birthday encouragement

my little girl is turning two in a few weeks! i can't believe it. i'm still figuring out what we want to do for her.

some thoughts:

my grampa built a sweet little child-sized china hutch for his daughters (my mom and her sisters) when they were little. it is waiting patiently in the basement to be cleaned up and brought out. we are going to get a little tea set to go with it. i can't decide which one to get though. i am worried about broken china, so no ceramics.

i like this one because all of her other kitchen items are wooden too. i love the little tea bags! the only drawback to this one is that the china hutch has little hooks to hang tea cups from, which i think she would really like but this set can't be hung from hooks...

this set is perfect. it has handles so she could hang the cups from the hooks. i would order it right now, but it is on back order until after her birthday. do you think a two year old would even notice? 

i have almost finished a cloth doll and i plan on making a birthday dress with a matching birthday dress for the doll like nicole did. i'd love to do matching sweaters too, but i don't know how to knit. maybe next year?

i'm still figuring out what cake to make. last year i made a plum upside down cake. it was really good. this year i'm thinking about a pound cake with whipped cream. i wish strawberries were in season. she still isn't eating real desserts yet. i mean, she has had a cookie or two and a bite of pie, but no chocolate yet and no frosting, so i'm a little limited. i was thinking about a banana cream pie because she loves bananas, but it could be messy. the mess might be worth it though. this one looks amazing, but maybe too rich for her.

and then there's easter the weekend after her birthday...