And so we finally celebrated Molly's birthday!

A little happy birthday hug between sissies. Molly is sitting on Frankie's lap and they embraced for about five minutes, with Frankie rubbing and patting her back. Could there be anything cuter? Maybe kittens cavorting on clouds surrounded by naked babies encircled by rainbows. But maybe not.

So proud to be two. Please do not tell her that she has been two for nearly a month.


There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the loss of the purple flower balloon when Frankie asked to take it outside to "fly it like a kite." Despite my dire warnings that no good could come of that plan, no more than could have come of her plan to play water balloons in her bathing suit on the porch in the snow the other day, she chose to forge ahead.
Not with the bathing suit plan, but with the balloon-as-kite plan. I know I celebrate my child's birthday a month late, but my bad mothering doesn't extend to frostbite.


It looks like she is blowing out candles, but I guess my mothering is subpar because I don't think we every actually remembered to put in candles.

First glimpse of the coveted Jay Jay the Jet Plane birthday cake.

Does anything say party like some hanging flowers made of colored lunch bags? I think not, people.

Opa reads his favorite Richard Scarry book to the birthday girl.

Jay Jay, mostly crafted by my husband. I love that Dean gets just as enthusiastic about our insanely labor-intensive cake-making tradition as I do.

It was actually a triple threat birthday party: Molly, Dean and my father. Dean, despite having made the Jay Jay cake, would not deign to actually eat a piece of it. Oh, no. Only Ryke's buttercream for those discerning 42-year-old taste buds.