Photo by Bella

The first snow of the year!

Snow before thanksgiving. Oh boy, we have a serious winter ahead of us.

Bella's 3rd Birthday Party (a little late)

I must admit I had a lot of fun putting together Bella's ballerina birthday party. I made a couple tutu's and dancing wands with ribbons. Ordered the cutest pinata from Mommy Do on Etsy. I asked a couple close friends and family to help me out and bring some side dishes and bought you bake pizzas to save some money. My goal was to keep it as simple as possible... except for the cupcakes. Early to mid summer Bella started talking about wanting a strawberry birthday cake. I used my mama magic and convinced her cupcakes would work too. I am not so sure about my cake decorating skills mostly because I've never tried. I am kind of proud of how these cupcakes turned out so here is my cupcake tangent: I knew finding good strawberries in October was going to be a stretch so I froze some of the most delicious in season local strawberries over the summer. Not only were they sweet but they were also bright red. I used this recipe and absolutely no artificial anything. David started teasing me because I was so excited about the sprinkles I found that were colored with beet juice and the jelly beans colored with fruit juice that I guess it might have been mentioned to, well, everyone. Ok, now for the good stuff, photos taken by Faustino. He was paid in cupcakes.







And... my little baby girl is three! I have really cherished these last couple of months. She is growing in so many different ways. Her interests expand every day from different relationships and how they relate to her to the changing weather. I love that she can tear all the cushions off the couch and jump until she's sick or sit and color for an hour. Either way she is perfectly happy as long as she is doing something.

Autumn at the park