E is 3!!!!!!!!

My sweet baby girl turned 3 last week.  She is all smiles and sunshine.  She is sweet and spirited.  She is my first child that has always had a stay-at-home mom.  She is my sidekick most days.  She never ventures far from where I am...and I love that!  I am so thankful for the blessing God bestowed upon me the day she was born.  I am thankful God healed her and allowed her to endure the NICU unscathed.  

E LOVES owls!  She giggles anytime she sees them and so for her birthday I planned an owl cake.Inspired by  this cake I found on pinterest I set out to make a cake that was friendly to our dietary needs.  While they aren't as strict as many families we can have NO artificial dyes.  I also limit preservatives as much as possible to keep a happy, healthy house!  This means that I now make all of our birthday cakes from scratch because all boxed mixes have preservatives and it's nearly impossible to come by dye free frosting.

So, after a year of experimentation I have finally successfully made pink and purple frosting!!!!!  I also made a light yellow but it is really hard to tell in the pictures.  Freeze dried fruit is the best thing EVER!!!! 

To make the pink frosting I used this recipe except I used milk instead of heavy cream.  To make the purple icing I used freeze dried blueberries instead of strawberries.  I also made light yellow icing from freeze dried mangoes and used that as the eyes (with a chocolate chip stuck in the middle).  The beak is a piece of freeze dried mango and the wings are all natural chocolate cookies! (Here's my shout out to Trader Joe's...if we ever live far from Trader Joe's I will be a sad mama).  The cupcakes looked good but they tasted amazing too! 

Making cupcakes from scratch without artificial ingredients is a reminder to me that all things are possible if we are committed to it!  Now I just have to figure out how to make blue and green icing!

To end this post: some pics of my birthday girl and her siblings!