Nora's Second Birthday!

Nora turned TWO on October 14!  In celebration of her birthday, my mom, brother Nate, sister-out-law Ashley, and nephew Everett came to town for a visit.  I'll write more on that later, but since they were here, they got to participate in Nora's birthday parties!  We hosted a family party at our house on Saturday and a friends party on Sunday.  We split them up because our house is not big enough to accommodate all these guests at once, but as it turns out, both parties were pretty packed all on their own.  We are feel very fortunate to have so many friends and family actively involved in Nora's life, and we hope they didn't mind that it got a little crowded at her parties.  As far as I could tell, Nora loved every minute of her parties, and we liked getting a chance to show everyone what she is like in her own element.

I used a Go, Dog! Go! theme this year.  It is Nora's favorite book, and she is getting good at "reading" along with it.  It's also a tradition in my family and a favorite of Nora's second cousins, Lily and Cash. Growing up in my family, my dad frequently asked us "Do you like my hat?" and we were always made to wear crowns on our birthday, so making party hat crowns as our "craft" for the little ones seemed like the natural choice.  In addition to the decorations from the book I put up around the house, I used dachshund fabrics I found online to make Nora two skirts and coordinating 2 year old shirts.  These were fun projects for me, and she liked wearing her "doggies."

Here are my favorites among the pictures that family members shared from the family party!

And here are the highlights of the many pictures Tres took from the friend party!

Thank you to everyone who helps make our two year old's life so sweet!