Bluebonnets 2009

After living in Houston for over 8 years, we finally made it to see the Bluebonnets this year!

We made the short trek with Ross, Nicole and Olivia this morning, and we even went out to Lake Somerville for a picnic lunch since we were already halfway there. Granted, the bees had other plans, and we wound up eating our lunch by the lake IN OUR CARS. But it all just added to the experience.

We didn't pick a great time of day, so the shadows didn't really make for great pictures, but Anna didn't seem to care. She loved running around in the flowers and smelling them...

Olivia, who is quite a bit younger and a lot less mobile than Anna, was a lot more photogenic since she mostly stayed in one place. I'll have to remember to post my favorite of her later :)

We'll definitely do this again next year...just not in the afternoon sun!

Anna's Big Top Birthday Party

For more pictures of Anna's party, check out Anna's shutterfly site:

http://annagracefernandez.shutterfly.com/

Happy 2nd Birthday, Anna!

Because Anna had already celebrated her birthday at school with cupcakes and because her big party is less than a week away, we kept the celebration pretty low-key at home. Just a single cupcake with an Elmo candle (which Anna thought was pretty cool), and then we let her open a few presents.

Just a little warm-up for the main event on Saturday!

My Little Cupcake

Lately, Anna has been very interested in helping me cook, so she was super excited to be my big helper in making cupcakes to celebrate her birthday with her class at school. I got a great little book called Hello, Cupcake!, and Anna picked the Panda cupcakes.

They weren't perfect, but they were a great first attempt from the book. It was such a fun mommy/daughter project, and the kids and teachers in Anna's class really enjoyed them!

Note: If you have this book (or buy this book) and decide you want to make these, DO NOT check every grocery store in creation for the Oreo O's cereal that is supposed to be used for the panda ears. I speak from experience and AFTER doing this and complaining to my sister Linday, she informed me that they were discontinued in 2007. So I wound up having to dip fruit loops in melting chocolate as a backup plan.