Birthday part 1

Gemma had a grumpy day yesterday and this morning; 6 hours of traveling will do that to anyone, not to mention the new sniffles brought on by the fresh mountain air. Fortunately with the help of a long nap and some Dimetapp, Gemma had a wonderful birthday party tonight. It was our friend Thanksgiving dinner at Ali and Nick's, so we carefully balanced the cake in the stroller and filled a backpack with her gifts, and trucked over there. After a delicious turkey dinner she listened to us sing to her Happy Birthday, then blew out the candles. She was very excited about that. Then she proclaimed her age (THREE!!!! ha ha) we began opening gifts. At first she wanted to play with everything, but soon caught on to the concept of more, and kept on going excitedly. I told her we would play with the new toys when we got home, so as soon as she was done she picked up the bag of gifts and said, "Go home!!!" We tried bunch of the new toys and started watching one of the new movies before finally venturing home. She walked all the way home from Nali's place, ran actually, and I was so proud of her. She went to bed easily; so pooped, but is sleeping a bit restlessly due to a scratchy throat and cough.

The cake was a miracle; for something that the magazine said I would assemble in minutes it was almost a disaster! First of all, I used a mix, and so it was really light and fluffy and crumbly: not so easy to cut into different shapes and frost. The edges were just falling away under my knife no matter how gentle I went. Of course, if I would have done this ahead of time (doh) and frozen it I understand that this would have gone a lot easier. Thankfully when the cookie crumbs came down (it was sandcastle cake) it looked ok. Chris helped with the ice cream cone towers, we added some cookies around it and some rock candy, and TA DA! Not as bad as it started out. Gemma loved it, and it was edible. Both important factors.

There are tonnes of pictures; Chris will get them up soon.

Next party is Monday. 4-5pm. Short and sweet, then everyone goes home for their own dinner. This one is for Gemma's friends, so there will be lots of toddlers, etc.. Will video and take pictures. And soon the b-day ones from today we'll be up.