Portrait

When my first daughter was just becoming interested in learning to color, I would sit with her each day and draw. I would draw things like her stuffed animals, house and most of all, I loved to draw her. I would often stare at her, mesmerized that she was created inside of me; this perfect, innocent little being full of life and wonder. I memorized her features,  each nuance of her face,  and I loved to express it in drawings of her with her stuffed dolls.  I had posted something a while ago here.

With my second,  I find less time to sit with my daughters to draw and pass the time.  While I have spent no less time gazing at my youngest and memorizing her every feature,  I fear I have not been as up to the task of drawing with her and for her. I wanted to try my hand at and see if I could represent her the way I had her eldest sister,  so I decided I would draw a portrait of her. I thought it would be a good little exercise to get me back into this habit.

I admit I cheated a little by taking a photo of her while she was napping. My eldest has always had a great propensity for solo activities such as reading,  drawing,  or playing make- believe.  My youngest, on the other hand,  doesn’t have the capacity to sit still longer than one minute.

I used regular drawing paper and a princess pencil I took from my daughter’s art bin. Here is the result:

 

The Second is 2!

So it’s happened.  My baby turned two.  When did this happen?  I can hardly believe that time has flown so quickly!  I don’t know if it’s because I’m so tired these days or if life is just too full of things to do, but having to even consider planning a birthday party for my daughter seemed beyond me at this point.  Planning playdates for two children seems to so difficult and this seems to be one of my shortcoming as a parent.  I look for the easy playdate where friends have more than one kid so that all the children can keep each other occupied.  Is that terrible of me?  Don’t lie, I’m sure I’m not the only one!

I am glad to say that my second daughter is quite gregarious and will run around to almost everyone after she has acclimated and flirt outrageously with them.  For this I am very grateful that she finds her happiness instead of having to have someone define it for her.

Well, I may not have planned a big party for her, but I did get my act together enough to make her cupcakes to bring to school as well as have a small gathering with family to celebrate.  For her cupcakes, I opted to make a lemon cupcake with a lemon buttercream frosting.  I have made these before for my first daughter’s first birthday, noted here.  However, instead of mini-cupcakes, I opted for large ones.  The recipe will make about 16 large cupcakes.  I used the buttercream frosting here and added half a lemon with half a lemon’s zest.  It turned out quite nice, if I do say so myself!  I also opted to use a pre-made candy flower by Wilton’s, which I got from Michael’s.

When my eldest daughter learned that I was going to be making cupcakes she insisted on helping.  It was quite hilarious how she helped me with the icing.  For every cupcake iced and flower she placed, she would then help herself to a small taste of icing.  And with each taste, she would exclaim “I love helping you make cupcakes mommy!  Mmmm!!!”  What a comedian!  Although, I must say, she was surprisingly exact in measuring the perfect amount of batter needed for cupcakes.  I may have to employ her services in the future.  Haha!

Anyways, the cupcakes were quite delicious and my youngest daughter was quite enthusiastic about the blowing out of the candles.  She actually blew the candle out too quickly the first time, requiring us to re-light them before we finished singing happy birthday.  And, she was singing happy birthday to herself for about 3 weeks straight. What a great age this is, toddlers are like little comedians!  Happy birthday my wonderful, funny, intelligent and daring girl!