Birthday makings

   
Nils turned two back in January. There is so much I could say about it vis-a-vis what an amazing little kid he is, how much he has made our lives better, how much we have learned from / because of him, etc. I would love to write about all this at length, but the reality is that tomorrow is the official due date for Nils's little sister and I don't have it in me to string too many thoughts together. 

Much simpler: photos! Of things I made for him! (For his birthday!) First up: the Giggi cake (pronunciation key: two hard Gs) Giggi is Nils's absolute favorite toy. He came up with the name himself - we have no idea where it came from - and Giggi comes with us almost everywhere we go. Giggi even made it into our family pictures this year:

Nils's birthday fell on a Monday this year, and since we weren't doing an actual party that day I wanted to make a little cake for just the three of us. He's such a little person now, with favorite things and quirky little interests; I really wanted the cake to be something that he would get excited about. What could possibly be more exciting than his best friend?

I was really proud of myself here. The fur and the muzzle are just slightly different shades. Ah, nuance. Just what you want in a homemade birthday cake.

Also part of our at-home birthday festivities: the birthday banner I made for him last year. I have grand visions of making this banner a part of every birthday (for both kiddos). They won't pay too much attention to it, but someday way down the line they'll stumble across it in a storage box and get hit with a wave of nostalgia.

The banner will easily bestow birthday blessings on the new babe, too. Each letter is its own little piece. Couldn't be easier to swap out N-I-L-S for X-Y-Z.

Lastly, a quick shot of the birthday cake I made for Nils's joint birthday party with one of his best buddies. Both little guys love taxis, so this was a no brainer.

The taxi cake was not my best work, but people at the party were so taken aback that someone actually MADE a cake that no one seemed to mind the slightly sloppy work. And Nils and his buddy were both excited. "Taxi!" - that's a direct quote.

While I'm at it, my best work. It's the cake I made last year for Nils's first birthday. A robot cake, back when we still had to guess what sorts of things he might be into. (Oliver's still hoping he'll turn out to be an engineer)