Better late than never, though, I suppose.

Iliya's birthday was really a lot of fun. On Friday night, after decorating the tree we had found, we got to work finalizing some of the food and starting on the decorations. We had a lot of help with everything - for fear of forgetting to put a name down, I can't really try to mention everyone who fixed food and helped with the party. But you all know who you are, and your help was tremendously appreciated!!

The party had been planned around The Iron Bowl and initially, the game had been scheduled to start around noon. So we decided to do a morning party, so that everyone would have time to get to their respective places to watch the football game. But then neither team did especially well this season, and the network dropped coverage of the game, and it was moved back to 7:30 P.M.

So, here we had a 9 - 11 AM party planned and no game to blame. But it really was fine - Iliya is truly his best in the morning, so we went with it. (we also went with it because the invitations had already gone out, so there's another reason)

Because the party was early, we decided to create a sort of brunch buffet to eat early, and then have cake/icecream later. It worked out great, and the food (if I haven't mentioned this before) really was delicious.

Anyway, back to Friday night. We started decorations & made "to do" lists for the next morning. I was exhausted by the time I went to bed, and I slept like a rock.

On Saturday morning, I got up pretty early to take a shower before having to start finishing decorations & food. I was afraid Iliya would stir - as he usually does when he sleeps in the same room with us - but he remained sound asleep. In fact, as the early morning progressed and more of my family began waking up & moving around, I figured we would be lucky if Iliya slept until 7:00. But 7:00 came & went...so did 7:30 & 8:00. A few balloons even popped as we were blowing them up with helium, and the kiddo did not stir.

Finally, I woke him up just after 8:15 -- afterall, he needed to be ready if guests began arriving a little early!

He was pretty amazed at the transformation of my parents' house -- all the balloons fascinated him and he really wanted to play with them!

Guests began arriving and in all, I think we counted 43 people at the party -- all family!!

We really did have a good time - we ate good food, and visited. Iliya enjoyed entertaining the masses with peek-a-boo, signs/words, and his animal sounds...and grazing from others' plates. When it was time to open gifts, he got the hang of that pretty quickly! He wanted to scrutinize every thing he got (which was fine by us) and really enjoyed all of the tissue paper.

Then it was time for cake. I had envisioned making a cake for Iliya -- one of those chocolate with buttercream icing cakes that my mom used to make for us when we were little. But time ran out, and we ended up just purchasing a cake from Costco. I'm not a "storebought cake" sort of girl, but this cake was really good! Iliya didn't seem to mind that I hadn't slaved over a cake for him!

When we sang Happy Birthday to Iliya, his eyes lit up and he looked from person to person & just smiled. He began eating his cake and then looked at me and signed/said, "Again." I honestly couldn't figure out what he was talking about...I kept saying, "Again..? What do you want to do again?" And he told me! He signed, "Sing."

So we sang Happy Birthday to him again. And I think he enjoyed it as much -- if not more -- the second time around!

Soon, people began trickling out...Iliya played outside for quite a while, and then it was time for a nap. He fell fast asleep, right away. And he must have been worn out, because he slept HARD. Two & a half hours into his nap, I finally had to wake him up so we could pack and make the journey back home.

We made it back home, had a day to settle, and then hit the ground running at work & school. Drop off at school was a little difficult (some days) this past week, because overall, Iliya was tired and had been so far off his routine during the week before. But we made it - with early nights to bed and lots of love, he recuperated nicely. And of course, will be right back in his routine when Christmas hits!

Anyway, this is really a poorly written post. I am having a very difficult time holding my eyes open, so I am going to end for now. I really wanted to finish up my "Thanksgiving/Birthday" series so that I could get to more current things (like my deep thoughts on the 'digital age').

But all of that will have to hold off until another time, when I can form a complete sentence without drifting off into sleep whilst I type!

Until I have the brainpower functioning at normal levels again, here are a few pictures from Iliya's 2nd birthday party. Enjoy!