two!

  ^^The birthday girl sprinkling crushed eggshells on her plants - this is one of the few photos I have of her wearing something other than her birthday suit!  Ha!^^  

We celebrated Elise's second birthday earlier this month

- I can't believe I'm now the mama of a two-year-old!  Yee haw!

Here are a few of the highlights from the special day...  

We started the morning off by adding

a second beeswax candle to the birthday ring.

The decorations were inspired by the Montessori "celebration of life" birthday tradition 

- homemade collages of Elise's first two trips around the sun.

Elise's gifts from Hubs and me included a collection of objects starting with /e/:  

an envelope with a special birthday message inside, 

a Schleich elephant, 

a marble egg, 

a framed photo of Elise, 

and a felt eggplant. 

Elise loved giving these rainbow crayon party favors to her little guests 

- check out the tutorial here.

For the birthday "cake," I made a rainbow fruit pizza.

I don't have an exact recipe to share, but it's basically a sugar cookie 

topped with cream cheese frosting and fresh fruit.  Yum!

Friends and family came over to help us celebrate with a picnic lunch.  

Last year, Elise invited one friend and his parents, this year she invited two!  

Overall, it was a fun and busy day, but I felt like we kept things simple enough

that we were able to keep our focus on celebrating Elise and her second year of life!  :)

  

Check out E's first birthday here.