Anne Birthday

We celebrated Anne's birthday a while ago.
She is showing us how old she is.

Jared had the camera for work at home, so I took and had lots of fun taking pictures of the decorations and the "cake".

I made cupcakes this time. They are so beautiful, easy and child-friendly. I think this is the way I will do it from now on.

Rike sent these tulips to her parents and Anne for Valentine's and Anne's birthday.

The theme I chose was...colorful. Easy, huh!

We had decorated everything while she was taking her nap. Then we wouldn't let her see it while we waited for the rest of the family to be ready. We wanted it to be a surprise for her.

She got puzzles from Gma and Bahnka and a cute letter from her great-gma in Utah. There were also cute Valentine's for the rest of the family included in the letter. Great-Gma even left a fun message on the answering machine. She sang "Happy Birthday" and some other songs for Anne.

She and Alicia weren't big fans of the frosting (I had to make up the recipe, because I couldn't find one. The adults like it though), I think it was just too rich for them. I won't complain about that though.

Jared and I's gift to Anne was a bike. One of the days after her b-day we took her to the store to find just the right one for her. We hadn't told her before hand what her gift was and she sure was excited when she found out. I loved watching her experience this new milestone in her life.

We first tried the bike with the training-wheels, but she is a bit young for the concept still. Plus it was so big. The store has this fun track you can ride on the test-drive the bikes. I love that idea.

In the end we got this one. It has a seat for her to sit on then she "walks" around with the bike. It is actually supposed to be a more effective teacher than training wheels. Of course, the bike has a bell.

Alicia fell in love with the bikes to and had to drive one around the whole time we were in the store. We realized how hard it would be for her to leave and not get one too. She just is too young to understand. We had planned on getting her one for her b-day anyway, Jared (he is such a softie) had to get her an early b-day gift.

I think they both had a lot of fun. And we did too.