Lydia's Birthday Celebrations

We celebrated Lydia's birthday just with our little family on Wednesday (the sixth) but then we invited more family members over on Saturday to help us celebrate again. David took the day off on her actual birthday and we had a fabulous day doing fun things for Lydia - including a trip to the aquarium, panda cupcakes, and lots of quality family time. Easily, Lydia's favorite part was the "climbing thing" at the Aquarium. She love-love-loved it. If memberships to the Aquarium weren't so expensive, i'd seriously consider getting one just to be able to go to the climbing/playground they have there. 

 

(She was asleep within minutes of buckling her in the carseat.) 

The Saturday birthday celebrations were fairly simple, but the one thing that she had requested was a "Panda cake". I initially had lofty plans of making the entire thing out of fondant, but opted for a less-complex route. I used buttercream icing to frost the cake, shiny sugar sprinkles around the outside edge, and store bought fondant to make the eyes/ears etc... I was pretty darn pleased with the way that it turned out. I knew that I didn't want to make two panda cakes, so, as I mentioned above, on her actual birthday I made a bunch of little panda cupcakes and then we served the extras of those on Saturday as well. 

(I really wanted a picture of her looking at me while sitting by her cake. Sigh. Maybe next year.) 

This little girl is incredibly blessed to have so many people who love her so much. She received many thoughtful gifts and was super excited about each and every one. Three is such a fun age for present opening.

One of the sweetest things that I want to remember is from my Grandma Walker, Lydia's Grandma-Great. I've posted a few times that my grandma isn't doing super great. She has struggled a lot with the movement in her hands, but even so - she wrote out a full birthday card for Lydia. She addressed it, filled out a birthday check, and wrote a very sweet message on the inside of the card. It's obvious that it was important to my Grandma that she wrote it herself and I was touched. 

Lydia was awesome at blowing out her candles, although one of them gave her a bit of trouble - it was absolutely darling. We loved celebrating the life of this happy little girl. 

Happy Birthday sweet Lydia. You are so special to us. We hope you loved your Panda-Sprinkle cake and that you had a wonderful day where you felt just how much you are loved.