kitchen is gone! I moved it into her room and this is when she noticed.
After supper Lyza had some friends come over to play and help her with her cake
"When will these pictures stop?"
She loved wearing her party hat
Getting ready for cake
Elmo and Cookie Monster
We were worried that Lyza wouldn't be able to blow the candles out. She got both of them out before we could finish singing happy birthday to her
Yummmm
Lyza's birthday party was a success! She had a really fun time and loved laying with her friends. This is kind of how we felt after the whole thing was over:
If you can imagine mushed-up cup cakes with big smiles on their faces!
We love you Lyza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
