Eleri started her BIG number TWO birthday by opening her presents…with a little help from her sister. Eleri had a birthday of wooden toys from Bangkok.

Being two and adorable.

Eleri turned 2 three days after arriving in Shanghai.  Someone forgot to tell us that finding certain foods was not a simple walk to the grocery store.  The family favorite birthday cake is a chocolate cake, recipe courtesy of Tara Perkins.  It requires two hard to find ingredients…Hershey cocoa and vegetable oil.  Substitutions were made with Nestle cocoa and corn oil.  Family members able to voice an opinion all declared it was NOT as good, but we did not tell Elle.  Therefore, we learned our first lesson of hording food.  One buys as much as one can store when the desired food is found. 

 

Elle is growing and talking a bit more. She picks up new words each day. On her birthday, she learned the word “happy”. We say birthday, she says “happy”. We would get out the left over cake and she would say “happy”. She is funny.  She still calls cake, “happy”…seems like a perfect description to me.