We had Ellie's 2 year birthday party this last weekend. We had lots of family and friends drive from St. John, Belpre, Salina, Manhattan, Nortonville, and Mound City to spend the weekend with our little princess. Karen, Cristian and Ryan came up Friday night and we had take out from Buffalo Wild Wings. While we were waiting for our order, Ryan (who is 2 1/2) went up to Ellie and yelled "Let's Go!" and they both ran for the door to try to escape all the chaos from the NCAA Tournament.

Saturday, Tricia and Walter arrived just in time to help us get the clubhouse decorated for Ellie's party. We had the birthday party at our community clubhouse in hopes that the kids could play outside in the playground but the weather did not cooperate. When we returned back to the house, Debbie, Joe, Sabrina, Joshua, Jr, and Martesia were there along with Cathey and Gary. Danny showed up in the morning.

It was nice to have everyone around and got a chance to catch up with everyone. We headed to the clubhouse around 5pm and John's family all showed up. I made some salads and we had wonderful Kansas City BBQ! The kids didn't eat too much as they were too busy popping balloons!

When it came time for Ellie to blow out her candle, she did a good job but was really bashful when we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She kept trying to press her face against mine and turn her head to try to hide. Opening presents was a different story - she dug right in! For about the first dozen presents, she would open them and have a big surprised look on her face - then the the next several, she would say, "Look what I found!" She was especially drawn to those cards that had money in them. She opened one and I asked her what it is and she said "Money". I asked her what she is going to do with it and she said, "Put it in my pocket." (She gets that from her father, everything of his goes into his pockets!)

Some big ticket items included a pillow and body pillow along with a bench with cushion that Great Aunt Cathey made for her, her indoor playhouse/tent from Old Great Aunt Debbie and the Hearn's, a cabbage patch doll and her money for her pocket from Great Grandma Felin, a Radio Flyer bike from Papa Danny, a tea set from Aunt Tricia and her play clothes from Aunt Karen. She also enjoyed the My Little Pony from John's sister, Kristin. In fact, of all Ellie's presents, that was the only one that Ryan just had to play with!!! I think Ryan will need one for his birthday except it will be blue instead of pink.

Sunday, we all had BBQ lunch together at our house and Old Great Uncle Joe had to talk Debbie into NOT going to Nebraska Furniture Mart. We think that Debbie needs to come up some weekend and go by herself - it's such a great place. We were sad to see everyone go - we had such a good weekend.

Ellie was a bit tired when everyone left but would not take a nap. It was not until we got in the car around 3pm to go to John's niece's birthday party, that she fell asleep and managed to sleep all through Chuck E. Cheese's. We had to wake her up so she could play a few games before we left though.

This weekend, she is getting her 2 year pictures and managed to get a big red mark on her forehead at school yesterday. Lots of red scrapes from tripping on the concrete at recess. I've been medicating it at all times to help it heal - if all else fails - I'll get out my concealer.

That is all to report from KS. We are going to the Bon Jovi concert in Kansas City on April 17th of anyone wants to go with us - we have 2 extra tickets - otherwise, someone may need to bail us out of jail for scalping outside the Sprint Center.

Here are some pics

Ellie-sleeping at Chuck E. Cheese