C is for Cookie - long overdue post

I have had this sitting in the 'draft' for a while now and just needed to format and post some pictures. So here it is, our little Princesses birthday!

The theme for Gigi's birthday was Cookie Monster. One of her favourite songs is "C is for Cookie" and she belts it out. It is so cute! She also loves the Cookie Monster Alphabet DVD that we bought and will sing the Alphabet along with Cookie.

I thought I would share a few things that we did for her party, and there were definitely a few things that I would have done differently. Oh well, live and learn.

I made two different types of Cookie Monster cupcakes due to allergies. Genesis is allergic to eggs and I thought it would be challenging to come up with a cake that had no eggs. I almost went out and bought an ice-cream cake. However my friend found this chocolate cake recipe that did not have eggs. I was a little nervous, as most chocolate cakes I have made by scratch are dry, but these turned out amazing! I will share the recipe.

I made 12 eggless chocolate cupcakes and used Oreo's (they don't have eggs in them either) and then I made 12 white cupcakes and used Chips Ahoy cookies. I used buttercream icing and blue gel to make it blue. I also bought the bulk, long unsweetened coconut and used the food gel on it as well to dye it blue. The coconut with the buttercream was really nice! For the eyes I bought white chocolate 'circles' and black icing for the pupils. I had to experiment with the cupcakes to find the best technique. I actually cut a slit in the cupcakes for the cookie, stuck the cookie in and then iced around it. It seemed to work the best.

For the gift bags I found the brown paper gift bags at the dollar store. I made labels that read:

Genesis's birthday is brought to you by the letter G and the number 2. Thanks for celebrating with us (found this on a website).

I also bought bubbles for the gift bags and put new labels on them that read "B is for Bubbles". I re-did all of the water bottle labels as well. They read, "W is for Water, as refreshing as can be."

I made cookies and had the kids decorate cookies when they arrived. I also gave Cookie cutters in their goodie bags and I wanted to do 'cookies in a jar' for each guest, but I ran out of time and ended up loading them up with pre-packaged cookies and candy (something I would have changed).

We found a Cookie Monster pull-string pinata at Bulk Barn on sale. I also filled a jar of cookies and had all of the adults and older kids make their guess. At the end the closest guess took home the jar of cookies.

We ended up having the party inside, rather than outside at the park. It was a little cramped, but we survived. It would have been much easier outside! I know that Genesis had a great time and was so excited for her Cookie Monster birthday and that made everything so worth while. I will admit that I had fun doing the different things and making the cupcakes as well, even though it was pretty time consuming. I am on the look-out for ideas for Zech's birthday now! :o)

Here are a few photos:



Recipe:

Chocolate Snacking Cake

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

3 tbsp cocoa

1 tsp each baking powder and baking soda

½ tsp salt

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tbsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup warm water

· In mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients; mix thoroughly.

· Add liquid ingredients

· Stir with whisk until blended

· Pour into lightly greased 8 inch square cake pan

· Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes or until tester comes out clean

Happy Birthday to my Princess

Dear Genesis,

We can not believe that our baby girl is two! Where does the time fly and with you it seemed to just fly by so fast. You are little Ms. Independent now and want to do everything that your brother does and more. You are just as active as he was and still is, but you throw caution to the wind and have this fearless personality. Jump down the stairs, why not! Throw yourself off the couch as a game, head first, is loads of fun. Climb shelves, ladders, you name it, all we have to do is turn our head for a second and you can be found climbing the shelves in stores.

I really want to keep up this tradition of writing you a letter on your birthday to ensure you always know what a blessed day this is and how much we truly do celebrate your 'birth' day. You are so special and such a beautiful gift from God. We are extremely blessed to have you in our lives and we feel honoured that the good Lord chose us to be your parents. We are humbled and extremely aware of the huge responsibility that brings and we know that we are going to make mistakes (a lot) but we really need you to know that you are so incredibly loved and not just by us, but by Jesus most of all. That seems to be our family 'saying', as every night we tell you that we love you and that Jesus loves you so much more. Your brother and you will now finish that statement before we even get the words out of our mouth.

You are definitely our princess and love to dress up, wear pwitties (pretties) in your hair. Daddy is the first person you run and show how beautiful you look and of course he whistles, twirls you and makes such a big deal as to how beautiful you are. You get upset now if he doesn't notice! You are also known as our 'warrior' princess. One minute you will be in your dress up princess outfits, and the next you are wielding a light saber, sword or Storm troopers mask. You like to 'wrestle' with Daddy and Zech and are really not afraid to literally jump in on all of the action.

You have a sensitive, sweet personality. You get concerned when someone you love is hurt and try and comfort them. It is so sweet to watch you 'kiss' the owies better, rub our backs and ask us if 'you ok'. You love your brother 'Riah' so much and get very protective over him. In fact we get scolded by you, when we get after him sometimes. You have even scolded some of the 'bigger' kids if you thought that they were not being nice to him. You really don't like getting in trouble and know when you have done something you shouldn't have. You even tell me when i get home from work whether or not you had 'time outs'. Not to say that it stops you from disobeying us! :o)

Singing and dancing is a passion of yours and has been for a while now. You love to make up your own songs and you love to sing songs with mommy. C is for Cookie has been a favourite and recently the B-I-B-L-E is another favourite. The Alphabet is another one that you seem to be able to sing if your big brother sings with you. You are so proud of yourself and clap for yourself once you have finished. We love that you feel comfortable and confident to do the things you love in front of us and we hope that never changes.

You are also obsessed with your babies and the baby in Mommy's tummy! I know that you are going to be an incredible big sister and an amazing help to Mommy! Your favourite thing to do lately is to grab my belly and rock it, singing rock a bye baby! So sweet!

The words, phrases and things you say recently never cease to amaze us. We often wonder where on earth you heard that sentence. You are a chatter box and have to keep up with your brother, but seem to have no problems doing that. We love hearing you tell us that you love us, we love hearing you pray and recite memory verses. You won't let us forget to say grace and now say it yourself. You seem to have no problems expressing yourself and telling us exactly what you want. You have this stubbourn tenacity, which we love but also hate sometimes. I hope that we can teach you how to properly use it, as it is a gift from God to be used in the right context!

There is so much that I can say about you and the beautiful little girl you are and are becoming. Happy two years our princess! We love you and cherish you more than words could ever express!

Love
Mommy & Daddy

First Words

This little one is working on those first words and animal sounds! :o) She is sooo obsessed with animals and books lately!

The Dress

My Grandma crocheted this dress for my Mom and I think a matching one for my Aunty Elaine (correct me if I am wrong Aunty Elaine). It was then passed down to their cousin Shirley, who I believed also passed it on to her daughter Heidi. I would love to get pictures of all of the family members who it was passed down to, wearing it.

A few months ago, Mom brought this beautiful pink box with this very same dress inside of it. It was sent to her by I believe Shirley and now she passed it on to me for Genesis to wear. I LOVE, LOVE, love items like this. The history, the time and care it took to make this dress and then for it to be passed on to so many people over almost 60 years---so incredible! I hope to keep 'the dress' going down the family line!

On Gigi's first birthday, I pulled it out and put it on her. It is a little too big for her. As she was walking her toe got caught in the bottom part of the dress. She was a little upset about that, however once I put her in front of her new tea set, she was fine. I hope that once she grows into it, I can take her outside and get some nice pictures of her in it. Also, I have been having a hard time trying to figure out what to put under it. I just put a tank top that is two sizes too big for her. It covered her diaper and everything, but ideally I would need a slip. Now about 60 years ago that would have been easy to find, but where on earth would I get a slip for a one year old??!

Happy Birthday my little Princess

I have always wanted to write my kids a letter and think that I need to start this tradition for their birthdays. So here it goes, hopefully my letter writing will improve over time too! ;o)

Dear Genesis,

There are so many things that I want to say to you and that I never want you to forget, so hopefully by making an annual letter to you, you will know how much you are loved, cherished and such blessing in our lives.

Your name means 'the beginning' and it holds such a significant place in our hearts, not only for you, but for our family as a whole. We pray each and everyday that you will be the beginning of some pretty profound changes within our family. We will do everything to ensure that you know that you are God's princess, and how much he loves you and desires to have a personal relationship with you. We will do everything to love, support, encourage and uplift you.

I want to be an example of a godly woman of faith to you and I desire to be a mentor to you, but I will warn you, I am not sure how exactly to do this and I am going to make mistakes. I will ask for forgiveness often and I will need a lot of grace and mercy from God (and you) to be this example in your life.

I can not believe that you are one! Where did this year go? You have grown so fast. We have enjoyed watching your many milestones and your sweet little personality develop. There have been countless nights where we have went to bed and shared all of the funny, amazing things you did that absolutely melted our hearts.

You have such a maternal instinct and really love your babies and real babies too! You get so upset if your big brother is upset and if you hear another baby upset. Our little cuddle-bug as we affectionately call you is suiting. You love to give hugs and lots of kisses and we love receiving them, even your big brother!

I thought that little girls were supposed to be 'less active' than boys. While you were an amazing baby, super content, smiley and easygoing, you are still one active little girl. I guess the fact that you have a really active big brother to keep up with, doesn't help. You are our monkey, you climb things that I never thought you could or would, and I find you in some pretty obscure places. You have places to go and it shows as you were rolling around at 3 months, crawling at 6 and walking at 11 months. I was hoping that you would really take your time!

You are also one strong minded little girl and while we knew to expect that having some incredibly strong minded genes run in the family, I will do everything to nurture that strength and teach you how to use it wisely (something that I am still working on, but have really come a long way with).

We nicknamed you the vacuum right when you were born. You impressed so many by how fast and furiously you could suck back a bottle. Then you really became our vacuum and any piece of lint, dust, fluff, whatever, you would find on the floor went into your mouth. I would have to check you constantly and it was almost like checking the lint trap on the dryer. You did give us a pretty good scare though when you decided to suck back a 'sticker'. That was one of the scariest moments of my life. It is also at times like those that I am reminded what a precious gift you are. I have always known that and will always know that, but sometimes we take things for granted and need a little reminder. However, this does not grant you permission to have any more scary, life threatening experiences or you will give us a heart attack (especially your Daddy)!

Genesis Faith, I love you more than words can say, more than my letters will ever be able to express. I am so blessed to have you in my life. You are so loved and cherished and please do not ever forget that.

Our prayer for you our little one is this verse: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

This was your Mommy and Daddy's wedding verse and has become a family verse for us now too. With God, there are endless possibilities and He will be the head of our family always!

Love always,
Mommy