Gift Ideas for a Girl's 2nd Birthday

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Calleigh's second birthday is now just over 6 weeks away and I already have a super long list of what I want to get her. Listed above are some of the things I am sure of.
This will be very diffrerent to her first birthday. She is much more aware of toys and characters and the choice of toys is much wider than that for a one year old.
She loves to pretend play so the kitchen is a must have. I can't count how many times I've seen her put on the oven gloves and play with the saucepans and pots.
She loves to colour and scribble on things so a little art station will be great to aid with her creativity and also save the furniture a little bit.

I'm really excited to start shopping for things and I can't wait for the day Calleigh gets to open them all. She loves it when she gets packages so I think this year she will really enjoy opening her presents.

As we will be in England for Christmas we are using her Birthday to give her all of the big presents to save us spending a fortune in shipping costs. 

Painting

We had a go at painting the other day. I printed some fun Halloween/Fall shapes out for Calleigh and I to colour in. I covered the table with a sheet before hand as I knew we would end up with paint everywhere. And I wasn't wrong, we ended up with paint on the carpet, on the sofa and all over Calleigh. Let's just say we won't be trying it again any time soon, at least not until we get our own house. As much as it was really good fun and I enjoyed watching Calleigh be creative, it was always in the back of my mind that this was not our furniture. 

Luckily most of the paint came off Calleigh easily in the bath, but I cant say the carpet had such luck. 

Oops. 

I also had to give her the dummy half way through to stop her eating the paint. Why? I don't know. I mean it doesn't even look appetizing! 

A Picnic with Daddy

To me there is nothing better than watching my two favourite people playing together. 

Now that Calleigh is older she is so much more fun to play with and she always wants to play with us. One of her favourite things to do is make a picnic for us, she is a really good host and always makes sure our cups and plates are full. 

I can't wait for her birthday to get her some new toys to play with. 

We are going to have so much fun! 

Here are some photos of Daddy and Calleigh's Picnic Party (Mummy wasn't invited yet again)

Halloween Cupcakes with Kids

Calleigh and I had a great time decorating some cupcakes. I made the cupcakes and put the frosting on whilst Calleigh was having a nap so when she woke up we could decorate them together. 

A great tip for when decorating cakes with little ones is to put all of the decorations into a cupcake baking tray. That way they can pick out which decorations they want to put on without making a mess, well too much mess. 

I used a basic cake and butter cream frosting mixture (the recipe is posted here) and used special Halloween decorations and candy corn to decorate.  

Calleigh loved it and surprisingly resisted the urge to eat any right up until the end when I turned around to find her licking one. 

Winter Warmers

The weather is getting cooler here in St Louis. 

It's still not cold enough for coats, hats and gloves yet and hopefully wont be until late November. But I thought it was a good time to get Calleigh's winter wardrobe sorted out. Especially for our trip home to England in December. 

I wanted to get clothes that would keep her nice and warm but also look really good too. The Cherokee range at Target has a great selection of clothes that was just what I was looking for and they are good quality and affordable.

Coat/Hat and Gloves

Calleigh actually loved them so much that when I showed them to her she wanted to try them on straight away and spent the afternoon walking around the house with them on bless her.
I can't wait for winter now, shes going to look so good!