What a difference a year makes.

It's official...as of May 1st J is now 2 years old!!! He may still wear a diaper, but he's a baby no more. The last few days have been fantastic. Both of my sisters came down to Vegas from Denver just for J's birthday, which was so great. I think it's the first time the three of us have been able to get together as adults without a funeral or wedding being involved. When we weren't doing party stuff and hanging out with J we went out on the town a little bit (on Friday we actually closed a restaurant talking and drinking wine - nothing like girl's time), and stayed up laughing and acting like sisters.

On Saturday we threw a little Sesame Street party for him with about 8 other 2 to 3 year olds. Now I know what my daycare lady's day is like, only more wild thanks to the influences of sugar and balloons. Big hit: the new water table. After a couple of hours we actually had to drag it around the corner of the house and hide it from the kids because they wouldn't do anything else. Big miss: Both of the bubble toys I got to "entertain" the kids. One was broken and the other was extremely messy and led to J having a super tantrum in the middle of the party.

I was going to write a long sappy post about J turning 2 and all of the growth I've had as a parent over the last year, but instead, I'll just post a some pictures and you can see for yourself what a difference the last year has made.

Parties like this are a great outlet for me to be a crafty mom. This is the table before the party started. The night before the party we decided to make cupcakes instead of a big birthday cake which was SUCH a good idea -- I'm doing cupcakes every year from now on. My twin sister who decorates cakes as a hobby made and colored the frosting from scratch and decorated all of them.

Close-up of our cupcakes. It's supposed to be Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch. I'll admit the Oscars look more scared than grouchy but otherwise, not bad for amateurs, eh?

The famous water table. As soon as J saw this on the patio (we put it out there while he was napping) he actually ran into the patio door (LOL) trying to get outside and play with it. Makes me wish we had grass so a kiddie pool could be more feasible. Also note my other crafty mom project on display -- I made this t-shirt for him using iron-on printable transfers. Super cute, super cheap -- always a good combination.

Front view of the birthday shirt.

The kids eating their cupcakes. Kids are so funny - they were eating them by hand, then one little girl randomly asked for a spoon and suddenly everybody had to have a spoon to eat their cupcake. Too cute. I can't emphasize enough how much easier it was to deal with cupcakes than slices of cake.

The patio set my sisters got J, also a huge hit. Since we don't have grass put in yet, at least now J will have a place to sit outside. (It looks overcast but being Vegas it was pretty warm.)

J and a friend using the water table to fill up their water pistols. I found them at Toys 'R Us 3 for $1.00 so I bought a bunch for the party. The jury's still out on that one. Definitely a winner for the kids, but from the parent perspective the water pistols led to a level of wildness and chaos I wouldn't want to repeat again LOL.

Blowing out the candles on his cupcakes. What a bittersweet moment for parents -- where's my little baby who couldn't blow out candles last year? This picture really makes me realize how fast time is flying by. (Yes, he is inadvertently making me flash everyone. I guess that's the price for trying to be a "cute mom.")

J eating his cupcake in his chair in front of the cool Sesame Street mural we found at the party store. I think we'll leave that up for awhile, it makes our living room kind of festive :P

Me, my sisters, and J rollin' with the homeys in the car after going out to breakfast. He LOVED having his aunties here -- he keeps asking where they are and pointing to the couch saying, "Aunties sleepin." (Sorry, D and B, by the next time I swear we'll have the guest room set up.)

"The Divas." Getting ready for girl's night. I'm the one on the left, younger sister in the middle, twin sister on the right. Daaaang we look good! Hehe.