Oh hai,

It feels like two minutes ago that I was in a birthing pool delivering sweet baby Pearlie but also it feels like we’ve had her our whole lives.

I don’t know why time messes with you like that when you’re a parent but everyone I’ve spoken to says the same. Have you heard the phrase, ‘the days are long but the years are short’? It’s so true when you’re a Mummy isn’t it.

This week Pearl turned two and we have celebrated her LOTS. She deserves it!

For her actual birthday, we did her favourite thing which was taking her to The Riverside Hub, an amazing soft play centre in our town. She played in all the role play areas, trundled up and down the squidgy climbing frames and whizzed down the big slides. I love watching her explore and have fun like that.

Darcy was always a very risk adverse child (which certainly had it’s benefits when it came to babyproofing!), so it’s interesting to enjoy a different kind of personality.

Liam’s Mum and Stepdad made a cake (eek we didn’t know they were doing that and it was almost identical to the one we’d ordered for her big party but nevermind!) and Pearlie blew out the candles.

It was sweet to see she knew to do that this year because on her 1st birthday she just looked at the candle with no clue at all. I love noting all the new things she can do.

The next day was cake number two, a Peppa Pig creation that I bought in Morrisons– hurrah! Fun fact for you, I used to work in Morrisons when I was at sixth form. I loved working there because they had a staff canteen that served the same food as the customer cafe but really subsidised. Right, I’ve gone off-piste, back to the party!

Pearl had all of her friends from her baby groups over to play. She attends a couple of different local groups like baby ballet, sing-song groups and soft play thingymajigs so she has lots of tiny friendlings who came to celebrate.

I don’t think I’ll include any photos of the other children because I don’t know them super well but trust me, my house was taken over by tiny humans giggling and running and throwing balloons and it was a lot of fun!

We decided instead of party bags we’d send everyone home with a Peppa Pig balloon (something I’m sure was appreciated by all the adults haha) and for food we just did a toddler buffet of pombears, cucumber & carrot sticks, buttered french bread, cheese, mini sausages, little biscuits etc.

Judith came over for it and said, ‘these are the happiest times’ and I agreed. Life is full of laughter right now.

We had a couple of days off from parties (Liam and I both had work and Pearl needed her party rest lol) and then on Saturday, which is the night I’m typing all this, we had her big party! Wooo!

At first I was going to keep it really low key but as ever, things esculated! It was going to be just a few friends and family round, a little cake from the super market and a glass of fizz to cheers Miss Pearlie Girl with.

Roll round to the date and I’d found an amazing local cake maker (The Copper Kitchen who I’ve used to cater things for me before, like here and here), I took a local grazing table company, Spread, up on their offer of gifting a sweetie graze and remembered a local insta Mum, WildOneandI, who makes beautiful paper decorations and booked her for something too!

I’d been on insta a couple of weeks prior and searched #2ndbirthdayparty and found the theme ‘Two Sweet’ so decided to go with that – Pearl is TWO Sweet! I love it and I love instagram for being a constant source of inspiration!

We decided to keep decorations minimal (by my standards lol) and I loved that a few of them were handmade. For gifts we asked people not to buy anything.

Our house is FULL of toys and clothes so instead we asked them to bring a card and write some ‘pearls of wisdom’ for Pearlie to read back when she’s older. I think in years to come she’ll value those far more than she will the toys.

The party wasn’t as big as her 1st birthday bash, too that we invited a LOT of people and planned muuuch further in advance.

I was a bit worried it’d be a bit quiet but actually I was really surprised. It was so lovely to host a party and actually speak to everyone properly and feel like I was fully part of it rather than running round fetching things or topping people up or helping Auntie Judith out the loo when she glitches the lock heh heh!

Another special thing this year was that Darcy came too! Last year Pearl’s birthday weekend fell on Darcy’s Daddy time (I share custody). I thought about it for a long time (because I could have moved the party dates) but decided to keep them as they were.

For six years Darcy had been my only child, then Pearl came along and all of a sudden we were facing a few jealousy and sharing issues (very understandable) so I felt Darcy wouldn’t mind to not be at a party that was ALL about this new person in her life that had soaked up a LOT of attention for 12 months.

This year though, I think we’ve overcome those hurdles, we’ve all had two years to acclimatise and things are much more harmonious again- woo!

So, the party was a success. Highlights were Pearl blowing out the cake (very cute because she hasn’t quite mastered it yet but really tries hard), printing out a tonne of this years family photos and everyone cooing over them, catching up with our dear friends and feeling all the love.

Lowlights- someone bought a children’s karaoke machine with them- my ears!!

Whether you’re going big or keeping things small, I love celebrating a milestone. Life is short and I want to enjoy as many moments as possible.

I think I’m going to do a slushy post about Pearlie later on but for now, I wanted to take the time to document the week, it’s been a blast and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too.

If you’ve enjoyed this, I remember writing all about Darcy’s second birthday on my OG blog, I’ll link the post here OR for more of Miss P, you can check out my Instagram for this and this post!

Now I need to start thinking about Darcy’s 9th! Where does the time go?!

Toodlepip! xx

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