Yesterday was my birthday!  Not near as exciting as turning the big 3-0 last year, but I’m happy to have made it another year nonetheless.  I continue to be blessed with a happy, healthy family.  Life is good great! 

Van got Ashley up and ready in the morning so I could sleep in.  And when I came downstairs, I was greeted by a Bojangles and Starbucks breakfast.  YUM!!  He also got me a new lens and larger SD card for my camera.  Which I have been playing with all day as evidenced by the random pictures above.  I have fallen in love with my camera all over again! 

Then we went out for dinner at Outback Steakhouse.  Oh, it was lovely.  Let me just tell you, we are now one of those families.  It seems like not that long ago we would go out to eat and be annoyed by the misbehaving children sitting at the table behind us.  We would comment on how “bad” the parents must be.  HA!  Well, now the tides have turned and we are the ones in the lime light.  At first, dinner was going great.  Ashley was content in the high chair, she loved the bread, and played with the crayons.  Then the meal came.  She threw about half of her grilled cheese sandwich and broccoli on the floor.  We watched as it got mushed by the servers walking by and other customers tried to walk around it.  Van told her “no” when she attempted to toss more food behind her and then she started crying.  I guess her feelings got hurt, but the crying was so loud and animated you would have thought she had gotten spanked.  So I pulled her out of the high chair, much to the delight of the surrounding patrons.  And she sat in my lap as I tried to finish my dinner.  That is, until she noticed there were people in the booth behind us.  At which time she decided to stand up and stare at them, bang on the back of the booth, and then yell at them.  Van:  “Check please!”   So I chugged the rest of my beer as fast as I could and boxed up my food.  Once we got home, Van gave her a bath so I could eat the rest of my steak.  Oh, the joys of toddlerhood!  Happy birthday to me

So we went for a birthday walk as a family Tuesday evening.  Put Ashley in her new Radio Flyer wagon, tied a balloon to it, grabbed the boys, and went for a stroll.  It probably looked more like a parade, and I guess that was my intention.  I wanted everyone to know that my little girl was turning one!  So we ventured out for the world neighborhood to see.  It was the perfect ending to a perfect day!

Happy Birthday my lil’ pumpkin!  I hope you enjoyed the festivities as much as I did!!

We sang Happy Birthday to Ashley and then let her have at it.  I “helped” blow out the candle for her.  Just one cute little pink candle.  This was the only time there will be just one candle on her cake.  Sigh.  I digress. 

She was very methodical in eating the cupcake.  She’s never been one to just “dig in” right when you give her something.  She has to  investigate it first.  So she took her time and slowly picked out which confetti pieces she wanted to eat.  In fact, we ended up taking the confetti off because she was putting them in her mouth faster than she was chewing them which resulted in a little choking (yea, that would have been great, huh?).  So without the confetti to pull off, then she went for the icing.  She LOVED the cream cheese icing!  She may have gotten a little bit of cake with each handful, but mostly she grabbed the icing and then smeared it all over her face.  Such fun!  Good thing this was an early afternoon party.  Otherwise, she never would have gone to bed with all that sugar.  And yes, we made it through the night without a tummy ache, thank goodness!

We had her party today (Sunday), although her actual birthday is Tuesday the 12th.  Just figured it would be easier to get everyone together on a weekend.  Everything turned out exactly as I had envisioned it.  From the photo banner, giant cupcake, wagon, gifts, tutu and personalized chair.  It really was a perfect day!  My friend Lauren made Ashley the tutu.  Is it not just the cutest?!  And the cupcakes were not only beautiful, they were quite tasty, too!  Ashley had fun and did really good throughout the party.  I am so proud of her!  Like a typical toddler (Gulp – did I just say “toddler”?!), she was more interested in the tissue paper and birthday cards than the actual gifts.  But once I got all the paper cleaned up after the party, she loved playing with her new toys!

It truly was an amazing day.  We were surrounded by family and friends, and couldn’t ask for anything more.  We are so blessed.  Thank you everyone for coming out to make this such a special birthday celebration for Ashley!  She is one lucky girl!

…cupcake post coming soon, so stay tuned!

Then we moved to Raleigh and I lived in an apartment  by myself.  So it was just me and him for a while.  Until Van and I got married, then he had to welcome Van into the family.  Which means he also had to relinquish his side of the bed!  When he finally got used to that arrangement, Van brought home Jimmy the cat.  Toby still doesn’t trust Jimmy.  Then we brought home Blake, and most recently Ashley.  So the poor guy has gone through a lot of changes the past 6 years.  It’s just been one thing after another.  He’s still my No. 1 man though.  Here’s to another 9+ years of chuck-it, tennis balls, swimming, walks and belly rubs!  We love you Toby James!

I’m getting psyched for Ashley’s first birthday!  It’s right around the corner and there is so much to do!  My lists are multiplying!  I’m going with a cupcake theme and will be making a giant cupcake for her smash cake.  I love to bake, so this is going to be a lot of fun for me.  Seeing as I have never made a giant cupcake before, I thought I should do a couple test runs in my new Giant Cupcake Pan.  Glad I did, because I learned several things from this test run.  The main thing being that I need to use more batter!  I only used one box of cake mix, and it didn’t fill the pan completely.  I ended up having to do a lot of trimming to get the cake to fit together (the top and bottom weren’t even).  So next time I will use about one and a half boxes of mix.  However, I’ll wait a couple weeks before subjecting Van to Round 2

It was fun making it though!  I also made a candy liner (used Wilton Candy Melts) so it looks like the cupcake is sitting in a paper liner.  Here are a few pictures of my first giant cupcake.  For this one, I used yellow cake and chocolate icing.  For Ashley’s “real” cake, I’m planning on using either chocolate or yellow cake, but with cream cheese or vanilla icing.  The lighter color icing would look pretty with the pink liner.  And I’m going to decorate it with jumbo confetti sprinkles and a large single pink candle.

We always get the boys a cake from Gourmutt’s Bakery for their birthday.  They LOVE their cakes.  Pies and cookies too for that matter!  It’s a fun place to get them something special.  And yes, the boys do have to share their cake with each other on their birthday

Happy Birthday Blake, aka Noodles!  You are rambunctious, lovable, and a giant cuddlebug.  Our family wouldn’t be the same without you.  We love you buddy!