Happy Birthday, Luke!

Today is Luke Barber's birthday and he is 2.

Ann plans to celebrate his birthday on Friday night with a cookout.

Today after she picked up Ellie at Mother's Day Out, they came over and the following are pictures of the little celebration we had at my house.

Let me say this. Knowing Luke is already a chocoholic, I made, from scratch, very moist chocolate cupcakes, jumbo size. I also made a very rich buttery buttercream frosting. I am trying to cut out sugar and managed to make these without tasting.

I purposed not to spend money on this impromptu birthday celebration, so I pulled out some old things I'd saved. There were some sesame street characters which I'd used on Laura Beth's 3rd birthday. (Laura Beth is now 25 and has Ada who is 1.)

Using the characters was an afterthought. You'll see the pictures of the "scene". I made myself coffee to have something "rich and comforting" to put in my mouth, since I wasn't eating the cupcakes. Also, at the last minute I did get some balloons, with helium.

Well, you'll see in the photos that Ellie and Luke hardly touched their cupcake and icecream. The balloons were their favorite and the sesame street characters. Luke especially was fond of the characters AND balloons. Both Ellie and Luke had to take a nap right after the party. So, I've tucked away the characters. I'm all about saving "stuff" for the grandchild belonging to the daughter who used the "stuff" as a child. I wonder if Luke will ask for those characters when he wakes up.