Happy Birthday, Riley!

Riley is 2!

Last Sunday was her birthday.  We had a fantastic day celebrating as a family.

We started with opening gifts pretty much immediately after Riley woke up.  She didn't even notice them on the table, but her brother was vibrating with excitement in anticipation of her opening them!

 

I had seen a recipe for cake batter pancakes on Pinterest a while ago, but I didn't want to use boxed cake mix (or any cake, actually!) for breakfast so tweaked the idea and used my standard pancake recipe (thanks, Mom!) and made a maple glaze with sprinkles to make it special.  Riley fund it a bit too sweet and requested plain pancakes after the first one, but her brother happily gobbled up as much glaze as he could get!

We had a Groupon to use up for Hermann Park that included a ride on the train (we had been on it once with my parents in July), a half an hour in a paddle boat, and ice cream, so that's where we spent the morning and early afternoon.

 
In the afternoon, Riley took her new bike (thanks, Grandma and Papa!) out for a spin.  She loved it and did really well!  I can't wait til she gets the hang of it and starts to really glide around.

It was really hot out and Roy was watering his freshly mowed lawn, so the kids decided to cool themselves off before heading in for dinner.

And after dinner, it was time for cake.  As you all know, I've become a little interested in obsessed with cake decorating lately, so I was excited for another opportunity to bake and decorate a cake.  I had seen this ruffle cake on Pinterest a while ago and when I read that the Martha Stewart Swiss Meringue Buttercream wasn't as sweet as most traditional buttercreams, I was very eager to give it a shot.  If you've never tasted this, please do yourself a favor and do so.  It is really, really good.  I will be making this one all the time now.  Although, I need to figure out the balance between having it room temp for optimal taste yet still maintain the piped shape.  The cake itself was our favorite yellow birthday cake.  And in between the layers was a caramel pastry cream.  I'd love to tell you that the pastry cream was simple to make, but for me, it was not.  It took THREE attempts, and I still didn't get it as caramel-ish as I wanted.  The flavor did develop over time, but it wasn't quite what I wanted it to be.  Didn't stop my and kids from eating it alongside the cake and with a spoon though!

Riley was pretty excited when she saw the cake!

So was Leighton!

And after she blew out the candles, she wanted to taste the cake.  Like the whole cake.  Before her piece was cut.  We let her.  It was her birthday after all!

We then moved into the more civilized way of eating cake.

It got a (pink) thumbs up from the brother.

And how did it get on their elbows?  Please explain it to me if you can figure out how my children can get so much food on themselves.  Now do you see why we take off clothes at meals times (The kids.  Not us!).

It was a wonderful day!

And it's been a wonderful 2 years.

She used to look like this!

This week, I've been thinking a lot about how much she has changed and developed and grown so much over the past month .  All signs of 'baby' are vanishing as she enters that stage between baby/toddler and preschooler/kid and embraces the terrible twos!  Let me tell you about this girl of mine.

This girl is fiercely independent ...
She wants to carry her plate/bowl/cutlery to her table herself.  And then put it in the sink when she's done.  She wants to carry her water in her own bag when we go out.  She wants to climb into the car and her carseat herself (like her brother, of course).  She wants to put on and take off her own shoes and clothes.  And to choose them herself, which I am (slowly) trying to learn to accept!

This girl is incredibly loving ...
She will tell us that she loves us.  She gives the biggest, hardest hugs.  She runs to her big brother when we get him from school to kiss and hug him and tell him something about her day.  She even kisses the mannequin dog at Old Navy!

This girl is very polite ...
She says thank you for everything to everyone.  She says please a lot, too.  She will say, "excuse me" if she needs to get past.  And she's very good about saying she's sorry after she's hurt you or taken you things away!

This girl is constantly curious ...
She wants to "look, look" at everything.  She wants to talk about colors (and is getting much more accurate!).  She likes to count (although she seems to think you start at two instead of one!) how many of something she is seeing or eating.  She asks the Dr where the nose is on the quick happy face (eyes and smile only) he drew her on a tongue depressor.  She likes to watch everything from the trucks on the street working to the ants on the ground scurrying about.  Until she stomps on them, that is!

This girl is always noisy ...
She is now putting together 3 and 4 word phrases and gives a running commentary of what she is doing (You can picture her opening the cupboard door under the sink for the recycling by mistake and then opening the one for the garbage as she says this: "Baby do it.  Baby put in garbage.  Uh oh.  Other one door.  Tada!  Yay!").  She is starting to sing along with the songs in the car (and is making demands about what ones we do and don't listen to!).  She yells and cries and shrieks and screams when she doesn't get her way.  And she giggles and laughs with her brother when they are having too much fun to notice they haven't fought over something in the last 10 minutes!

This girl is increasingly stubborn ...
I don't think this one needs any explanation or examples.  She's 2.  (And my daughter!).  Enough said.  Right?!