Chiara singing Patty-Cake, Patty-Cake

Chiara has gotten into Patty-cake, Patty-cake. One night after dinner she sat on the chair next to me and I was trying to occupy her so I suggested we play. The next night, she climbed down off her chair, dragged it around the table to sit by me, and climbed up and said, "PATTY-CAKE!" Last night she did the same thing with Rachel.

She doesn't have the hand clapping down but she likes to do the roll-it and roll-it, throw-it, and then eat-it-up, eat-it-up!

Swinging

Here are some pictures of the kids and Rachel swinging and Chiara holding her dolls.

Chiara's Birthday Party

Sunday we had Chiara's 2nd birthday party. Many many friends and family came and we had a wonderful time. Somehow the camera holds lots of pictures of me and Chiara and very few or none of quite a few guests. We're especially glad the Levines could come from Houston to celebrate with us.

Following the theme dollhouse/dolls etc., we had two crafts. Trapping adults in the castle was one:





Ok, not really. Coloring the castle was one. Here the castle is pristine but by the end of the party many guests had colored and signed it. It looks really cool now.



The second craft was to make little dress-em-yourself dolls. Most of the kids made dolls and some of the adults but we didn't get many pictures. Wylie was particularly focused on cutting and sticking. Even though we thought most kids would put magnets on their dolls, a lot got left behind. Here are all the orphan dolls on our refrigerator.




Rachel had help from Asher and Chiara making and decorating the dollhouse cake. Chiara's help most consisted of her sticking her finger in the icing as Rachel tried to decorate it.



She wasn't crazy about everyone singing Happy Birthday at once but she was totally on board with blowing out her candles and eating cake!



Avelyn enjoyed some cake too:



And after the holiday season, Chiara's got this presents thing down. She called for present opening shortly after everyone finished eating cake.

Chiara's Birthday

Monday (December, 28) was Chiara's 2nd birthday. It was also the last day of my (Debra's) holiday vacation so we got to spend the entire day together. We asked Chiara what she wanted to do and she said ZuZu for lunch, toy store (we always take the kids to pick one toy for their birthday), and playground. Ok, we didn't end up going to the playground because it was really cold outside but we did go to ZuZu and the toy store where Chiara choose some kitty cat Calico Critters.

Before that, though, we all got up and sang Happy Birthday and gave Chiara her new Tonka Truck while we were still in our jammies.






Later, we had birthday ice cream. Then Lisa Diane & Joey came over for dinner more presents and visiting.


She's two!