Happy Birthday, Anna!

I know I have tons of catching up to do on the blog, but at my mom's request for pictures from Anna's birthday, I'm just going to do that first. :)  Anna turned 2 on Thursday!  Her birthday party was so much fun!  I had planned to keep her party super simple...but then I got this magical idea to do a Candyland themed party (Anna loves the game) and couldn't get it out of my head.  So I just decided to go for it. Luckily, my mother-in-law flew in on New Year's Eve and jumped right in to help with all the food and decorating.

Anna woke up at about 6:30 a.m. on her birthday...not because she was excited for her birthday, just because she does that sometimes.  So with staying up until midnight the night before, it made for a short night for Mom and Dad.  After trying to get her to go back to sleep for an hour, we gave up and got up with her.  I made her blueberry pancakes, which are one of her favorites.  I tried to make a Mickey Mouse silhouette, but it didn't turn out so well.  But we decorated it with a whipped cream "A" and sprinkles, so she loved it anyway. :)

We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon cooking food and decorating for her party.  Everything was actually really easy and cheap to do...colored paper squares for the "gameboard" and tissue-wrapped paper plates for giant candies made simple decorations.  (At least it was simple in theory.  Unfortunately, the tape didn't stick to the wall very well, and since we decided to do that first thing, we spent the rest of the day re-taping them because they kept falling off the wall, haha).

Karry re-taping right before the party

"Quick, take a picture before they fall down again!"

But the thing I was proudest of was the food table. We made cupcakes and frosted them different colors to make the game board "squares."  Then we frosted a few pink ones to mark the different destinations of Candyland.  I found a bunch of pictures from the board game on google and made simple labels for all the food.  We had the "Peppermint Forrest", "Lollypop Woods", and "Chocolate Swamp" (all using leftover Christmas candy).  Then we had "Plumpy's Fruit Salad," "Rainbow Pass-ta Salad," "Gramma Nut's Trail Mix," "Lord Licorice Wands," and of course, "King Kandy's Castle Cake."  Oh and we made sherbet punch for "Queen Frostine's Ice Cream Sea."  It turned out so cute!

Karry did an amazing job on the castle cake!

We had a crowd of over 30 family members and friends, and Anna received quite the load of gifts.  It was so much fun to watch her open her presents.  Her reaction was, "Whoa!" or "Wow" or "Oooh!" for everything.

Opening gifts

Blowing out candles

She also had a blast eating the tower off of her castle cake.

Happy birthday, Anna!