Birthday Kids

At the end of March we had two birthdays to celebrate.  Anton turned five and Isabel reached the one year mark.  I decided to get fancy with their cakes.  (I know this is nothing compared to what some people do for cakes, but this is about as much as I do.)  Linden baked the cakes and I did the decorating/frosting.  It was a very delicious yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  The recipe Linden found for the yellow cake called for 8 egg yolks!!

The festivities consisted of a special day for Isabel and another one for Anton doing what they wanted to do, and letting them know how special they are for our family.  And then of course, we had the party with Grandma and Grandpa Butler and family and another with Grandma Nielsen and family.

Our little darling on her first birthday.  Sitting, no walking or crawling.  However she had a really mean army swim (yip, swim not army crawl) that would get her anywhere her little heart desired very QUICKLY.  She is now almost walking and crawls everywhere.  I miss that army swim.

Showing off how old she was.  She would be so excited that she would dance around, hence the blury picture.

Uncle Josh had to help Anton unwrap his gift from he and Maria.  He had taped down EVERYTHING! Anton couldn't find a loose end anywhere to start ripping.  Good job, Josh.  When Anton got it opened he was super excited.  He got a hotwheels race car track.  He loves IT!

As most 1 year olds, Isabel was more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts.

We always have to strip down the babies on their first birthdays to facilitate clean-up of the cake eating. Isabel loved her cake. I will hopefully be posting a video of her devouring her cake - if it decides to work. Here she decided to give us the thumbs up she was so excited to see her very own cake!

Anton blowing out his candles.

Anton thought he needed to eat his cake like Isabel was eating hers - without his shirt on and without a fork/spoon.  However, our clean freak also decided that he didn't want to get his hands dirty.  So, he ate his cake very carefully with just his mouth, making sure to not get his face dirty, either.

The devouring of the cake.  She LOVED it!

The next weekend, after Grandma Nielsen was back in town, we got to do the same thing again.  It is great to have Grandparents close enough to share in these special occasions.

The second go-round of cake eating, Isabel had it down.  She knew what to do to get the most amount of cake and frosting into her mouth.