Celebrating Two!

Saturday was Lucy's birthday. Of course, she's been thinking it is her birthday for the past week. We had a little party for her with some friends last weekend. I was a horrible mom and took 4 pictures, none of them noteworthy. Sad.

It was super simply and almost theme-less. Technically the theme was bugs/picnic but all we did was meet up at a park and let the kids play while the dad's tried to keep them alive and the mom's chatted. Then we ate our picnic feasts. We have a lot of food allergies/intolerance/strict diets in our group so we did a bring your own dinner. It's kinda sad that there are health issues but it is also neat that none of the kids had to be the odd duck if they couldn't have something plus it made things really really easy on me :-)

This my attempt to take an "I'm 2!" picture - she was more interested in balloons. 

I did make cupcakes though - these to be precise (with freshly ground soft white wheat instead of spelt). They were really really good and you would not have known they were not made with white flour and refined sugar. I'm not sure if it was because of the soaking or the soft wheat flour but a big improvement over some other whole wheat cake recipes I've tried. Alas, the frosting recipe from that site was a disaster so I resorted to a tried and true basic chocolate buttercream. And I topped them with crumbled jo-jos (trader joes slightly not as bad for you version of oreos) and a couple Annie's fruit snack bunnies. I know bunnies, right? Well, they were supposed to be these organic gummy worms (no dyes or hfcs!) but I didn't realize my online order didn't go through so we made it work with the bunnies. They didn't fit the theme quite so much but everyone seemed to think they were tasty. Lucy's favorite part was probably the juice packs though. She has only had anything other than water or milk to drink a handful of times in her life so the concept of a juice pack was amazing.

She actually blew them out this year!

We also did the book exchange again this year instead of presents for her. I love the book exchange. I spent less on a nice book than I probable would on worthless favors, everyone goes home with a new book to read and Lucy doesn't get toys she doesn't really need - win, win, win! This year I had a cute idea to go with the theme - I got these bugs and put them one of every pair in a container of pinto beans.

Lucy playing with beans and bugs

 I was going to put the other one from the pair on each of the books that came and let a kid draw a bug then match it to find their book. Lucy and the first little boy to arrive had a lot of fun playing with the beans and bugs but when the time came to exchange the books, the kids were having too much fun playing on the playground so we just swapped the books between parents. Oh well, so much for cute ideas.

This weekend was her actually birthday but we didn't do much in the way of celebrating since most of the weekend was spent putting up a backsplash*. Lucy got a couple of cards in the mail and adored them. She carried them around and every once in a while would open them up and say "Happy Birthday You."

And this is why I don't feel bad for not taking a bunch of pictures, when I try - this is what we get. That kid!

And we did have some fun too - Lucy and I made cookies together then she had to paint outside in the garage 

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because I mentioned that daddy was going to be painting their too (a different kind of painting, of course) and you may have noticed from the pictures above but I gave her a great birthday present - I didn't make her wear clothes at all! She wore pajamas and then underwear and that's it - that is what my birthday girl loves best! Monday night we had Neighbor J and family over to give Craig an excuse to break out the grill. All the kids ended up filthy and tired which is the sign of a good bbq I think.

Asked for Neighbor J's assistance to get a family photo of the birthday girl. This is the only one in which she looks remotely happy. But of course, as soon as the camera was down and we started back towards the house, she was nothing but giggles. 

In a couple days, Craig's parents are flying in and we've saved most of Lucy's presents (we did open up the Winnie-the-Pooh movie earlier to facilitate the backsplashing project) so we'll do another little celebration with them, perhaps I'll make those cupcakes so she can have the fun of blowing out the candles again. And this time, I'll try and take some pictures!

*If you are keeping track, that was our last big kitchen project and as soon as I recover enough to reassemble the kitchen, I'll be showing you guys the pretty much finished kitchen!