Thursday, June 14, 2012

annie's bday party

For Annie's birthday last month we decided to take her to her favorite place... ChuckECheese! We thought about throwing a shindig with our new made friends from the park and neighborhood... but honestly, at two years old, Annie wouldn't really know the difference, right?

So the four of us hopped on the A train and headed to the only ChuckECheese in this town... in Harlem.

I love this next photo because of everything it captures... the girls climbing the poles (even though it's clearly marked Wet Paint... can't they read??), us about to miss the train, the lady looking at us like we're crazy... just a typical day for us. Ha!



The girls have come a long way in the year we've been here. They used to HATE riding the train (I never could figure out why), but now it's no big deal (as long as we don't try it too far past naptime).
Here is Jamie just strolling through Harlem with our two little girls. Never would have imagined this in our future.
The odd thing is that once you walk into ChuckECheese, it feels like you could be anywhere. We could be back home... it feels "normal" which is hard to find in this city.
It was a Tuesday evening, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
The girls ran around playing every game in the place.
Annie rode this silly horse for like an hour. She loves it!
We did manage to get them to sit for a few bites of pizza. Samanthe showed up and brought Annie a cute birthday tiara!
A rare photo of the Four of Us. (thank you, Sam!)
Audrie was a sweet big sister and helped Annie put tokens in the games.
Which Annie played each game for about 3 seconds before running to the next one.
A big hug for ChuckECheese!
Doesn't she look rad on this motorcycle?
Dance party!
Let them wear themselves out for a few hours.
Then back on the train home for cake and presents.
Annie was so cute with her cake!


Make a wish!
Audrie helping her blow out the candles...
I got the idea for her cake off Pintereset and it was actually really easy to make. Ok well, the cake was super crumbly and I had to sort of mold the shape of a 2 and hold it together with icing, but it tasted great so it didn't matter! Now the price of the M&M's is story for another time....
Me and the birthday girl! (She's saying "cheese!".)
Time for presents.
Our friends and family from Arkansas were sweet to send us packages for Annie to open. She loved them all!

Annie loves the musical "Annie", so I looked online for an Annie doll and the only one I could find was a vintage one off Etsy (for super cheap actually). So cute!
Jamie put together a scooter for Annie to play with in the park.
Audrie tried to be patient and not steal all the presents for herself, but they were all so tempting!
Jamie giving Annie a practice run on the scooter in our hallway...
A trashed house is a good sign of a fun party, right? (And Samanthe playing with the presents just as much as the girls... ha!)
After a fun day of celebrating, time to snuggle with daddy before bedtime...
Even though Annie won't remember it was still a sweet time of us loving on our birthday girl!