Juliana's 2nd Birthday

Juliana Kalai Beck turned two on Tuesday. When she was born I expected to feel a sense of sadness with each birthday, feeling nostalgic for when she was littler and wishing she wouldn't get older. This has not been the case at all. With each year, especially this year, I have really almost no nostalgia, and it surprised me. I came to the conclusion that its because I truly and honestly have never been happier and have never been closer to her. Because she is her own little person now- talking, expressing, loving, developing- it has been easier and easier to love her even more!!! I cannot tell you in words my adoration for her angelic and strong spirit. She truly has made me happier each year, and I've felt like she's more and more of my actual friend lately. We are two peas in a pod. I love this age. Mitch and I say all the time how we wish we could freeze her at 2 years old for 5 years. We have never been more content with our family and our sweet baby girl. We love watching her develop and blossom- she does it so beautifully well.

We had a little celebration with some (12) of her little friends today. We feel so happy to have such an incredible group of friends here in Charlottesville from all of our facets of life- Darden, church and play groups. Juliana has the most profound love for friends and socialization, so it makes my mama heart happy that she has so many friends to play with out here. 

I've decided that the easiest method of journaling/record keeping for me is blogging, despite how terrible I am at doing it regularly lately. I'm going to start trying to do it more often. 

So, here is a snippet of our afternoon celebrating. I'm too lazy to edit photos all beautifully like I would like to (thanks to a little something called homework), but here they are in the raw for good record. 

We made the cake, but don't let it fool you. It tasted mediocre at best. #cakemix HA

Ah! My sweet MIL came out for the weekend and we've been in HEAVEN

life is so so sweet.