The Party of the Year!

Happy Birthday Camden!!!!!!!!

My little boy is 2 years old tomorrow! My goodness, how did we skip ahead 2 years already? It's been fun this year to remember Camden's birth and every feeling and all the excitement, because we're going through it again at almost exactly the same time of year, just 2 years later. (I have a feeling Dawson won't be born on his brother's birthday though...although a lot could happen in a day I suppose.) :)

I know last year I did a post about Camden's 1 year birthday and the crazy parties they have here in Brazil. I was just thinking this year we'd do a small party with just the immediate family....well...plans changed. Pretty soon we were inviting everyone and having a bunch of food and tons of sweets, and on and on. Renato and I still aren't sure how it got so blown out of proportion, but it's over now. We had his birthday party yesterday. It was great, and we're very glad it's over. We spent almost everyday for 2 weeks preparing for the party. As I've stated before, I didn't do this much work to prepare for my wedding. But, I figured it will be Camden's last birthday here in Brazil, so I just went with the flow.

Here's an idea of what we did, and the work we put into it....
-Food: We spent at least 3 days preparing the food. We made everything from scratch to help save money....although it still ended up being a lot. We made mini pizzas (over 100), esfihas (middle eastern type food with meat in the middle of bread--all individually made--over 120), cachorro quente (cut up hot dogs in a tomato sauce served in a sandwich), and Renato's mom made this layered chicken sandwich with lots of layers of bread and chicken (she used 3 loaves of bread in it). OK, that's just the "salty food".

-Sweets: We spent at least 3 days on the little tiny cookies we made. There were 4 different kinds. Then through a strange twist of bad communication, we decided to do a certain kind of "freezer" cake that would be cut up individually and wrapped individually. (bad idea--bad communication--I didn't know what it really involved) Anyway, so Renato's mom made 2 big cakes with this yummy custard in the middle, which we cut up in single servings, wrapped in pretty plastic wrapping, tied a pretty ribbon around each one, then curled all the ribbons. There were about 120 pieces. Again, NOT a good idea. PLUS I wanted to make a cake for Camden I'd found on the internet. We had a "farm" themed birthday and I found a really cute cow cake, and Camden loves cows. So, we also had that. PLUS...yes there's more.....we had to make these little balls of chocolate and coconut, roll them in sprinkles and coconut, and put them in tiny little cupcake like wrappers.

Whew...are you tired yet just from reading that? You could say we were happy the whole thing is over. :) But it was a good time, and I'm glad we did it.....although both Renato and I said we'd never do anything like that again. Ha!

I've got some pics to show from the day. We had a "farm" theme of cows and John Deere green and yellow...although they all thought the green and yellow was for "Brazil", which worked out perfectly. :) It all turned out great.

Here's the cow cake. Isn't it just adorable?!? I'm pretty impressed with myself...my first attempt at decorating a b-day cake. I think I'm hooked...can't wait for the next one. :)


Here you can see the whole table with all the little rolled balls of chocolate and coconut, along with some of Camden's John Deere toys and some balloons.


I love this picture as Camden is blowing out the candles, all the other kids are "helping" him. Too cute!!


Here we are with our 2 year old!


I love this picture! It was taken when we were singing, and Camden looks so cute, knowing that everyone was singing for him! I love his reaction!


I wish I'd have taken some pics of all the food, but my card on the camera was full. Oh well, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Tomorrow is Camden's "real" birthday. We're going to take him to the zoo to see the monkeys (his favorite) and then out for ice cream. We told him tonight that tomorrow is his birthday, he asked right away, "Party?". So that tells me he enjoyed his party and that makes it worth it. We all had a good time and it was so special having Camden's 2nd birthday here in Brazil with all of his family and friends here.