Addie is 2 1/2

When Addie was born on Christmas day, Matt and I quickly decided that celebrating half-birthdays would be a good idea. This is the first year that she truly gets the birthday concept. She loves birthdays! This spring between Etta's half birthday, her cousin Asa's first birthday, her cousin Ellie's half birthday and her friend Evy's second birthday, Addie has gotten the hang of this birthday thing. She can sing the song a little bit. She loves to eat cake and ice cream (that's my girl all right!). And she loves to help wrap and unwrap presents. The past few days she has been celebrating my birthday. She does some creative wrapping of presents and "bakes" cupcakes for me. When I asked she told me that I was turning 3. Times that by ten and you have the actual age I will be turning this summer.

(Rosy cheeks and snotty nose are thanks to her cold;

expressions on her face are thanks to her being in the middle of singing the birthday song I think.)

Addie requested chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting for her half birthday this year. I considered for a second just pulling out my red food dye and using a few tiny drops to create pink frosting. But then a much better idea came to mind: raspberries! I have big bags of frozen raspberries that were picked from my mom's yard last summer. I defrosted a bag of them and added about 1 cup of the berries to the chocolate cupcake batter. Then I used a spoon to get juice from the bag of defrosted fruit and added it to the homemade cream cheese frosting. Three or so tablespoons later the frosting was a lovely shade of pink. Not to mention that it was SUPER tasty/sweet/good! (I had to taste-test a cupcake too, of course. What kind of mom would I be if I fed my daughter treats that I had not tested myself first?!)

Addie was generously lavished with toys and gifts for her birthday and Christmas this year, and we decided to set some of them aside for 6 months. So she got those  "new" toys to play with for her half birthday. We also wrapped and gave her 2 things: a hooded frog towel and a purple kid-size sleeping bag. Matt plans on hiking with her this summer so she needed a sleeping bag for that adventure. She already had a froggy towel but is outgrowing all her baby sized towels. This way she can wear the toddler size one, Etta can wear the baby one and we can have two froggies hopping around. Now I will be the first to admit that a towel and sleeping bag do not seem like super exciting presents to grown-ups, but things are simpler at the age of 2 and a sleeping bag can create hours of imagination play.

(As you can see, Lion approves of the sleeping bag.

Addie calls it her sleep-sack since that is what Etta wears at night to stay warm & they bare some similarities)

I also will readily admit that our method of holding toys aside will not work as well as she gets older. I can't imagine us saying to a teenage Addie "honey, we will just set that (insert name of high-priced & much loved technology such as Wii or iphone here) aside for 6 months. You will probably forget you even got it, and then it will be so wonderful & surprising to see it on your half birthday!"

As she gets older we will have to decide whether her birthday is a family day and she gets a friends party for her half birthday or if her friends party is just a couple weeks before Christmas. We also need to decide how all this affects Etta. She does not have a major holiday coinciding with her birthday (although Halloween is close to it) but we will need to celebrate her half-birthday too in the interest of being fare. I can handle making cupcakes 4 times a year for the girls. And it seems that there is always something a parent wants to give a child and it could be wrapped and given as a gift. For example: new shoes are a practical gift, and depending on the style and brand could be a "splurge" as well.