Happy Birthday, Lovey-Bear!

Maybe I am completely pathetic, but I have been really down today.  At first I thought I was just tired, then I thought it was the gloomy grey sky… I realized it was because my littlest sweetie is five.  I usually embrace and cheer for their milestones, but yesterday my BABY became a five-year-old.  She is done with tricycles, moving on to kindergarten in the fall and, yep,  decided she can eat raisins again (did you know four year-olds don’t eat raisins?  Not according to my daughter!)  She is so sweet and full of joy, giving love and hugs freely.  I love you honey!

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Above is the picture of her strawberry teddy bear cake.  I smashed up some frozen, then thawed strawberries, put them in a strainer and collected the juice in a bowl.  I used the strawberry juice in place of the liquid in my vanilla gluten free cake.  The strawberry flavor was pretty subtle, but my daughter liked it.  I am not too fond of strawberry flavored cake, but it was pretty good.  I would rather have a big ol’ mound of berries piled up on my cake. I think if you wanted more strawberry intensity, I could have taken some freeze dried strawberries, pulverized them into a powder and added them into the batter, but my daughter didn’t want any “flecks” in her cake.

       My daughter wants to bite off the chocolate nose!

                                                                                         It’s good to be

                                                                                                             five!

                                                                                                                              Look at my teeny-tiny birthday meal!