Birthday Party Photos

Edie had a pretty fantastic birthday party last month. Apologies all around for not posting photos sooner - we took the pictures off our camera last night for the first time in a month and there were over 400! Edie started the day out with a tricycle ride in the backyard (hand me down from a neighbor) while I decorated a bit. And before you think I went out and bought 50 paper lanterns for a 2 year old birthday party - please note that I already owned all of the decorations used for this party - including the reusable plastic table clothes. I'm amassing quite the party collection these days...

I had to wait until Edie's nap to put together her present from me and Jeff - we've been collecting dress-up clothes all summer at random thrift and second hand shops. We used Jeff's Great Grandpa's old trunk that has been gathering dust in our basement for years and filled it with cheap tutus (that I trimmed, washed and bejeweled with sparkles, marabou and ladybug beads), pirate garb, pig noses, high heels, viking hats, fairy wings and even a tiny postal carrier's bag to house her growing postcard collection. It was SO fun to amass all these items. And even more fun when friends and family added to the collection - Heidi actually SEWED a full Snow White costume for Edie and she got the cutest ever mermaid costume from Grandma Fifi (that she likes to wear with the pig nose for some reason). Needless to say there is no need to purchase a Halloween costume this year.

Edie received so many wonderful, useful an thoughtful gifts this year - a Strider bike from Great Grandma Bee (GGB), a princess castle with homemade Ariel blanket (reversible - with Tinkerbell on the back!) that Edie likes to slither around on while she pretends to be a mermaid, a *homemade* dolly with stylish hairdo and coat/scarf combo, a membership to the Children's Museum, a miniature tent for the backyard, homemade (and store bought) CDs to break up the Raffi monotony, children's gardening tools, Baby accessories, and the books! The books are SO great. Enough cannot be said for new books. In particular a shout out needs to go out for Wheedle on the Needle because it spared me like 4 minutes of crying on the otherwise sob-filled drive home from Olympia last week when I asked her to look very carefully as we drove through downtown to see if she could spot the Wheedle.

I made chocolate cake using this recipe (officially the easiest chocolate cake recipe ever - you literally dump everything in at once and mix - no sifting, no alternating wet and dry - just dump and stir!) with pink cream cheese frosting, sprinkles and strawberries. I'm a big fan of the sheet cake these days. I used to be a cupcake girl (I mean, tiny cakes? Come on!), but I'm loving the ease of the sheet cake - I also find that the cake is SO moist and stays that way for days after the party. We ate leftover cake for what could have been 5 days, but was only 3 in the end. We ordered (and ate) almost 10 pizzas and family provided side dishes and helped set up and clean up.

Thank you so much to all who came and braved the mayhem.