The celebration continued.

The weekend after Eliza's birthday we headed up to Columbia to hang out with my family and go to the temple. It also worked out well that Ben, who had been in Utah for a few days (did you notice he wasn't in any of E's bday pics?) was flying in to Columbia that weekend.

Saturday morning my sister Megan and I took the kids to the Columbia Marionette Theatre to see Aladdin.

We had a lot of fun, until about 5 minutes before show time.

You can kind of tell in the below picture that Jack decided this was not for him.

Shortly before it started, Jack began crying inconsolably. I tried in vain to calm him down and get him excited about watching the puppets, but ended up taking him out for all but the last 5 minutes. And it was a double-blow for me because I have a hard time being on time for things, and not only were we not late, we were actually early. And we had really good seats. Which meant that I had to walk through almost the entire theater with a crying Jack and a stuck-on-my-hip Eliza. Of course, I was sure that it was not going to last long and we'd be back in there soon, so I didn't think to bring my purse with me when I made my escape. Oops. Jack had a very full diaper and I didn't have anything to change him with or keys to my car. Nonetheless, he still talks about the puppet show. So I don't think it was a completely horrible experience for him. I guess it would have been worse to torture him and make him watch the marionettes against his will.

Side note: Cat did the same thing the first time we took her to the circus. She hated the clowns. I have a hilarious picture of Ben and me holding her near a clown and she looks completely terrified. I can say it's hilarious because she doesn't mind clowns now. But I'm not sure it was the marionettes that bothered Jack, anyway. He just bursts into tears unexpectedly sometimes... like when I take him to our little post office that's inside a quick-e-lube/car wash place. Anyway...

After the puppet show we drove down to the river to pick up Ben and Suz, who'd been kayaking while I was not torturing Jack. It was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed hanging out until their aunt and uncle arrived. (My sister also married a Ben, in case anyone is confused.)

On Sunday we celebrated Eliza's birthday. E's nickname around our house is Liza Bug, because it just popped out of my mouth one day when she was wearing an outfit that had little ladybugs on it. And the name stuck. So of course she got a ladybug cake, and I was fortunate enough to have a decorating assistant on hand.

We ate a yummy lasagna lunch outside after Church, and the kids tried hard not to get too wet, since we don't swim on Sundays.

Eliza enjoyed her 2nd birthday cupcake (the ladybug's head) and we had a great time just watching her.

And she opened a few more birthday presents.

Again, receiving assistance from her ever-helpful older sister.

That afternoon we all loaded up and headed home.
Eliza's birthday celebration was finally complete.