Birthday and new baby cousin!!!!

Guess who turned two! That's right it's me!!




December is always an exciting month, but throw in a birthday, plane rides, family you haven't seen in months and a brand new baby cousin and it just gets a lotta crazy. Alex turned 2 on December 8th and we celebrated with a small birthday party with our favorite new friends and lots and lots and lots of balloons. Ryan will claim that he blew all the balloons up himself, but I did a good 3 of them.

You may ask yourself, "What makes up a good party for a two year old?" Well let me tell you.....



There should be lots of screaming and funny faces.







Blowy outy noise maker thing-a-ma-jigs.








Good friends







Good women (you gotta love a girl that knows how to appreciate food)






Music, lots of music. (our neighbors really LOVED this part)






Of course cake with a bit of fire.

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He looks rather pleased with himself, doesn't he?

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Presents - lots and lots of presents. Here is Alex working away in some of his new birthday gear.

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Oh and did I mention the balloons?? (Ryan wanted me to make sure no one forgot all of the balloons HE blew up)

Yup - it sure is fun turning 2.









Then it was off back across the ocean for a whirlwind tour of Texas. Starting in Houston, Pa and Grandma (name yet to be finalized) picked us up from the airport. We spent a couple of days there to re acclimate and it was off to Dallas to visit GrandDad and my new baby cousin. Carlye failed to get a bunch of pictures - blaming jet lag of course - but did capture these keepers.





Meet baby William Hauser Haden. Or little Willie as we like to call him.










Alex liked to check on and pet the "BeeBee" (translation: baby)





Christmas time is almost here. But we will save all of that for the next blog entry. Until then --

One last look at Alex enjoying all the balloons that Ryan blew up. He'd plowed into the pile a couple of times before I was able to get the camera so some of the enthusiasm has worn off, but it is still pretty cute.