Milo has been two for a whole week now. We celebrated his birthday at the Hagley park wading pool (central park in Christchurch) with an international bunch of friends–two families of Brits, Canadians and Americans. We’ll make the most of these summer birthdays while we’re in the southern hemisphere! The breeze made it a little hard to keep those candles lit, but we managed.

How many kids does it take to blow out two candles? Just kidding! Blowing out the candles was a group effort.

COOKIE is Milo’s favorite word, so when Jeremiah sent out an email invitation to his birthday party, he grabbed an internet photo of cookie monster cupcakes as an embellishment. Then a couple of his work colleagues said they were coming because they wanted those Cookie Monster Cupcakes….he had created an expectation that needed to be fulfilled. And he sure fulfilled it, they looked professional!

Jeremiah spent three evenings creating these impressive Cookie Monsters, after researching construction techniques on you-tube. I was pressed into assistance to provide never-ending frosting and googley-eyes, but my main project was the train. Phew, if it takes this much effort for a two-year-old’s birthday, just think of the enormity of effort required at year five!

I had my qualms about bringing the new birthday boat to the pool because I didn’t have boats for all the kids….and Milo did find it very hard to share the new love of his life with his friends. But they were good spores and it worked out fine.