Mark & Mandy

This post is sooo overdue – excuse the tardiness.

This year we decided to give elsie a choice of birthday theme … we laid out three visual cards (Bugs – from bugs life, Under the sea – nemo and little mermaid, and Elmo) – in 5 seperate sittings we laid the cards out and had her choose. She chose bugs 4 of the times and Under the Sea once. But we did butterflies last year, so I overruled her choice and picked Under the Sea. I mean how many years do I get to do what I want – I need to take advantage of it!

This year I purchased invites from Tiny Prints (feeling like a failure since this is probably the one thing I should be doing for elsie)… they were very cute

Party Table…

Of course my mom outdid her last years cupcakes with this awesome two tier cake

We made crepe paper seaweed with balloons and little inflatable fish for our decorations around the house

We had a big sushi spread (which the sushi chef questioned … isn’t it odd that they are eating nemo?) We ignored him

The biggest hit of the day was the dolphin bouncer we rented – it had a double slide and pretty much was the party. The kids loved it. We had it show up early so elsie could have her own time before the party go’ers arrived.

Elsie was very excited to sing happy birthday to herself

We also did a pinata – one of the string pull pinatas. After a few little ones pulled a string out Mia (standing directly under the pinata) walked over, grabbed all the strings and we were instantly in business (she’s no dummy)

Elsie loved the bubble machine and spent lots of time spinning and popping the bubbles

But then it was more jumper time

Happy Second Birthday Elsie Bean!

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even more photos here

We did a little cousins photo shoot before mothers day …

I recently got a Mac mini, so I have felt empowered to start doing something with all the raw video footage we have shot of Elsie over the last years.

I am going to try to do this a bit more frequently so we can see how the little bean is progressing – she is a chatty lady.

The below video is from May 4th 2009

I am so behind at blogging … I blame scott for that, but I digress …

After our florida trip we headed down to Antigua (which we now realized is pronounced ant-tig-ga) to meet up with the Sladdens. Michael and Alison flew direct from London, Chloe via NYC and we flew in via Miami.

Antigua was beautiful and extremely family friendly … we arrived to a rather long customs line and immediately they grabbed us to go immediately through. Michael and Alison rented a house near English Harbour right on the beach. The house had a mini-pool that Elsie spent much of her time in.

The house was on the water, but very private … we only saw a few fisherman and snorkelers …

Grammie Alison was happy to enjoy some relaxation with elsie (and her giant binky)

There was a bird feeder outside and the birds were practically tame – each day alison would fill the feeder up with sugar water and instantly we had some feathered friends …

We picked up a few beach toys for elsie …

And headed to a calm Pigeon beach which was right around the corner from the house

the beach and the water were amazing

Elsie didn’t ever truly realize the beauty of the mask underwater – but she is all for fashion, so she just kept it on for the cool factor of course

Alison took Elsie for a stroll down the beach

Swimming and running on the beach are extremely tiring – elsie was quick to lay down for a snooze

Auntie Go Go read elsie some interesting graphic novels …

The next day we did the same thing … more beach!

Alison gave elsie a few surf lessons (sans board – maybe next year)

Grandpa Michael was brilliant in packing up kitchen gadgets that could be fun on the beach. Mark and I were excited to build a big moated castle elsie was more interested in destroying all of our work

Alison, Chloe and Michael braved the sea to do a bit of snorkeling off the house … we headed down to take photos and make sure Michael was towing Elsie’s floaty tube so we could see where they were

Elsie and Mark were a great audience

Our last night in Antigua we headed to the top of English Harbour to enjoy a sunset barbecue and a steel drum band.

The last morning Elsie woke up early and was happy to crawl into the hammock with grammie alison and grandpa michael for her usual slow get up.

Our trip was fabulous – we enjoyed some home cooked sladden meals, yummy wine, and most of all great family. Thanks to Michael and Alison for starting a great tradition!