Samaya's 2nd Birthday

12 months successfully completed: check.



Mud: check.





Paint: check.





Water: check.





Bubbles: check. sort of.



Cake and ice cream: check.

One very happy birthday: check.

The sun smiled down on us after forever days of rain, Sisay's brother came from D.C., our dear friends Leigh and Ilianna came from New York, a wonderful group of friends came to celebrate with us, and the children had a delightful time regarding all things messy.

I learned that the simpler things are, the more work it actually is. But the satisfaction of watching children truly delighted, using their imaginations, playing hard together, dripping with homemade coconut milk ice cream makes it more than worth it.

The details, for those interested...

12 Months: Stolen from our friend and amazing photographer Negeen, we take a photo of Samaya on the 15th of each month (or as close to it as we remember), and string them up at each birthday as a lovely documentation of the year. I'll put them together in a scrapbook when I get around to it.

Mud Kitchen: My dad made Samaya an awesome table and I collected a bunch of thrifted kitchenware as well as a galvanized steel pan for a sink. For another awesome backyard kitchen, go here.

Paint: Sisay cleverly stapled old white sheets to pieces of cardboard and hung them on the fence for a creativity free-for-all.

Water: A kiddie pool that the kids turned into a giant bubble bath with the soap from our failed bubble solution. They had a total blast with this one. We also had a small water table (i.e. tupperware container) with matching foam shapes to fish out and a few boats.

Bubbles: I made some pretty cool bubble wands and attempted to make the bubble solution, but apparently I'm bubble impaired. We'll certainly try again though so keep an eye out.

Cake and Ice Cream: I used this ice cream recipe and this frosting recipe. Violet has a dairy sensitivity and we just like things wholesome around here, so everything was dairy-free and sweetened with honey or maple syrup. They were both YUM.

Happy Birthday banner: I made this last year before Samaya's first birthday and it gets taken out for each birthday. This was taken from Amanda Blake Soule's book, Handmade Home, who probably will never know she is one of my very favorite people.

Try something! And happy almost summer :)