Here’s a slideshow of Hayden’s happy happy birthday festivities this past week:

We kicked off the celebrations in NY on Sunday with some presents from Dave’s family – an adorable stuffed monkey and a bunch of super-cute dresses. Then on Wednesday, it was her actual birthday, and Hayden started off the day by opening a cute present from her Grandpa Busath and Nana Angel – an adorable soft doll that giggles when she hugs it. Later, Maddy and I made some cupcakes to bring to our weekly neighborhood playdate where we celebrated at the park with a few friends. Then we went out to dinner with my mom, and sang Happy Birthday when we got home with a funny-looking mini cake I made for the occasion.

On Friday, our present for Hayden finally arrived from Amazon, but with critical parts missing. It is a standing easel (Hayden LOVES to draw), and I let the girls play with it briefly before putting it away to wait for the replacement easel that hopefully won’t fall over onto the girls every 5 minutes. Luckily Hayden has very low (actually, no) expectations about her presents and didn’t seem to mind the issues.

On Saturday, we had a little birthday party for Hayden at the park, with all her cousins and even some bonus guests from California (Nicole, Glen, Sierra, Lily and Micah just happened to be in town visiting family). We had tons and tons of bubbles and Hayden enjoyed the mayhem, despite being run over twice by bigger kids riding her own tricycle. She loved all her presents – some cool stickers, books and a tambourine from the CA contingent, really neat books from Lorna, Maren and mom, and a beautiful Alice in Wonderland musical snowglobe from Gavin.

To top off the week, on Sunday we even got to go to Lily’s 2nd birthday party (she’s 2 days older than Hayden), which was a real treat because we’ve missed the last few Leverich birthdays since we moved to Portland.

We have been waiting for months to go to New York. Mommy and Daddy told us that “in the summer” we’d go on vacation to visit our East Coast family, so I kept asking and asking them if it was summer yet, and finally they said yes! Here’s a slideshow of our pictures.

We got to go on a big airplane ride and I tried my best to stay up all night, but I ended up sleeping for a little bit. When I woke up it was morning and raining in New Jersey and me and Hayden slept for a loooong time while Daddy drove us to Albany. I was so super excited to get there and see Aunt Monica and my cousins TJ, Jimmy and Malcolm. Malcolm graduated from high school and I was almost as proud of him as I was in love with his cute graduating teddy bear.

The next day we hopped back in the car again and brought TJ along for a weekend on the Jersey Shore with new (Emily, Jacob, Tommy, Sarah and Olivia) and old (Greg, Karen, Faris, Lisa, TJ and Heather) friends. We slept some more in the car, and then had lots of energy for the BEACH in Point Pleasant. Hayden wasn’t so fond of the sand the first day, but I kept telling her to “try it and you might LIKE it” and she finally joined me in some digging.

Then came the BOARDWALK, which I loved except for the times when I was busy whining and being bratty because I’d skipped my nap. Despite my bad behavior, I still got to watch Daddy win and loose at Whack-a-Mole, and I got to go on super-fun airplane and swing rides with TJ.

On Monday, we played some more with all our new friends and then said goodbye and hopped back in the car for another nap on the road back to Albany. The rest of the week we had lots of great family time with the cousins, aunt, uncle and grandma, and visiting special people, like the DiPietros, Barbara and daddy’s high school friends Elana and Margaret.

My favorite part of the whole week was probably going to Build-a-Bear with Aunt Monica and picking out a fancy outfit for my new Hello Kitty doll, who I named Hello Sparkles. She is so beautiful and fabulous. Hayden got a cute teddy bear with an SU t-shirt, and dad named him Watson (the name of the college dorm where mom and dad met).

Thanks to everyone who took the time to see us and especially to you guys who spoiled me rotten – you know who you are!

- Maddy

P.S. When we got back we had a super-fun block party with all our neighbors on the 4th of July. I loved eating lots of watermelon and treats, blowing lots of bubbles, watching fireworks, and riding around like a crazy woman on Hayden’s tricycle.

It’s extremely difficult to believe that Hayden turned 2 years old today. She’s been an amazing addition to our lives in so many ways. Despite how hectic having 2 kids has been, every day we enjoy watching Hayden observe the world, learn how to say or do something new, or sweetly interact with Maddy in a way that makes us forget all the chaos and rivalry.

Here are my 50 favorite photos of Hayden over the past 2 years:

Her vocabulary has grown drastically over the past 2 weeks up to probably around 25 words or so, and with more words comes more bossiness. Hayden loves to tell her “mama” and “dada” what to do (i.e. “sit”, “eat”, “book”, etc.), and she’s always sure to tell Maddy when she thinks a toy is “mine.” She also loves to repeatedly say “hi” or “bye” to anyone who’ll listen (or not) at the appropriate moments.

Hayden’s now weighing in at a whopping 21 lbs and 13 oz, which I think is still right around the 0 percentile for her age. She’s an amazingly great sleeper, and is finally over crying when we put her down (for now, at least). We love our crazy adorable monkey-girl!