Three years old.

It's official. Skylar is now three years old. We celebrated with a fun little "girly-girl" party with her neighbor friend plus all 5 of her cousins on my side of the family, as well as Gramma & Aunt Sara, and of course, her sister and brothers. It was lots of fun ... jewelry making, fingernail painting, dress up ... and of course, lots and lots of presents and a cake made especially for the birthday girl. 
This year's cake was my first real attempt at fondant. It didn't turn out quite as I had envisioned it (Karstin kept saying it looked like a hat!), but it was cute anyway and tasted pretty good, too. I learn a little more every time I make one of these special cakes ... someday I'll have it down!! 

After the "party" was over, the kids all enjoyed playing outside on the tramp, in the sandbox and on the various riding toys. The bigger kids took a jaunt over to the park to play a little tennis with Jacques while the babies slept (and the mamas rested!) and then later we all filled up with pizza and more cake. 

The final special treat of Skylar's big day was a bit of a campout in our pop-up trailer, with Jacques serving as willing chaperone to five of the nine kids.



The day went fast but Skylar seemed to have fun and hopefully will have happy memories of her third birthday when she is older. To help that along, here are the scrapbook pages highlighting her celebration, which will go into her birthday album ...
 
 
 
 
Thanks to Nana & Pop, Skylar even managed to spread out the birthday celebration a couple days longer with the arrival today of her final birthday gift... a child-sized play kitchen. It was delivered while she was napping and I managed to get through all 10 pages of instructions and get it assembled in two hours, just in time for her to wake from her nap and discover her new toy. She was thrilled ... and I'm sure will enjoy many, many hours of pretend play in the days and weeks to come.

Now it's time to catch our breath, but not for long. This weekend is Mother's Day ... and as Karstin keeps reminding us, his 14th birthday is less than three weeks away, followed by Father's Day, Jacques' birthday in June ... and then Danica's first birthday. Whew... makes my head spin just thinking about it! 
 
Here they are ... all nine cousins on the Gunderson side of the family! :)