Evelyn's 2nd Birthday - Forest Friends

I haven't blogged in a long time, mostly due to computer problems, but also sheer laziness. I couldn't get photobucket to upload my pictures for well over a month now, but I finally decided today that enough was enough, and I just buckled down and fought with it until I finally figured it out. So I am back in business!

Yesterday was Evelyn's 2nd birthday, and the day before that we held a small birthday party for her at home. I was pretty burnt out from the big bash we had planned for Hannon and Laina, so I decided this one was going to be a small and simple party, and I stuck to a $200 budget. Most of the budget went to the goody bags, which I sewed a custom outfit for each of the 13 girls who were invited. I used this as sort of an opportunity to find out whether I enjoy making things on a larger scale (as opposed to one of each item, just for my kids), and I made sewed and embroidered the outfits over the span of 1 week. It was a bit exhausting, but fun, and it definitely gave me a chance to fiddle around and try things out with my embroidery machine that my family got me for my birthday in July.

I also made two different kinds of cupcakes and a small cake which was decorated with an adorable family of fondant owls made by the talented-in-so-many-ways Miss Tamiko (Laina's dance teacher). So here are some pictures and thank you to everyone who made her birthday so special! It is hard for Adam and I to believe that we have survived 2 years of parenting little miss Evelyn; master of chaos and destruction.

She REALLY enjoyed opening her presents and being the center of attention... I loved the way she gasped and held up whatever she had just opened, she was so thrilled with everything!

I had to take a picture of this one... my good friend Kelli hunted down my favourite outfit from my favourite Gymboree line ever for Evelyn's birthday! I was so excited to see it and I can't wait for her to wear it! It is from the Imaginary Friends line which was released in 2006. I have a picture of Laina wearing this outfit when she was 3 or 4 years old, brings back lots of memories! So thank you Kelli! It was a very thoughtful and much appreciated gift!

And this was how happy she was with all of the presents and attention:

Modelling some curly ribbons that were adorning her presents:

And now that I uploaded this picture into photobucket, I can see I did a horrible edit on this next one. It was pretty badly blown out before I edited, so apologies for the bad quality, but here is some of the girls wearing their outfits!

And that is it for now! I am hoping to get a little bit caught up on here with summer pictures so you may see more from me yet tonight!