Katie's Second Birthday

Wow, just realized it's been over a year and a half since I posted on Andrewandbrenda.com. I was never really good about keeping this thing updated, but geesh. At any rate, I'm trying to get back on track, especially for those of you that don't use Facebook. Still you should be reading The Daily Katie.

So this past Friday was our little Katie's second birthday! Hard to believe we've had her in our lives two whole years already. It's gone by pretty fast. I just looked through photos from her first birthday and was surprised at how little she looked. At any rate, here's a quick birthday recap.

Her birthday was on Friday, and since I was working, we figured we'd just go do something on the weekend. Turns out, I'd hit my 40 hours at Turner and got to come home early. Pretty rare for Daddy to be home by 6pm, let alone at 2:00 in the afternoon. So we opened some presents that arrived from all the grandparents and played with some stuff. At bedtime we also had new Curious George books to read.

Saturday was a typical "Daddy Day", where I watch Katie while Brenda works. We really just messed around the house. Daddy made chili, which Miss Katie promptly turned her nose up at.

And today we made our first trip to Chuck E. Cheese, which is in Alpharetta right next to Brenda's Jo-Ann store. I can still remember going to Showbiz Pizza in Parkersburg when I was a kid, so I was wondering how similar it would be. Showbiz had a huge dining room where you'd eat and have birthday parties. And at one end was a giant stage where, behind curtains, were several animatronic animals who played in a band. Every half-hour the curtains would open and they'd do some cheesy skit and then sing some songs. I remember they used to do a version of "Bang on the Drum All Day" and "She Blinded Me With Science". Don't ask how I remember that. Then the other half of the place was arcade games stuff like Skee-Ball and ball pits.

Chuck E. Cheese was a lot smaller than I remember Showbiz being. Maybe I was just smaller back then. Now, the show area, dining area and arcade are all one giant room. That means it's SUPER loud. Just as we got there, another group was having a birthday party, so Katie got some overspray of their "Happy Birthday" performance from Chuck E. (aka, minimum-wage worker in a hot, smelly suit). Katie ate a surprising amount of pizza while watching the little skits and then an animatronic Chuck E started singing songs like "You Make My Dreams" by Hall and Oates, and yes even "Bang on the Drum All Day".

We'd gotten 30 tokens with our meal, so we went and explored the game area. Katie's still too young for most of it, but they had a toddler area and she got to ride a few things. All in all, I think she enjoyed herself. No meltdowns, even when Chuck E came by to wave at her. We grabbed an 8" vanilla cake and headed home so Katie could take a nap (which she didn't actually do).

Last year, we got Katie a big cupcake for her birthday. She wasn't impressed and only sampled some icing. This year, however, she happily ate a whole piece and then licked her plate. She'd never had anything like that before. And the rest of the night, all we heard was "Cake, cake, cake…"

All in all, a pretty good birthday weekend, I think. I got a few photos and videos uploaded, but I can't wait to get my new iPhone next week. I'll finally have a better camera and be able to take HD video. I've really regretted not getting more video of Katie, but the quality this old iPhone 3Gs is capable of is pretty low. Can't wait to start building a better Katie film archive.

Click to see all the photos and videos.