LulaPalooza

lulu's birthday party is on saturday. but i couldn't let a birthday just slip on by. problem was, tate was sick and miserable and i was just so-so. and lulu, well she decided that her birthday would be a good day to "bring it" in the two year old behavior department...

i was exhausted by 9:42am. but we still managed to "bring it" in the celebration department, as best we could, with our very own lulapalooza...

this is how it began: when the birthday girl asks for cheezits for breakfast, she gets cheezits for breakfast...

and since we didn't have a very good breakfast, i guess, we had french toast and egg casserole for dinner. for dessert we had pink lemonade cupcakes (w/store bought lemon icing that had pink food coloring in it)...

they didn't turn out how i envisioned (this should be the name of my blog since NOTHING ever does!). i wanted the real big gumballs, but didn't want to spend the time or money to get them. though they weren't super cute, they still were devoured...

lulu was clearly excited about the mini ben and jerry's cups of ice cream everyone got...

everyone except for me. i'm "dieting" so i got myself a skinny cow one instead and i didn't even eat all of it. oh, but don't congratulate me just yet. i was the one doing the aforementioned devouring. i ate two cupcakes. that'd be two that night plus two the next day. probably not the best way to shed the pounds.

lulu was enamored by the decorations. first it was the balloons...

then the dangling lollies and candy-filled centerpiece caught her eye...

edible centerpieces don't last long around here.

what lasted way too long was the photo session i tried to have...

which left her resorting to hiding under the table...

which was when i had to remind myself that her birthday is supposed to be about her, not about me. so we celebrated our girl...

some more horizontally than others (poor tate)...

it didn't hit me until i was putting her to bed that we forgot to give her her presents! which is fitting really. because even though it was her birthday, she has always been the gift...

she's even wearing the hugest bow ever to prove it!

as her put her to bed, i was flooded with the emotion that i knew would come at some point on that day. it was a celebration of lulu's birth, but we were not there for her birth. and her birth family cannot be with her to celebrate her life on these special days. on each of my biological kids birthdays we have a tradition that i tell the story of when they were born. i am going to have to think about the ramifications of this for lulu as she gets older. but for last night, i told her what little i knew. which was hardly anything at all. and i cried. but then i was reminded that though i wasn't there, Someone was there with her. He knows every detail of how she came into this world. and though her birth mother is gone, He is with her still. and He knows every detail of the story of her life that will unfold.

so i do have a story to tell her. it may not have a lot of details, but it is a love story. and it is her story. i'm so glad we get to be part of the plot too.