Purple party!

Purple food, purple chair
purple everything!

When asked what she wanted to do for her birthday, Elise's answer has been, invariably, purple. With this instruction, it wasn't hard to pull together a sweet purple party for the girl. What good taste she has! We set out to make it a very purple day for Elise.

Mix at Six!

It all started with a purple cake, which was baked at 6:30 in the morning because, well, why wouldn't you be baking a birthday cake that early on a Saturday? What else would you be doing? We both enjoyed the project, and so did Grandma, who was our guest of honor for the weekend and was happy to join in on the fun. Because what else would you do at 6:30 a.m.? I'm still not sure.

At the Botanical Garden
with Grandma!

A Kalina spider showing
Grandma the ropes
at the garden.

Second possibly only to purple, Elise loves the pouring, mixing and tasting that go along with baking, so the project was a success even before the cake was in the oven, and even before it was frosted with purple icing, or decorated with two purple candles.

After a breakfast of purplish cereal in a purple bowl, complete with a purple cup of (white) milk, Elise and the rest of us were on our way to the botanical garden for a little pre-party outdoor fun. It's an amazing place, and both girls enjoyed showing Grandma the ropes (quite literally, in Kalina's case).

Elise-bee gathering nectar.

And then it was business as usual, as we enjoyed a little lunch and a little nap. When she turns 3, she'll be allowed to skip the nap on her birthday--but definitely not at 2.

Elise arrived downstairs a couple hours later to a fabulously purple decorating job completed by her own personal elves--Daddy and Kalina. Purple streamers and balloons were everywhere! Just as exciting, there was purple popcorn to be made! We'd already prepared fresh-squeezed (non-purple) lemonade and some purple fruits, plus Daddy was getting ready to fire up the grill for hot dogs and hamburgers, at the birthday girl's request.

And then our next guest arrived--Grandpa Tom, back from a long vacation, which made his entrance that much more exciting. After a quick purple snack, Kalina and Elise dug into the presents, purple and non-purple alike.

Elise and her friend and a present.

Soon afterward, both girls were dressed in matching purple outfits and exclaiming over new toys. And then we headed outside to watch for our other guests--a little girl a little younger than Elise and her mom. Which made a big enough party for our new 2-year-old.

The birthday girl's dinner of choice included hot dogs and finally, the much-awaited purple cake.

Which almost caused more trouble than it was worth, as I had to tell Elise "no, not yet" about a dozen times, almost ruining her special day, before I could finally announce, "It's time for the cake!"

Elise joining in with the
singing.

Frankly, I'm amazed Elise was able to keep her fingers out of it as we lit the candles. The candles did get accidentally blown out before we could sing (not sure if Elise or her sister was the culprit, as both were blowing as hard as they could--although Kalina has better aim).

Once we reminded the little girl it was time for her happy birthday song, she started us off before smiling around at all of us, distracted a bit from the purple frosting. Then, we were all glad for Kalina's help or else the candles might never have been extinguished.

Finally allowed to dig in
with her finger!

Elise dug in with her finger, which I didn't even try to replace with a spoon. She combed every bit of purple frosting from her slice of cake--but left most of the rest, even though she had gratefully devoured tastes of the batter that morning.

There were still a few presents left, and as some of them were books, they transitioned us smoothly to bedtime. We said goodbye to guests, then brought the purple party to an official end (our house, however, remains decorated). 


What a purple day! We had so much fun wishing our daughter the purplest of birthdays, and many purple returns. Purple!

More purple!

And even more. There was
more but it didn't get
photographed. Oops!