Six Years of Clare Birthdays (and Counting...)

Before the years fly by any faster, I've decided some catching up is in order as far as posting about Clare's birthdays. I purposely left out her very first birthday, primarily because there wasn't any cake!

We celebrated Clare's first birthday in our tiny condo in the heart of Chicago. Both sets of grandparents flew in for the occasion, and we all waited around for Clare to wake up from her nap so that we could eat cake...I mean, celebrate! (Sadly, I don't have any terrific shots of Clare from the day.)


The occasion of Clare's first birthday was also the beginning of the homemade-by-Liz cakes. I chose a tiger for this one, pretty much because I like them, but also inspired by the giant stuffed tiger she received from Uncle Dan for her first Christmas (and which resides in her room to this day):


We spent Clare's second birthday at Legoland, as we were in Southern California for a spring/Easter visit:


She was a fan of Care Bears at the time, which explains the cake:


By the time her third birthday came around, we were in Atlanta and Danny was well on his way. I had been prepared to throw her a party, but she vehemently resisted. So instead we had a nice at-home celebration with Grandma and Grandpa, in town just for the occasion. She was just getting into princess mode at this age:


Since Clare had already proclaimed that she would be a butterfly for Halloween (she explained that this was because "butterflies are the prettiest of the bugs"), I thought it would also make a cute cake:


I wasn't able to escape parties permanently, so for Clare's fourth birthday we threw a Kangazoom bash:


Since we were feeding an army, and the party was on her actual birthdate, I let Publix do the cake honors - which had to correspond with her Sleeping Beauty obsession:


While I didn't avoid parties altogether, I did implement the every-other-year rule, so Clare chose to spend her fifth birthday with her friend Nya on an art playdate, followed by lunch and cake:


Cinderella cake, by request:


That brings us to today, her sixth birthday. It was a busy one, between school, followed by a classmate's birthday party, followed by her family party at home with presents and cake. The hat at school evidently made quite an impression, because when she sat down to her birthday dinner of frozen pizza, she asked me if I had any sort of special hat? Of course not, for which I immediately felt absolutely horrible. So I scrounged around and found this red hat in my coat closet, never thinking it would actually be accepted. But it was, for the entirety of the evening!


For this birthday, she requested a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and Aristocats decorations. I can only imagine how she'll challenge my cake skills next year. But when it comes to my baby girl, I'm willing to try just about anything.