the 2nd birthday campout.

It may seem strange to you to take a 2 year old girl camping for her birthday.  

But if you would have witnessed the look on her face when her new pink sleep pad and pink/purple sleeping bag arrived on our doorstep you would know it was the right thing to do.  They looked just like her big brother's gear...and she was thrilled.  

"Yay!!!! Seep bag!!!"

We only camped a few miles from our house so I drove over early Friday morning to mark our spot in case the sites began to fill up.  I was so glad I did!  When we came back in the afternoon every spot was taken!

The kids and I got to the site early.  Britton had to work the OBU graduation late Friday afternoon and other friends that joined us couldn't get there until later.  
So we unpacked, had snacks...

...And, after they picked all the M&M's out of the trail mix, were bored in 5 seconds.  

So we were very pleased when Erin showed up with birthday presents for the both of them.  

Before M even opened his gift he said "I hope this is a Thomas present"!

It was. 

Good call, Erin.

Ella was super excited to get some groceries in a pink basket. 

You should know that the pink and the skirt and everything about her is because she wants it that way.

I tend to dress her like me.  

Drabby McDrabberson.

But she screams and wants the froof so I'm beginning to have fun with it.

Oh-well.

She looks super cute.

When Britton arrived, he set up the tent.  I had already tried and failed miserably.

Then Troy, Julie and Jaden (from the crawfish blog) arrived and added to the girl's pink-blingy-froofy-ness.

Which made her very excited.  

{Please note the pink feather boa....this is not the last you'll see of it in this post.}

Now, I don't know about you, but I've never been camping and eaten this...

But Troy happens to be the head honcho over all the food services on campus at OBU.  And since OBU graduation was this particular Friday, and since he had some leftover, he brought SHRIMP!!!  {Made my hot dogs look a little pathetic.  But again I say....Oh-well!}

We did some fishing Saturday morning.  Ella was so excited to use her very own new PINK pole.

Seriously excited.

It must be said that Ella and I were the only team that caught any fish.  

On her foot-and-a-half-long-pink-pole.

The biggest AND the most fish.

We won in both categories.

{And if there's anything my dad ever taught me it's that it MATTERS who catches the most fish AND the biggest fish.}

 We later celebrated with a birthday cupcake.  

There was so much tragedy involved in the making of these cupcakes.

First, after not latching my cupcake carrier all the way (because I was distracted and on the phone), I dumped them out on my disgustingly dirty entry rug where my normal 5 second rule could not and should not ever apply.

I was able to salvage about 5 of the cupcakes that didn't fall completely out of the carrier. 

So the next morning I sat them behind my Jeep, in the shade while we went fishing.

When we returned the lid was off and the frosting was licked off two of them.  There were also fresh chalk drawings on the ground behind my Jeep (I brought the sidewalk chalk for M & E).  I think some fellow camping munchkins may have enjoyed our cupcakes and chalk.  

So I took the only remaining decent-looking cupcake and gave it to Ella.

I have pictures of Miles scraping the icing off Ella's birthday cake from last year too.

She enjoyed her cupcake thoroughly and has no idea what a champion that little guy was amidst the Cupcake Catastrophe of 2011.

By the time we left on Saturday it looked like a pink chicken had thrown up all over our campsite...

 And it was the perfect thing to do for my girl on her 2nd birthday.

(Except for the part where she woke up every 2 hours all night long and ran laps around the tent.  But we won't go into all that.  Wouldn't want to spoil the story.)