Apparently today is the day Evelyn scheduled to start walking.

We had Ilyana’s 5th birthday today, a few days early.  Four of her friends came over for a party at the house, which was an amazing amount of noise!  We had a great time playing limbo, painting porcelain animals, and playing with toys in the living room. A highlight of the afternoon was playing with Ilyana’s big dragon all around the living room.  It was quite the parade!

This makes two of three birthday celebrations for Ilyana.  Grandma Laurel and Grandpa Jerry joined us for an afternoon in the Dells over the holiday week, and we’ll do family presents on her real birthday.  So much celebration!

Enjoy the pictures.

Daddy’s great decorations!

Birthday cake (I highly recommend Joy of Cooking’s 1-2-3-4 Yellow cake, yum…)

Painting projects, featuring neon colored animals.

Corn dogs, fruit and carrot sticks for lunch, of course with ketchup.

Evelyn joining in the fun.

Really?  Can you pick me up now?

Fun playing in the living room.

The dragon attacks!

Don’t worry, Evelyn has her shield (or is chewing on it, at any rate).

Happy Birthday to our big girl!

Grandma Ann made a lovely sweater for Ilyana when she was one. Ilyana wore it until she was about 18 months old, since she was (and continues to be) a very petite child.

Today I dug it out the sweater from the clothing box, since Evelyn is outgrowing her 12 month clothes and filling in 18 month clothes nicely. I thought a few pictures would be fun, but you can see how much the girls differ in size! There will probably be a time in the near future where Evelyn won’t be able to wear hand-me-downs, or at least no where near the time Ilyana did. I think she’ll just be too tall…