Celebrating

We were only able to have a smaller party for Carys' birthday, which I actually realized may be the best way to do it anyway! I was still able to decorate the way I wanted and try to bring out my inner Martha Stewart...or something like that. I decided to do a Ni-hao Kai-lan theme since I liked her colors better than Dora's :).

I'm also incredibly blessed to have close family friends that are also brilliant photographers. Thanks Andi and Ana, you guys are so very talented!

(the collage above and the next two pics are Andi's and the rest are by Ana)

this water hose was probably the kids' favorite part of the day

Fresh and Easy has peonies on sale...how serendipitous!

yeah, yeah, sing the birthday song...just gimme my cupcake already!

Grandma Sue gave her this vintage style chair with her name on it, it was a big hit.

I love how the homemade banners turned out....

I had to include a shot with the cupcakes and chocolate-dipped fortune cookies, I was especially proud of those!
I wasn't particularly proud of how the cake looked. I was going to try and do an icing version of Kai-lan's face, but who was I kidding? But I was proud of how it tasted...delicious! Thanks to Amanda's birthday cake and frosting recipe you can check out here.