Birthday Celebration

 On the eve of Belén's birth, we put her to bed and let Shae open his birthday presents from grandma and kuhn-ta. He loves this animal puzzle that they got him and was so excited to do it with them and then put his blankie over it and pretend he was walking on ice.

We started out the birthday with some Buttermilk Waffles courtesy of Darin. 

Dressed her up in one of the adorable outfits from Aunt Amelia and let her open her presents. 

Later in the evening she opened up this barn with animals from my parents which she (and Shae) love.

Playing with it the next day...(learning how to share in action)

 During the day we took a little trip to Ithaca Falls and then went to the downtown library just down the street from the falls.

Finally found some shoes to fit these chubby feet! She haaaaaated it when I put them on her. She glared at her feet for the first little while she had them on. Such a new experience for her to have something on her feet.

 Slipped off the rock...

...but kuhn-ta came to the rescue.

 Came home, took naps, read with grandma.

Watched tv with kuhn-ta (this was actually not on her bday, but I had to squeeze in this cute pic of them somewhere).

When Darin got home from school we ate one of Belén's favorite meals,  Minestrone Soup (from my observation anyways, she devours it whenever we eat it). Then it was cake time!

Shae chose the rainbow theme for her cake (he had actually chosen a rainbow cake theme for his cake, but then we started to look at car cakes and I convinced him otherwise. He seemed okay with it as long as Belén got a rainbow cake). I really wanted to experiment with making her her own little cake to play with. I used a big diced tomato can to bake the cake. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I was really pleased in the end. It was the perfect size.

Then Shae and I made a bigger one for the rest of us to eat. I bet you can figure out which marshmallow clouds Shae placed. (I made the same chocolate cake that I made for Shae's birthday but this time made this frosting which I LOVED. It wasn't too sweet and the consistency was perfect. Yes. It really was magic frosting. It was a bit time intensive, but I would totally make it again).

 The anticipation.

 She ate most of the fruit right off the top.

 "Take a picture of me and the cake too!"

Happy Happy Birthday Baby Girl.