The birthday photos (hopefully more spects later)

We had a great day celebrating the life of our favorite two year old. To save on time I have kept the photos in order of how I uploaded them, so they are backwards from end to start of the day. Here is a look at the princess's Birthday.Lounging with Dad after a big party. Great Grandma Ramona gave us this tent for Christmas. We set it up for the party and Anna was instantly in love. She will sit and read books, take care of her baby and color in here! It is great! Thanks Gram!

Anna and Audrey love to play together. We are so thankful for their cute little friendship. Anna did a great job of sharing her new toys (she even dubbed one of the dolls as "Audrey's"and still will refer to it as that!)

I don't know how this got flipped, but I am not going to fix it. Here are the cuties again.

I wish I caught a better photo, but Anna was BEYOND EXCITED about this doll house from Papa and JoJo! She LOVES it! Thank you so much you guys!

Getting it out.

The girls, Anna is my little buddy, it is so fun to spend each day with her. She is showing her princess power off and as you can see there is one caste tower standing (sort of).

The fam.

Daddy's little girl. They have the cutest relationship, it is so fun to watch them together. Daddy is getting introduced to the girlie world of princesses, dolls, baby's, tea parties, etc. and is coping quite well. He even surprised us with pink purple and yellow balloons for the party! Way to go!

"Princess!"

More playing

Some of our friends enjoying hanging out

"Ayin" and Sone" We are so lucky to live close to Dave's childhood best friend Alan and his cute wife Whitney. Anna love to play with Lincoln and Sloane and can actually pronounce Lincoln's L even if she say "y" for the rest of the names! She loves Alan and Whitney as well!

Waiting patiently for cake.

More tent action

Greeting some of the guests

Dunfords (Issac and Anna are about 8 months apart!)

As you can see the house was PACKED. I just wanted to invite Anna's favorite people and look who all came. Though it was crowded we had a great time. Dave and I feel so lucky to have such great, supportive friends (and cousins) here in Ann Arbor!

Chillin'

LOVED "birthday cake" and the party! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BIG GIRL!!!!

BEFORE THE PARTY...

Anna loves to eat sliced turkey and ham. In honor of her birthday we started using cookie cutters with it. Genius, I have to admit, you want your children to eat? Try it!

I think she ate THREE slices in one sitting, a record... and it doesn't hurt that it was fun!

IN THE MORNING...

We "worked," yes I could be arrested for child labor, okay not really, but Anna comes to work with me everyday and we get to play (aka Nanny) two other gorgeous girls. We have such a fun time together. Anna especially is lucky because she has "two homes" filled with toys, this girl should NEVER be bored! (: I tried to capture some of her favorite things, though I don't think I got very many... so perhaps I am giving myself more work and will make a blog post about her favorite things... who knows?!

Anna will not look at me when I pull out the camera. She knows how to smile for the camera, but gets "camera shy." This picture makes me laugh because I said, "Cheese" and this is what she did, kind of an angry cheese.

This is the face of a not so innocent two year old. I love it. She loves this "princess chair" and Eilidh and Fiona and her "have" to take turns!

Another excited angry face riding the pony. this pony sing, rocks, and rolls and yes i know the WHOLE song by heart. "such a pretty pony, clicky clack, clicky clack...."

Such a sweetheart. I think Anna has such a kind heart she is so loving (despite 2 year old tendencies). She is thoughtful and seems to have so much empathy for people in need. Especially those who are hurt and sad (even in books!) It is fun/ and will be fun to see how this plays out in her life.

This is to show off her outfit from Grandma and Grandpa, so cute! It has a yellow jacket to go with it which is perfect because Anna's favorite color is "yeyo- my favit"

Cousins and why Skype can be devastating....

.... especially when you end the phone call in tears. Yes, Anna loves her cousins SO much. We had a fun summer with them and even better Christmas break. Since the break Anna asks for them all the time and when we Skyped tonight she was DEVASTATED that we had to get off, tears were pouring out... of eventually 4 eyes (and I think a few more on the other end). We had to go to my sister's blog to get some relief. ( And I have to say as I type this I just sneezed down the stairs from her and I hear Anna in the monitor, "Bless you Mommy." Such a sweetie, I LOVE her!)

We love cousins. I wanted to do many posts after our summer in SLC, but it never happened, so in honor of out sadness tonight we are celebrating cousins with a bundle of photos since summer. There are a few cousins missing because either I am not allowed to post photos of them or don't have a photo. ):

Burton Cabin this Summer

Silly girls at Auntie's bridals

Hangin' with Chelsea, they became buds this summer hanging out most Mondays

Having fun in jammies at Snowbird

Oakley 4th of July parade

All the Storheim and Miner cousins

One of their favorite things to do!

Swimming (or snacking) with Lily "Niny," These two LOVE each other, I think they hung out in heaven together!

Our Monkey's at the zoo!

MORE Monkeys and a wonderful Auntie- where there are cousins you will probably find her!!

Cabin exploration

Hannah and Anna- they have a lot of the same looks,it is so cute.

"Emmy" and Anna

It doesn't look like it, but Anna was laughing so hard.

At Legoland right before I swept them out before the fountain turned on!

Waiting in line to see the Princesses at Disneyland.

Caitlynn is so loving towards kids, she has the sweetest heart.

Watching the Disney Parade with Daddys

Anna and Chelsea having a tea party on Christmas

Christmas Jammies, Anna still refers to these as Sydney and Cait jammies

Making Gingerbread houses on Christmas Eve.

Little Christmas Eve, the "younger girls" hung out while the older kids did the festivities.

I had to show this photo to explain the next. They kept running up the stairs into Grandma Vi's room and hiding in the corner, then they ran out holding hands.

So cute!

Anna looks up to Sydney, she just follows her around

THE Princesses

Princess Castle Cake

Okay, so I am obsessed with the Food Network and their food network cake challenges and other cake shows. I LOVE THEM!!! I wanted to get into cake making so Dave got me a cake book for Christmas with all the good stuff I would need to know. I set foot into my new goal for Anna's 2 year old birthday cake and here is what happened....

Many hours in front of the book, Internet, grocery store checkout, and this counter. I won't admit how many hours this cake took, but it was fun and worth it. I didn't take pictures of each step but here are a few.

Frosting the towers... this took SOOOO long, then trying to put fondant on them, now that is where I need a class!

Three of my four batches of fondant. Yes it was too much, but I didn't know what to expect and the 1st batch wasn't my favorite and I was worried how it would turn out. It actually is a lot easier to make than I thought and tastes delicious... just chew gum while you make it or else...

1st cake with fondant on it, I think it went pretty well!

Two cakes as the base it looked so plain, but beautiful. I should have done something simple like just cut some fondant flowers and keep it simple for my 1st cake. Then it would have looked like this...
I made this cake on her birthday just before the party, because I was worried that the Castle cake wasn't enough! Ha, let's just say we have a 1/2 cake on the counter and 1/2 of a cake in the freezer.

Here is the actual birthday cake... Drum roll....

Girly, girly, pink and pretty. There is an A (Anna is obsessed with "A for Anna") on the front that is a little hard to see.

The back of the cake. Just don't look to closely or the tower might fall on you. Actually they stayed well, it just didn't look perfect.

She LOVED her cake! Which made it all worth it.

Why many hours on a CAKE was worth it:

It was delicious.

The party attenders seemed to enjoy it.

It was fun and exciting to try something new.

Anna asked for some "birthday cake" for breakfast the next day.

Today (two days later) when talking about the cake she yelled, "Princess Castle" and then a minute later said, "nummy!!"

Oh how I love this little two year old! I will post more about her birthday, updates, etc. soon, but wanted to get this uploaded for those who asked for pictures.

1st Walk of the YEAR!

(I had to show our ensemble. Isn't my hat hilarious?

It keeps me warm though and so does my wonderful coat. )

Tonight I took Mia out for our first walk of 2010. Yes, it is the 14th and yes it is the first, no I am not THAT bad of a owner, I have a good excuse.

During the holidays we MISSED our pup, we left her in A2 in very good hands, but still felt bad for the cute thing. We came home excited to play and take her out on walks (yes, even in the cold, most nights I find it relaxing and my time to think and let Mia roam.). Though when we arrived at home we found a different story. She couldn't be taken on walks because I simply cannot ward off horny male dogs. Yes, that is right Mia has been in heat. Poor thing has been stuck to her bed at all times. ):

Though there are three great things that has come of this:

1) She is a bit more obedient

2) She seems to actually like her bed more- see photo below

3) We appreciate her even more.

Tonight we went out safely and passed two dogs (who knows what gender) and we made it back safe and sound.

I love this cute pup... (this is her as I type this)