We had a wonderful time on Saturday with Nik’s family as we celebrated not just Ellie’s birthday but also the three other birthdays (Nik’s, Nikki’s, and mine) that we have in late September/early October.

We had lots of fun racing and swinging

and eating crabs.

The main event was, of course, blowing out our candles and eating cake.  I made my favorite carrot cake*: a big square cake for all of us and  a little round one for Ellie.

on Granny’s china!

Then we blew out our candles:

And then we dug in!  Ellie didn’t want to stop even for a picture!

We also had fun opening our presents.  Cousin Alex was very kind to help Ellie open all of her presents.

Finished it!

All in all, it was a great day – for Ellie and for all of us!

*That carrot cake recipe post was my 3rd blog post, ever. 🙂