We started off Ellie’s actual birthday with the traditional birthday donut.

Surprisingly when I feed my children donuts for breakfast, I don’t have to keep telling them to eat or we’ll be late. Hmmm….wonder why they don’t eat their normal breakfast that well.

It was a big day at school that day – a parent program for Ellie’s class…complete with a visit from grandparents.

And that night…

a night out with mom and dad.

We got a sitter for Evan and took Ellie to paint pottery. She was confused at first why Evan wasn’t going with us – shows you that she hasn’t had a lot any alone time with mom and dad since he was born. We explained that we thought it would be fun to just hang out with her and not Evan and how painting pottery and 2 year olds don’t really mix. I think she got it when we told her it was breakable.

She picked an alien to paint…and painted him wild, crazy colors.

And then she got to pick where we ate. She decided she wanted a hamburger, so we went to Toads. I love Toads. It makes my tummy happy, so we didn’t argue. Can i just say I love Iowa’s smoking ban in restaurants. I love being able to take the kids anywhere and not worry about their little lungs.

But before swinging over to Toads, we shopped for one more birthday surprise.

Scratch Cupcakery in Cedar falls. A tasty way to end our night out.

We still have yet to pick up our pottery. This week has been crazy! But we’ll get there…and then I’ll post a picture of the alien that will take up residence at our house, and the Christmas tree ornament that I painted. After all, I couldn’t let her have all the fun!