celebrating two

My sweet twirlie girlie has journeyed twice around the sun. It may be my mama bias, but I think the sun has shone brighter the past two years.

So we ventured on a crisp cool morning to the Fairy Forest we love so much for a little brunch with friends.

(You know how I love to cook (cough cough) so we kept the food simple. Apples and pears and baked goat cheese and bread. Then a few quiches and that was it.)

(My favorite super thrift shop find. Not quite big enough to use as as table cloth so we hung it up.)

The fairy forest was having their fall festival which worked out perfectly. The kids were able to go hunt for hidden pumpkins and take a hay ride.

 (Cutest little fox ever! Super Jen's daughter A)

(Our fabulous neighbor M and Naia sweet little buddy E take a hay ride.)

I really felt strongly about trying as much as possible to have a trash-free celebration. Rather than paper plates, I went to Goodwill and got mismatched plates for 25 cents each. Cloth napkins from home and wood plates we got in Hawaii ages ago for the kids.

(There are loads of wooden variety utensils out there that are reusable and compostable.)

We used mason jars for drinks. For the kids I put in sippy cup lids (the Nuby ones fit the standard mason jar ring perfectly).  My dear hubby drilled some holes in the lids of wider ones (the whole time wonder why the heck he was doing this?) for a washer and straws, which were paper, our one "trash" item I think.  I cut up some old felted sweater sleeves I had laying around (why did I have those laying around again?) and made cup warmers so the hot cider would in theory stay a little warm. And yes, it just looked cute.

We had a funny thing happen about a month ago. Super Jen dropped off some made-from-scratch amazing chocolate cake. (Yeah, she just does things like that out of the blue. That's part of why she's SUPER!) It was on the salon table and Doug and I were having a deep, parental discussion about whether or not we should let Naia taste it. She'd never had sugar or chocolate and did we really want her...? Except our backs were turned on the salon table, and when I glanced over my shoulder Naia was squatting on the table with her face in the cake nom-noming away. Ok, I guess that solves that issue. So her birthday cake was her second cake experience. This time it was made by Whole Foods and decorated by Zach and me.

I know it's rather the trendy thing to wax poetic about my girl and how amazing she is and write her a love letter on a birthday blog post, but that's kind of not my style. That's the sort of thing I would rather whisper in her little ear at night or jot down in a sealed card to be opened by only her when she's older.

In this space I will just say Happy 2nd Birthday my little love. You are my sunshine!