Hayden's Birthday

Hayden's 2nd birthday brought forward a spring of emotions for me. I really wanted to have a good party for Hayden.  I also wanted others to have a good time and I probably spent way too much time worrying about how I could accommodate others. Tom can testify to the late nights of listening to me go back and forth on what activities and games should be played and how things should be set up. I battle myself on whether or not I should have all kinds of elaborate games or if it should be simple. In the end I knew that it probably didn't matter to Hayden as longest as he got to run around and explore everyone and everything in the room. I had to keep blocking out images of all the kids playing intricate games in unison and laughing with joy. Because let's face the facts, at this stage all kids want to do is explore, climb, crawl, make a mess, take things apart, poke at gross thing and occasionally want a hug from mommy. Games to Hayden would mean instructions, rules, and worst of all boundaries. So simple won the battle of Hayden's 2nd birthday party. 

The party contained 3 simple elements; face painting, drawing (Thanks to the help of Magic Colors*)  and running around like a crazy person playing with whatever or whoever was around. Andrew let me take a quick shot of him after Andrea drew on his face what seems to be a turtle. 

Hayden and Lucas opted to take the third option of the day's events by not only being the craziest kids in the house but teaming up in their craziness. It was a joy to see Hayden and Lucas act their age together, I can already tell that they are going to be real buddies. 

It was hard for Drea and I to take pictures. I wanted to be in the moment as much as possible and didn't want to leave Hayden's side, so I relied completely on Drea to do all the things I would normally do to keep things in motion. Thanks to Drea's faithful ear I was able to play with Hayden and enjoy the party without stopping to clean or set things up. The fact that she even got in a few shoots amazed me.  All those side conversations we were having were really: Do you think we should bring out the pinata? Can you take care of that? Is the cake ready? How should we announce we are about to open up gift? 

It's funny that Hayden had no interest in coloring. All he wanted to do was to take off the top of the marker and put it back on. It actually took me a while to realize that. I kept cheering when he took off the cap thinking we would move forward but no he never intended to get past that step. 

There's Lucas again "King of the Plastic Tree House." 

Jack jumped the entire time. Either on this contraption or from lap to lap. I never really knew where Jack was, but I had faith he would make his way back to me somehow. 

For the opening up of the gifts all the kids wanted to help out. Much to my surprise Hayden was completely okay with that. He actually seemed to enjoy it when everyone jumped in a started to rip open his gifts. All the kids were well trained because not one kid as much as looked at Hayden's gifts until they got the approval of their parents. I even advised Faith, one of the girls, to help Hayden open his gifts and she said that she wasn't allowed.  But Tyler, the blurry image in that picture had no problem helping Hayden when I asked him to. 

This picture is one of my favorites because Hayden was such in awe by the cake that as it was taken away he watched it all the back to where they were cutting it. 

Mike brought his niece, Chloe. They were so adorable. She was very careful to listen to every word Uncle Mikey had to say.  

I'm not sure if the pinata was the best idea but it was fun. Even after all the kids got to hit it, it was still fully intact. Tom had to rip open the pinata with his bare hands. The kids got a kick out of that. 

After everyone left, Hayden and Jack took a nap. It was nice to have a few quiet moments. Jack woke up first. I handed him off to Tom so that I could try to get some cleaning done and SPLASH! Tom screams ewwwww!!! I ran to grab a napkin, but before wiping Tom off I took a few shoots.

Tom was going to need a lot more than just a napkin!