better...

Sickness passed and life resumed with enough energy for a beautiful slow day of being home, cleaning, playing, cooking....and for the girls, the morning was full of storytelling! Yes, Ani's new cassette recorder from Dan got a workout this morning (is he brilliant, or what? such a perfect gift for her), with three episodes of Invasion of Earth. They basically improvised a whole story, working together to bring in some intro music and some interesting plot twists...

At the end of the morning - at least two hours later - Ani came down wearing her "Auther" hat. Pretty cool.

Eliza cooked Ani's birthday cake and helped Dan make an amazing apple crisp...

...and while we cleaned and cooked, Ani took it easy, still resting up from being sick.  A nap outside with Ivy and Bean? Sounds good.

The party was a success - the girls have never had "kid" parties, but love inviting families over for potluck.  If there can be some running like crazy with large sticks through the neighborhood or en masse jumping up and down in the back of a parked pick-up truck, even better.  We topped it tonight with a run-away dog that had to be found (he was).  The cake, I am happy to report, aside from being delicious, was also highly photo-worthy!!  

I know - four pictures is a little over-the-top, but really - local strawberries (already!) and columbine from our garden? Yahooooooooo!  I really stepped up for this one! (Don't be fooled - the cake is super easy, but I usually get away with "oooh! birthday brownies! or how about carrot cake muffins???) This is a bona fide cake. (All right, it's the same one as last year, just without the beets, plus strawberries. Because we have them. Because things are freakishly warm, which is not right. But there are strawberries. Sigh.)

There must have been something a little fishy about that cake, though...never seen anything like it before...