Pebble is 1!

So that time has come for me to annoy people by saying that silly thing that many parents say "where has a year gone" and "it seems like only yesterday she was born".

My little baby Pebble is now a 1 year old, to me she is my little newborn baby however as I see her start to take steps and talk I realise that she is definately growing up! 

Here is my little Pebble in her first few minutes. I know I am biased but I have always thought she is so beautiful.

Here is my baby girl now standing! She has such a sweet character. A little more in need of reassurance than Nemo (or Mr Independant) and very cuddly!

I feel imensely happy to have my two lovely children. 

We got Pebble some presents although she showed relatively little interest in it. (Nemo was on the other hand pretty excited!) Here they are enjoying the presents together!

We got this baby rocker for Pebble and Nemo was so sweet taking turns playing on it with Pebble. He voluntarily got off to give Pebble a turn and would rock her :) 

I couldn't resist buying this for Pebble, although Hubby was not quite so sure!

I saw a little girl wearing one before I was pregnant with Pebble and thought it was so sweet! 

We were actually in Center Parcs for Pebble's birthday with Hubby's Mother. This meant bringing all the birthday things with us including the cake in various bits. 

Having given it some thought I eventually decided on doing a Totoro cake for Pebble. I think this is because there is a very cute girl in the film who falls asleep on Totoro's (this large cuddly looking character) stomach and this just seemed in keeping with Pebble's character. 

I prepared various bits of the cake at home the weekend before. 

Soot sprites

Flowers

Leaves 

Wood sprites 

Mushrooms

I also made a top for a tree stump and baked a good old Victoria sponge!

I packed all these elements up and bought them with us on holiday. 

So luckily I did not attempt to make anything at center parcs because their badly equipped kitchens I suspect are a less then subtle attempt to get get you to eat out all the time! 

I rolled out and covered the cake in brown icing for the tree stump.

I then used buttercream icing which brown food colouring to make tree root type things and put the tree stump topping on top! 

Then I piled on everything else and this was how it looked 

I tried to base the girl on top on Pebble and although far from perfect I was quite pleased with it for my first person attempt! 

Both Pebble and Nemo appreciated the cake! Despite prompting Nemo didn't say happy birthday to his sister and just said Happy instead, it was quite sweet. 

We had a lovely day swimming with the kids during the day. Being on holiday was a great way to spend it. Here are a couple of pictures of us with Pebble on her big day :) 

Pebbles just had a feed on the land train and was pretty impressed with herself!

Having evening snuggles with Daddy :)