My Boys

JillyBean LOVES playing with boys. I am not sure what it is - maybe they have cooler toys - but she really enjoys running around with boys. I guess for a girl that she can be a little rough. That's probably our fault for constantly spinning her around and "wrestling" with her from such an early age. She can be a bit of a dare devil. But she also very girlie and loves to play with her dolls and wear dresses. And pink jeans. I cannot tell you how many mornings we have to have the pink jeans discussion. She would wear them every other day if I let her, or if she had more than two pair.

I have joked that I am going to have to find an all-girls preschool for Bean to attend because I am not sure if she can focus on the teacher if she connects with a little boy in class. I was told that there is such a place here in Charlottesville, but I honestly don't think that we need to go to that extreme. At least I hope we don't.

One of her bestest buds, and the one she has known the longest, is an "older" man, he's 3, and she gets so excited when we get together with him. They play together really well. There is another little boy in our playgroup who Jilly adores as well. They get each other giggling and act so silly together that it borders on cute and annoying.

On Tuesday we got together with Matty and another little boy (who's even older at 4) to play at the park. It was funny to see the boys go between not wanting anything to do with Jilly to almost fighting over who got to play with her. In the end, though, they all got along together really well and had a fabulous time.

Sweet Temptations

I am a follower of a fabulous cake designer's blog called Cake Journal. This woman makes some amazing cakes and I can only wish that I had half of her talent. Actually, what I really need is the patience to make such beautiful creations.

I can say that I do make pretty good cakes. I can usually bake pretty well. It's the decorating part where I fall short. So, I was super duper excited to see a new e-mail pop up in my in box from Williams-Sonoma touting their new cookie cake pan.

The recipe is for a chocolate cake and you can either spread frosting between to two ends or ice cream. I vote for ice cream.

Spring Forward

The Dogwood Festival parade was a lot of fun on Saturday. JillyBean really enjoyed herself and loved the fact that she got to sit behind a "big truck" and wave at people. It was flippin' hot for an early spring morning, but we survived. Jilly talked about Miss Pam and singing in the parade the entire weekend. It was a fun experience and we look forward to doing it again next year.

Today we got a nice surprise in the mail. Auntie April sent us a disc with photos that she took while we were in Tennessee during Easter. There are quite a few cute shots, but these are my favorites:

I Love A Parade

The Dogwood Festival has been going on here for the past week or so. It's kind of an odd set up, in my opinion. I am used to festivals taking place over a long weekend and events taking place in consecutive days. These festivities are kind of spotty. But, this is the 60th anniversary of the festival so I suppose the organizers know more than I do.

Anyway, the festival comes to an end this weekend and the parade is set for Saturday morning (also kind of odd; I always think of parades kicking off an event, not closing it down). Featured in this year's parade is Miss JillyBean herself. She's not any sort of star, mind you, but she and I will be part of the parade riding the Kindermusik float with her fave teacher, Ms Pam (Jilly LOVES this woman and loves the class). According to the line up, we'll be behind the Little Miss Dogwood float. Maybe I can turn into one of those crazed pageant moms and get Jilly prepared to be the next Little Miss Dogwood...Yeah, I don't see that happening....

Jilly is so excited for the parade, even though she has no idea what a parade is. She is thrilled that she has a special t-shirt for the event and that she gets to wave at people. I figured that it would be a fun experience for her.

Wiggle Room

Another family friendly show is finally coming to the John Paul Jones Arena.

I am not a huge fan of The Wiggles, but apparently they put on a good show and the kids like them. The Australian group will be in Charlottesville on Wednesday, Aug. 26, as part of their Go Bananas tour. The Disney Channel recently changed up its morning line up and The Wiggles are now in a more premier morning slot. I can only think that change was made to help promote this new album and tour.

I first learned of The Wiggles when we lived in Houston. They came to Beanie Dad's building there and sold out two shows rather quickly. I don't know their appeal now, because the kids who saw those shows are probably the same whose parents pay thousands of dollars for Hannah Montana tickets today. It will be interesting to see how well this show sells. Maybe parents who have shelled out a few bucks for the U2, Metallica and/or Keith Urban concerts will be guilted into seeing this as well.

Room Decor

Things have been a little crazy the past couple of weeks. Not only did we have Jilly's birthday, but my mom and uncle are here, and we spent a week in Tennessee to celebrate Easter. I'll have more about that trip soon, but the outcome of that trip has led to this post. Actually, this is a post for me to organize an idea or two in regard to decor, so feel free to bypass...

As I mentioned, JillyBean LOVES her hats. Well, she has also developed a little fetish for purses and received two new cute bags while we visited Nana. Aunt Jane gave her a sweet floral purse with a beaded handle (that I may actually use for a wedding in a couple of months) and Nana got her a precious pink straw bag from Hartstrings that has a rose on it. It also matches the beautiful pink linen dress and hat making this complete ensemble:

So, now I find the need for something to keep these hats and purses neat and tidy. I am unsure if I want to get a series of pegs or hooks to hang on the wall or a peg rack.

I really like this from The Land of Nod:
However, Anthropologie is one of my favorite places to shop. I love their clothes but I also like their home decor items. These hooks are great and make for a little more unique addition to Jilly's room:

Happy Birthday JillyBean

My little baby is turning into a little lady....


Newborn

One Year

Two Years

PAR-TAY

JillyBean doesn't officially turn two until tomorrow, but she partied like a two-year-old Sunday afternoon. The celebration took place at The Little Gym and we invited several of her friends. It was a lot of fun. Jilly was so excited for her "party" but didn't quite realize that it started with activities in the Gym. In her mind, the party was supposed to take place in the room that had all of the balloons, pizza, and, of course, the cupcakes. She threw a little bit of a fit in the beginning of the celebration but relaxed and enjoyed herself toward the end. Still, she was anxious to get the party started.

The theme was monkeys. We sent out pink and brown invitations that had a monkey sporting a tutu and tiara. They were really cute and you'd think that it would have been easy to find pink and brown decor but it was a bit difficult. So, I had to dig deep down inside myself and become, hold on a sec, crafty. I like the idea of doing crafts but when it comes down to it, I would rather pay someone else to do it. I'll cook and bake all day long, but sitting down to do some sort of craft doesn't always turn out all that well.

The treat bags that we gave to all of Jilly's gifts were filled with a small stuffed Curious George, a set of Curious George stickers, a monkey jigsaw puzzle and Jilly's signature sweet - Jelly Belly jellybeans. In addition, I made a batch of monkey munch. I'm really lucky that those made it to the party as Beanie Daddy kept picking at the stash before I could even fill up the bags.

I made favor bags using pink lunch sacks and brown ribbon with white polka dots. A little thank you tag with a monkey sporting a pink bow was added to keep the monkey theme going.


The next creative endeavor that I undertook was a birthday banner. This was actually pretty fun. Jilly and I went to Michael's and scoured the craft paper aisle for different variations of pink and brown paper. I found some really pretty patterns, which you can't see so well in the photo.

Probably the best birthday move, though was ordering cupcakes from the fabulous Cappellino’s Crazy Cakes. They did a mix of chocolate and pound cake cupcakes with pink and brown frosting. Half had monkeys on them and the other half had pink flowers. They turned out super cute and tasted just as good.

We all had a lot of fun, especially JillyBean. She couldn't stop talking about the "party" two days before the event. The most important thing to her was having cake, balloons and a hat. I had thought about getting a new party hat, but decided just to let her wear last year's hat. We couldn't keep it on her then, but this year she wanted to wear it, for a while at least. Although it was pink and green, it still worked well and is super cute no matter what.

On one hand I cannot believe that she is going to be two tomorrow. On the other hand, it seems like she's been with us forever because I can't really remember life without her. We're going to have a small dinner celebration tomorrow night. I'm making Bean's favorite three-cheese spaghetti and she requested a "pink" sunflower cake. I typically make a lemon sunflower cake, but I guess that it won't hurt anything to make it strawberry. The celebration will continue when we visit Nana for Easter. She probably won't remember these parties, but they mean something to us. Plus, she'll have plenty of pictures to look back on when she gets older.