Annika turns 2

I can not believe our little baby is two years old already! I will write more about her later, but for now, here is a quick rundown of the fun day we spent celebrating our sweet Annika.

I decided to give Annika her very first pedicure in the morning to celebrate being such a big girl. It was so fun and she loved it and all the special attention.

For Annika's cake we decided to do fresh raspberry pie - our bushes produced ridiculous quantities of berries this year so it seemed like a great way to use them up. Plus Annika loves raspberries, so it was fitting. To decorate, I bought a little doll & gave it a hair cut to make it look more like Annika. (This "toddler" doll had hair to her feet. Seriously?)

Annika's party this year was just family members and we had a BBQ at our house. I felt bad not inviting any little friends for her (actually I invited one who couldn't make it) but its such a full house with our entire family, so I decided to wait till next year for her first real "friends" party.

I made grilled pizzas and for some reason thought that sounded simple enough. I sort of misjudged on that bit, making pizzas for 12 people on the grill was a lot of work. But it was fun too and I had lots of help from everybody (especially papa ken). Annika actually doesn't like pizza all that much, but these days there isn't a lot that she loves that constitutes a true "meal". So we went with pizza.

After dinner, we opened gifts. Saben had picked out a special small jewelery box with some rings in it and then wrapped it carefully in a piece of paper which he colored himself. He was very excited and insisted on her opening it first. So sweet.

Annika loves animals, so I put a cat & dog on the pie to go with the "annika" doll. While I was cutting her a slice of pie, Annika managed to eat 1/2 of a candle. I thought she was licking off the whip cream....

I was in the kitchen cleaning up with Kyle and when we walked back out into the living room, we found the kids eating the remaining whip cream while the rest of the family watched and my mom & grandma took pictures. So much for letting grandparents supervise the kids!