Celebration

I normally don’t do themes, but this party had a theme.  It was a “puppet party.”  Since they’re too little to care whether or not their birthdays are by Christmas, or by each other’s birthdays, and realize they are sharing parties or gifts or cakes, we got them a combined gift of a little wooden puppet theater, and it just grew from there.

So we made paper puppets for the girls’ new puppet theater.  Elias really got into it.  He is very artistic and takes great pains to make things just right.  It was really fun to see that come out.

This next weekend Solveig is going to be a flower girl in a friend’s wedding, and the happy couple stopped by before the party to drop off Solveig’s dress for the wedding, and I was able to persuade them (as well as the maid of honor) to stay for the party.  I’m so glad they stayed because it was just so much fun to spend time with them before the craziness of the big day.  Knut’s brother and family came over too, along with his parents.

This is Knut’s dad with one of my sweet nephews.  I love when cousins are friends.

My parents sent a fun bunch of puppets to join the fun.  They’re coming next weekend to celebrate Christmas.  I’ve never had them at my house for Christmas before, so I’m really excited about that!

I normally make a box cake, but this year I picked a from strawberry cake from scratch recipe found here.  I used some frozen strawberries from our garden, and it was so good, I think we’ve found a new tradition.

I used pureed strawberries with sugar as the filling, and then did a cream cheese frosting with added strawberry puree for color and flavor.  Then I stuck strawberries on top and drizzled the yummy, sugary juice all over.  It was messy but worth it.

It was so good in fact, that we had no left overs, and Knut has persuaded me to make another one today…just for us.  He didn’t really have to twist my arm at all.