A Very Mari Birthday

 Marian turned 12!  My little girl is growing up. Thank goodness she is growing into a delightful young lady.  Wait.  She's always been a delightful young lady.... well, maybe with the exception of that whole defiant 2 year old phase.  But I digress.  Marian is now a 12 year old!  And we celebrated with all her special requests.  She wanted stuffed shells for dinner with Uncle Jonathan's delicious Oriental Beans (Thanks Jonathan!).  And she wanted the Lemon Cake for dessert, the one where you poke it full of holes and spoon thin glaze over the top so the sugary goodness oozed down through the cake.   An excellent choice I agree.

The cake.  Yes, I was a bit lazy with my stirring and had powdered sugar clumps left on top.  Whatever.  And Rylee and I found these adorable sugar figures at the baking store earlier in the week.  Adorbs!

So the little figures were super cute, but not incredibly tasty. 

Rylee wanted a photo of her and her sugar panda. 

Yummy cake and ice cream and Delaney. 

I love the deadpan face on this.  She really was happy with it!  It was exactly what she asked for, so she certainly should have been! 

Enjoying the loot. 

Rylee was so pleased with herself because she picked out these candies all by her little self.  I love that my kids enjoy getting gifts for each other.