Happy 2nd Birthday Lani!

Yes, this is truly me... Lusi's post gave me a little 'boost' to try and keep up a little... I did say 'try' so we'll see how we go...

Yesterday our little princess turned 2. Can you believe it? 2 years ago, we were racing to the hospital in the car, me in full transition mode... and then giving birth - while still in the car!

She arrived into this world in a spectacular way, and lives pretty much that way too. She's a full-on little bundle of energy - inquisitive, cheeky, often defiant, very talkative, active, and very adventurous.

She's learning to go to the toilet, and to recognise her colours, and to count to 10.

She loves playing with her babies - rocking them, patting them to sleep, wrapping them in blankets and giving them a bath. She got some new dolls clothes for her b'day, so no doubt now we'll be dressing and undressing them a lot too.

She loves to play outside, and is usually happiest jumping up and down on the trampoline, swinging high on the swings, kicking or rolling balls, riding bikes and climbing ladders and play equipment at kindy.

She talks a lot and is very confident.

*sigh* She's not a baby anymore.

We celebrated her birthday with a low-key family BBQ at home. Greg's parents are visiting at the moment, so it was a great opportunity just for the families to get together.

Lani got spoilt with lots of lovely presents, cards and a little money to spend too. Some of these included a Tigger and Pooh flip-out sofa, trike with pedals, wooden dolls house, In The Night Garden (her favourite!) books, plastic food for the kids kitchen, hand-made (by Nan) dolls clothes, a Tinkerbell fairy dress, and some gorgeous clothes.

Lani's favourite character is Upsy Daisy from In The Night Garden - she now takes both her Pink bear and Upsy Daisy to bed with her. And so it seemed the logical choice (but scary one) to try and make Lani an Upsy Diasy cake. I had previously looked at a few on the net, but didn't see many I really liked (and they all used ready-made icing for the whole thing which I didn't want to do)... so I sat down with my cake tins, the Upsy Daisy dolls, baking paper and scissors and designed it myself. It used 3 cakes - one round, one square and one bar cake, all cut into different parts of her body, but in all I think she looked pretty perfect!!

Only took me 3 hours too!! (not including baking the cake the day before - thanks Nan!)

Lani loved it though! And I even made a special little gluten-free cupcake for my sister who is a coeliac (sp?) - also Upsy Daisy of course.

We had a lovely busy day celebrating our Princess's special day... love you darling!!