Brinley's Birthday Celebrations

Here at the Rigg household we tend to stretch birthdays out as long as we can. Why have a birth-DAY when you could have a birth-WEEK right? That's what I'm saying! Last week Brinley turned two and we definitely stretched out the celebrations with our little munchkin.

TUESDAY: Grandma Karen was still in town so we did a little pre-birthday celebration with a cake and some presents from Grammy.

FRIDAY: Brinley's actual birthday, Taber and I took the girls to Friendly's for a birthday dinner. The waiters came out and sang the Birthday song for Brinley and presented her with her very own b-day ice-cream treat. (Teya got one too because sometimes it's hard being the "un-birthday girl ; )

SATURDAY: We took our little b-day girl up to Manchester to hit Chuck E Cheese. The girls went wild on all the toddler rides and Taber and I even got in a few games of hoops.

Brinley tearing up the toddler rides.

SUNDAY: Was Brinley's "family" party. If we lived in Utah we would've invited all our family over for a birthday dinner and cake after church. All the grandmas, grandpas, aunties, uncles and cousins would've been there. Luckily for us, even though we don't live by our real family, we've been taken in by a wonderful adopted family that feels pretty darn close to home. It was wonderful to have our house full of "grandmas, grandpas, aunties, uncles and cousins" who all love Brinley very much and were excited to be there to celebrate her birthday.

Taber grilled up some AMAZING ribs and we had hot dogs, hamburgers and bratz to go with. Everyone else brought yummy sides and it was really quite the feast.

Then it was cake time! I decided just to do a good old Costco cake because there's no way I wanted to turn my oven on in this awful heat! I don't think Brinley minded : )

The highlight of the night for me was when everyone gathered around to sing happy birthday. Hearing the rich sound of so many voices just made it feel like home. Having such a great support group of friends really takes the sting out of living so far from our families.

Here's a clip of that moment. I love watching Brinley's face after she blows out the candles. It's kind of like, "wow! I really did it!"

Eating her cake. I think she put that entire piece away!

The rest of the night was filled with presents, chatting and children running around wild until 10 o'clock. Brinley partied so hard that she slept in till 11am the next day! I think that's a good indicator that her Birth-Week was a success. : )