The Bandit's Birthday

Last week we celebrated Marielle's 2nd Birthday! Viv and I keep saying that we can't believe two years have passed since we first became a family. We certainly have two years worth of memories, but it all feels like such a shorter amount of time has passed. Is this how we will always feel from here on out? Like the days and years are just flying by? . . . and, as I realize this post is now oozing sappiness, I digress.

For her birthday, Marielle "The Bandit" and her toddler posse got together for an afternoon of playtime, cake, sing-a-longs, and bubbles. We met at this little indoor gym tucked away east of Boulder. The place is near one of my favorite burger joints, but that is a different blog for another day. In true Barrios fashion, we were late. Yes, that's right, our daughter was late to her own birthday, but it was good to see when we got there that everyone was having a great time. Watching all of the kids playing "together" was a lot of fun and we always love getting the opportunity to spend time with our friends, some of which, we haven't seen in quite some time. The kiddos spent most of the time cruising around from one padded contraption to another. There was a trampoline that was a huge hit with just about all the little ones.

After breaking for a little cake (which I will be talking about shortly), we did some singing and parachute time. Sing-a-long time, for us at least, is always fun mainly because Marielle almost always completely ignores that the singing is even occurring. We think it's absolutely hilarious. While all the other little guys are singing and dancing, Marielle is usually off at the perimeter of the room doing her own thing. Oh well.
Over to the right is Marielle's birthday cake. It is actually cake numero dos. I have been totally excited to make Marielle's cake from scratch. It's something that both of our parents always did when we were growing up. I had the coolest GI Joe cake that looked like General Hawk one year (Gen. Hawk was Duke's CO). My first attempt was to make a two-layer cake, but it wasn't meant to be. I've made two-layer cakes before, but I really screwed this one up. The first layer was nowhere near flat, and in my haste, I laid the second layer on top anyway. As soon as I did, the second layer began to sag, and subsequently, split. At this point, I hurried to get the first coating of frosting in place, and that is when I learned the following lesson:

"frosting does not repair broken cakes"

I threw in the towel and started over with a slightly less ambitious single-layer cake.

Altogether, Marielle had a blast spending her birthday with her friends and family.