Birthday in Review

i think the 3rd birthday was a success. annie got cake, got some pretty cool toys and got to have steak for dinner. can't beat that. we put her steak in front of her and she says "i love this meat!" she's a johnston. she even likes it RARE. aw yeah. course, it's not like she has a choice there.

so wednesday night we got together at the cooper house to have a little impromptu birthday celebration for annie since the gang (including mama lola and papa jack) were all leaving bright and early thursday morning for jamaica. we had pizza and cake and annie received the first installment of her presents. she got her first tricycle and she got most of a kitchen set - what more could a girl ask for? maybe:

or:


or maybe:

or there's always:

she did alright.

i swear yesterday morning when we went to get the kitchen put together, i was having just as much fun playing with it as she was. it has a working clock! the fridge came with magnets! it's just really cool. we have already made many gourmet dishes. she even knows to use her potholders when taking things out of the oven. i mean, come on. girl is smart. and observant. even jasper was doing a great job as "tastetester". he thought it all tasted pretty good.

yesterday we - as i said - played with the kitchen, played with the new dora playdoh (thank you aunt shally), went to the library and got a couple of books, took a nap, baked her cake, played some more, had steak, had cake and opened more presents. all in all a very good day.

i know you won't believe me, but i actually made this. or maybe you will believe me, because if you look closely you will see the construction is not that great. i was pretty proud of myself though - it was my first foray into fondant. that stuff is weird. i don't like it. i will probably never use it ever again. i don't know how those ace of cakes people do it. but, it worked out well enough that annie thought it was pretty awesome, and that was all i cared about. addison took this picture so i could "prove" that there was really a cake under there and i didn't just buy some weird cinderella doll with a gigantic rubber-looking dress. don't you just love to see those feet sticking out the bottom? mmmmm.