Patch's Birthday

Shelby is a very chatty girl, and we love to hear what she has to say. 

 

Today she was especially talkative, and she started repeating a phrase in the morning that I couldn't figure out. After a long while, I realized it sounded a little like "happy birthday" with an enthusiastic "hey!" at the end (ha boo-daaay...hey!). I asked if it was someone's birthday. She happened to be holding her dog Patch and gave a slight look his way. 

Quick time out for some background - Patch is Shelby's favorite stuffed animal. They're inseparable. She can't sleep without him, we bring him on every vacation, and he often comes on walks and car rides. Of course she'd want to make sure he has a good birthday!

I decided to sing "Happy Birthday to You" to Patch. Shelby lit up. That confirmed it - today is Patch's birthday! I'm so glad she let us know before we let the day pass by uncelebrated. I promised her we'd make cake in Patch's honor. She kept repeating her cute "ha boo-daaay...hey!" all day, just so I wouldn't forget. 

I didn't have any cake mix or frosting around, so this had to be a from scratch situation. I got a cupcake cookbook for our wedding and it's been untouched in a drawer ever since, so I decided to dust it off tonight. I made some simple yellow cake cupcakes and white icing. The tops definitely needed to be spotted in honor of Patch's spotted fur, so I added some chocolate shavings. Yum!

 

Shelby was an excellent sous chef. She licked both the batter spoon and the icing spoon clean. Nothing like dessert before dinner!

 

We sang to Patch after Tom got home from work, and Shelby got some good cuddle time with her little buddy before bedtime.

 

I think Patch had a good birthday. He's lucky to be Shelby's favorite.