Well, Maddie’s 3 and Bea’s 1 but Bea and 1 don’t rhyme. We were really lucky to have my dad and the A’s come celebrate with us!

Maddie told me she wanted a “butterflies & flowers” theme until I was done making 24 chocolate butterflies. Then she told me “I changed my mind. I want DRAGONS!”

She got butterflies.

Thank god my sister in law was there!! She appeared like a magic fairy princess around 6AM to help me with EVERYTHING and then she took photos at the party! I couldn’t have done it without her!
That’s my torso next to the cupcakes. I don’t like it but I DO like the colors of the veggies!

This was a pink & green park party. I spent all day Friday & the wee hours Saturday preparing everything. To be honest, my sister in law, angel, sent from Heaven, also spent the wee hours Saturday. And the later morning hours too. Oh, and she took all these photos as well. THANK YOU, ALLISON!

This is not a cupcake porn page.

Or is it?

Stay tuned for the cupcake HOW TO in the next posting…

Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Cucumber/cream cheese sandwiches.

G hauling 3 of the cutest kids in the world around

Andrew & Grampa

Little Sylvie just turned 1 a couple of weeks prior. Happy Bday!

Aston mastered rings and now bowling.

Ava goes vertical!

The place is lousy with babies!

Thomas, Bella & Root Beer. Root Beer, you are NOT a gentleman.

Thanks for the idea, Charlotte!

Coffee filters + paint + a pipe cleaner = a butterfly!

"First you do this, and then you do that. Is anyone listening??"

"Where'd everyone go?"

Maddie did hers one-handed.

Aston, don't leave your cupcake here!

We absolutely LOVED having family there! We loved seeing friends at the party – friends we don’t get to see very often due to busy schedules and that pesky little thing called “work.” And I love baking and planning. But because of all the things I had to leave till the last minute…I was exhausted by the time the party started!

With Rebecca.

By the time this photo was taken I was too tired to get back up & light the candles on the cake.

The words of my mother in law rang in my head, “I always hated birthday parties.”

Next year G and I will be taking the girls to this place. They recently got a beer/wine license. Phew!

We came home and sat around watching football. (Not me, I wasn’t watching football.) Maddie loves having family around. And so do we.

Patsy, don’t blame Andrew for this:

And thanks to Allison, we got a family shot!

I have crazy eyes here.

Later that night, after a yummy dinner with margs at Gilbert’s, we finally cut the cake! This is an excellent triple layer chocolate cake that I made last fall. This time it was DRY. And I ran out of time to decorate it. But it was the candle ritual that mattered!

The next day we headed to the Natural History Museum.

Andrew & Allison had to leave soon so we finally opened presents. Ready….set…

GO!

I thought I’d never finish this posting & I hope you didn’t think you’d never stop reading it! Happy birthday to both our sweet girls!!