M's Red Cake

As I do every year for all of my nephews (on my husband's side, since my sister takes care of it for her own children), I agreed to make a cake for my nephew's three-year birthday party. Being a huge fan of cars and trucks of all sorts, (and of Disney's movie Cars), but most especially of firetrucks, M of course chose to have a Red cake. For those of you who are unaware, Red is a character from Cars who also happens to be a firetruck. Unfortunately, Red also happens to be a lesser character in the movie, as he has no lines. He never actually speaks, only cries quite loudly several times, then drives quickly away to hide. While appropriate for M's personality that Red would be his favorite, Red is apparently not otherwise a popular character. When I went searching for ideas for a Red cake, I found none. That's right, absolutely NO Red cakes anywhere on the internet that I could find. There are TONS of Lightening McQueen and Mater cakes out there. I even found a few Sally and Doc cakes, and a few cakes with multiple characters present. But no red cakes. Which left me to design a cake completely from scratch, something that rarely/never happens.

So, instead I thought about Red's character, and what aspects of that I could use in my design. Red, being the only firetruck in a small town, lives at City Hall. He appears to be the caretaker there, and loves to take care of the flowers around the monument of the town's founder. There was a thought. Flowers. Maybe I could make his flowers and put them on the cake somehow. I stored that tidbit away for further thought. I also thought about adding the monument of Stanley on there somehow, and/or the City Hall building. There was also the part in the movie where Red was hosing off the tower of tires for Luigi. Hmmm, that's a possibility. I could make Red, with a stream of water coming out of his hose, and a tower of tires.

Of course then I came to my senses and realized that I was once again thinking way over my head, and decided avoiding frustration and tears would be the better route. Besides that, this cake was for a three-year-old child. Chances are he wouldn't care what the rest looked like, as long as Red was present. So, I went back to the flowers idea. I decided to make flower planters as Red had in the movie, and put them on the four corners of the cake, then have Red (made of color flow), in the middle. The problem was I couldn't remember what the planter boxes looked like. I therefore convinced Sweetpea that her movie of the day should be Cars, since we haven't watched it in such a long time, having the ulterior motive of observing details. After much debate, and a bit of a guilt trip on my part, she agreed.

Turns out, Red doesn't use planter boxes. Red's flowers are planted in tires. Silly me, I should have figured that. After all, exactly which one of the cars would construct a planter box, anyway? So I decided fondant tires would do the trick. I then set out to find a decent picture of Red to use for my color flow pattern. Apparently Red is not only unpopular for cakes, but for images, too. And that includes coloring book images. Maybe kids don't even like to color him, I don't know. But it took FOR-EV-ER (enter image from "The Sandlot") to find something decent to use for Red. Once I found it, it occurred to me how often I make these things complicated for me. Well, I guess maybe I'm a glutton for punishment.

I also decided to use smaller tires around the outside of the cake. At some point I had the "brilliant" epiphany to make them white walls. How I was going to do that never crossed my mind. Remind me again how I get myself into these things? Anyway, here is the final result:

The cake was triple chocolate fudge, the icing was chocolate buttercream, and the filling was chocolate whipped cream with chocolate chips. I used ground up graham crackers on the top to simulate the sand around Radiator Springs (my favorite part, flavor-wise!) The flowers and leaves were fondant, decorated with Food Writer markers, and I used thin floral wire to make them stand up in the planters. The dirt in the planters was crumbled up chocolate cake, made from the shavings from when I leveled the cakes. Unfortunately, Red had an immediate mishap upon removal from the wax paper. Well, four immediate mishaps. I made two of him, mirror images, so that the cake could be viewed from both the front and the back. When I took him off of the wax paper, all four of the items across the top of his cab broke off on one image or the other. Thankfully, when I put the two images together back to back, I was able to "glue" the pieces back together with icing long enough to stand him up on the cake and get through the "ceremonies". Though it's a good thing he did not have to travel further than the kitchen counter to the dining room table. I don't think he would have stood up.

Despite the mishaps, and while the icing did not smooth as well as I hoped for, it didn't turn out too bad. Of course, it helped to have a good friend visiting who apparently has making round things with holes in the center in her blood. (Her grandpa used to own Karmel Korn in my home town, and I hear he made fantastic doughnuts!) She was a brilliant tire-maker, and I may put her on full time! (Though I may not be able to afford her...) Thanks again, Kel! So, without further adieu, here is my learned list:

1. No matter the size of the color flow piece, it will always break at narrow points. Making extra pieces doesn't necessarily help this, as chances are the same narrow points will break on the extras. That's just how it is. Learn to deal with it.

2. Royal icing works wonders for "gluing" broken color flow pieces back together.

3. Broken color flow pieces glued together with royal icing do not tolerate vibration well. It's best if travel of such pieces is limited to short distances. From counter top to tabletop may be too far.

4. Fine tip Food Writer markers are not quite fine enough. They do not do well in drawing in color flow outlines that have been partially covered by "pillowed" fill-in color flow, since these areas are actually crevices in the piece. Instead of drawing in the outline, the marker catches on the edges of the "pillows" and results in double outlines.

5. In response to #4 above, it is best to remember the rule: if it looks acceptable, leave it alone (a.k.a. if it ain't broke, don't fix it!)

6. Fondant tires are best made by someone with doughnut-making experience/heritage.

7. If you do not possess said experience/heritage yourself, it is most helpful to have a friend that does. It's better to have a childhood friend that does. It's optimal to have a childhood friend that does and will work for coffee and/or chocolate and good conversation.

8. Fondant icing writers are helpful in the making of "white wall" tires. So is a decorator's brush - which is just a fanciful name for a paintbrush.

9. Two coats of fondant icing is necessary to accomplish true "white walls". One coat only results in white washed tires instead.

10. Fondant die cut tools work splendidly for cutting out teeny, tiny flowers. However, getting those teeny, tiny fondant flowers out of the die cut tools without destroying them is another issue altogether.

11. Very thin (24 gauge or thinner) floral wire works well not only for flower stems but for shaping leaves as well. As a safety issue, one should always inform those consuming the cake that such flower and leaf stems are not edible.

12. Fondant tires, due to their necessary thickness, are quite heavy. Such weight causes the tires to slide down the sides of the cake, rather than stick in the frosting as intended, requiring the cake decorator to invent a way to defy gravity.

13. Strategically placed toothpicks are most helpful in defying gravity. As with flower stems, those consuming the cake should be informed that such items are present in the cake.

Dedication

There are so many ways to define dedication. While the traditional definition of the word, in the sense in which I use it today, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary is: selfless devotion; more often we turn to actions to define dedication. And, of course, actions are dependent upon what we are dedicated to. There are multiple dedications - work, family, community. They can also be such things as dedications to hobbies, interests, pets, even individuals themselves. Actions defining such dedications could be things like working late, sacrificing something we want for something our family needs, giving of our own precious time to better our community. Even things such as attending hobby fairs, collecting memorabilia of a favorite actor or band, or staying home with a sick pet could be considered demonstrations of dedication.

In addition, dedication can be viewed in may ways. Sometimes it is something to be respected, an honorable thing Sometimes it is viewed as silly, fanatical or just plain stupid. Well, to each their own opinions as to what is honorable and what is stupid. But we all have our ideas as to what is dedication. But, I write today not to wax eloquent of the philosophy of dedication, but to share with you an example of such dedication that I witnessed during my commute to the office this morning.

This morning I found myself stopped by a red traffic light approximately five minutes from my office building. Of course, this would stand to reason, since at that point I should have been at work for five minutes already. Damn that Murphy. So, as I sat swearing at the light that had so viciously turned red at the exact time I needed it to be green, I happened to glance across the intersection and to my left, at the waiting cars on the other side. An immediate double-take ensued. There was a small, tan, compact vehicle of some sort, in the lane closest to the turning lane, impatiently inching forward, anticipating the change in the light. Inside the vehicle sat a person of whose gender I was unable to ascertain. This person had a bright yellow stocking cap on his/her head. (I would point out that while the morning was chilly, it was still about 42 degrees, not cold enough in my opinion for such a hat.) Where the yellow cap would probably not have normally caught my attention on its own, the thick winter snow gloves peeking out from above the steering wheel, and the heavy winter coat added to the odd scene. But finally, I was most taken aback by the very large, and most unmistakable, amber-colored ski goggles perched, not comfortably on the driver's head, but over his/her eyes like most people wear sunglasses. I should probably mention that there was no evidence of a pair of skis anywhere on the vehicle, since there was no way they'd fit in the trunk, and they would have been capable of being seen had they been in the back seat, (though most likely would have been hanging out of one of the windows in order to have fit). There wasn't even a ski rack on top of the car.

Now that, my friends, is dedication.

New Additions

Over the weekend we acquired some new additions to our family. This was not my idea, mind you. In fact, I've been against this idea since it's hatching, so to speak, several years ago. While I have not been a fan, I finally just figured out that regardless of my squawking, it was going to happen. Well, I guess on the plus side, no one can accuse my husband of being hen-pecked.

Geez, I crack myself up.

Oh my gosh! That one was completely unintentional! I'm killin' myself over here! LOL!

Ok, to let you all in on the joke, here is a picture of our little additions:

Yup, now you get the joke. Right now the little darlings are living in a small, round open container in the garage under a heat lamp. Eventually we will have a chicken coop in the backyard. Once they're old enough, and we actually buy one, they will be moved to a chicken coop in the backyard. By that time they should no longer need the heat lamp. It will be quite a while before they start laying eggs. My husband guesses sometime in July. Of course, that assumes that they are hens. Since these chicks were purchased at a local "country" store, who does not sex-link their chicks, we have no guarantees that we didn't get three roosters. Something we absolutely don't want. My husband got the chicks for eggs, and no other reason. And it's not good if those eggs are fertilized. Plus, roosters are really loud, and not only am I NOT interested in being awoken at the crack of dawn daily, but I don't really want angry neighbors who have also been awoken at the crack of dawn pounding down my door. But, there seems to be a large market out there for this sort of thing, so my husband should be able to find someone to give any roosters to, without much of an issue. Unfortunately, we won't be able to determine their sex for quite a while, either, so right now it's just wait and see.

Part of the reason I did not want chickens was my fear of how we would explain the demise of any said chickens, for any reason, to Sweetpea. I had no doubt she would view these birds as pets. My husband had talked about using any non-laying hens as food. How would we explain to her we had to eat her pets?? No, Not a good idea. My husband tried to tell me we would just name them things such as Nugget, Extra-crispy, Fricassee and the like. Really just his way of saying he didn't think it would be a problem. I just laughed and thought "we'll see".

So this weekend my sister and her family were in town, so Sweetpea and I were out around the town shopping with them, when I received a call from my husband that the local store had chicks, and we should come and check them out. He later claimed that he only intended for Sweetpea to see the chicks; he did not intend to buy any. While I believe that that probably was his intention, I knew better. I had no doubt we would leave that store chicken owners.

And so we did. It didn't take much convincing on Sweetpea's part. She simply had to look up at her daddy, with big, round, adoring, little girl eyes, and the deal was done. The shopping cart was loaded down with items amounting to a chicken starter kit, a small cardboard box was filled with three adorable chicks and off we went. Of course, after the purchase of her new pets, Sweetpea had no further interest in gallivanting around town on shipping missions. So she, my husband and the chicks headed for home, while I continued the shopping with my sister. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from my husband informing me that Sweetpea had named the chicks on the way home. (Keep in mind that this store is about a 5 minute drive from our house.) When I asked if she chose Nugget or Fricassee, he called me a name I won't repeat. (Though probably completely fitting.) He told me we now owned a Feather, Waterfall and Pecky. All he knew for sure was that the yellow was Pecky. I'm not entirely 100% sure, but I may have something along the lines of "I told you so". But I might be mistaken.

So, until we have a new home built in the backyard, the chicks are garage-dwelling entertainment for Sweetpea (and any friends or cousins who might happen by). And boy are we having a hard time keeping her out of the garage. Any time she seems to be just "gone" from the house, we simply have to peak in the garage to find her, hovering over their little nest, gently stroking their feathers and looking down on them with adoring, and I might add somewhat motherly-looking, eyes. She has been taught already that she cannot pick them up without an adult present, so at least she's obeying that rule. But at this point all I have to say is, I hope they're all hens.

But It's Clean!

Today was a gorgeous day. I mean, just beautiful. Because it was so nice, we decided while we were out and about that it would be a good time to wash the car, and get all that winter muck and salt off. There is an automatic car wash at the place that we normally get gas, and you can buy a car wash right there at the pump. You pay for it with your gas, and the computer just gives you a code to enter in at the door to the car wash bay. I'm sure all of you are familiar with this type of set up.

So we finish pumping our gas and drive around to get in line for the car wash. Being such a beautiful day, it looked like others had the same idea as us. There were about three cars in line ahead of us, and one more in the bay. Let me set the scene just a little. The driveway to this car wash bay has small retaining walls, about a foot high, on either side of it. On the left on the other side of the wall is a small expanse of grass and a tree. On the right on the other side of the wall is a hill and a drop off, I'd say about ten feet high, down to the parking lot of a grocery store. Basically, once you get in line for a car wash, your only way out is to back up (assuming no one is behind you,) or to drive through the bay.

So around the corner we came to get in line at the beginning of the driveway. As we started to drive up, we noticed a woman get out of the last car in line. Not really such an unusual thing. But then she turned around and locked the car. Ooooook. Then she walked away. My husband and I looked at each other and it was obvious we were thinking the same thing "She's not parking there, is she?" We sat and watched her walk over to the convenience store at the gas station in stunned silence. But, we figured there were several cars ahead of her, so she would probably be back by the time it was her turn to enter the bay. At least, we hoped that would be the case.

We didn't really wait very long, and she came wandering back to her car in time to move forward and enter her code at the bay. This particular car wash requires that you wait until the bay is empty to enter your code, which she seemed to do without a problem. When the computer had accepted her code, and the green light came on to tell her to pull her car forward into the bay, I began to realize there was a problem. She drove forward into the bay, and it occurred to me that she had not yet rolled up her window. I kept waiting. She didn't roll it up. My husband started to say out loud, "window. Roll up the window. Better roll it up!" She still didn't roll it up.

And the next thing that happened was exactly what I thought was going to happen. The car wash was in the process of pre-rinsing the car, and before she even realized her window was still down, she had been pre-rinsed, too. A spray of water came down the side of the car, through the open window, and hit her square in the face. From an observer's point of view, it was kind of like watching one of those movies where you know the consequences of someone's idiotic actions before it happens, and then you watch those consequences in slow motion. The action of the water coming in the window, hitting her, the hair on her head being flattened in one spot from the sheer force of the water, and her reaction (which was a recoil away from the water that nearly launched her whole body to the other side of the car), appeared to happen slowly over several minutes, though it really only took a few seconds. It wasn't until after she recovered and rolled up her window that my husband and I recovered from our awe enough to start laughing. And laugh we did. Loud enough and hardy enough that I'm sure she probably heard us, even through our closed windows, her now closed windows and the sound of the car wash cleaning her car.

What was really frightening to me about all of this was that when she got out of the car originally, I noticed that she was wearing scrubs. It worries me that someone like that might work in a hospital, or even a doctor's or dentist's office. It worries me more that she might have been a nurse. And unfortunately she even reaffirmed the old cliche. Yes, the woman was blonde. But hey, at least she's now a clean blonde, right?

Her Name In Lights

Recently a co-worker came to me to make a cake on pretty short notice. When I say short notice, it was like a Monday, and she wanted the cake for today. *ahem* Anyway, the cake that she wanted was for her daughter, and it was a fairly simple cake to do, so I agreed. Her daughter was having a High School Musical party, and her thoughts were simply to have a cake, the same cake I made for Sweetpea's birthday, with the East High Wildcat on it, and for it to say "Happy Birthday Maddie". Ok, I can handle that. My problem was that the cake we talked about seemed too simple. Rather plain, actually. And you know I must always take every cake one step further. Always. I'm beginning to think it's a curse. So I started playing with ideas. This is what I ended up with:


Overall I think it turned out pretty well, though I was not pleased with the amount of crumbs that were visible in the frosting. Frankly, though, because this was done on such short notice, I did not have enough frosting to put down a crumb layer and then a top layer, and I simply did not have enough time to make another batch of frosting. So the cake had crumbs. My co-worker said she couldn't even tell what it was I was talking about, and her daughter liked the cake, so that's really all that matters. I played with several ideas for the Wildcat, and actually made a color flow version of it first. I just ran into the difficulty that I made the red entirely too dark, and it ended up not matching the lettering or the border. I took the color flow piece, still on the wax paper and cardboard, to work with me, and let my co-worker choose between it and my putting the Wildcat on with frosting. She chose the frosting. Good choice. I also played with several ideas for the lettering, and decided it would be best to use the lettering from High School Musical. Can't get more authentic than that, right? So, a little girl got her name in lights! The music notes were completely my idea, since I felt the cake needed something around the sides. They turned out a little bigger than I intended, but again, the customer was happy so it didn't matter. And now to what I learned:

1. Always make more frosting than what you figure you'll need. This should be a rule, never to be disobeyed. It is always better to have too much, than not enough. Though it seems to me that I have learned this before...

2. When using already colored fondant to make black fondant it is important to remember that using different colored "base" fondants will result in different colors of black. Really, I'm not kidding about this. You didn't know there were different colors of black, did you? Yeah, well, neither did I.

3. Store-bought red icing sucks. Sorry, but it does. It is the wrong consistency (too thin), it takes too long to crust over, and when it does crust, it gets TOO hard. It makes it difficult to fix peaks in icing where you don't want peaks to be. Plus, because it is too thin, and, I suspect, made with too much Crisco, it doesn't stick to the cake very well. While it's a great short-cut to try to avoid having to make red icing yourself, and therefore chance getting the wrong color red, it still sucks to work with.

4. Anything colored, icing, color flow, fondant, will darken in color over time. I know this. I've known this since the first class I took. For whatever reason, I can never remember it. Thus, I think I will have the correct color of red, and instead I end up with maroon. I must have this tattooed to the back of my hand, or write it backwards on a sticky note and stick it to my forehead. Something.

5. You can find just about any alphabet you want on the internet.

6. An alphabet printed off of the internet, then copied to provide a larger or smaller version of such alphabet, then cut out of the paper, makes a wonderful set of templates for fondant cutting.

7. The cutting of items with minute details, sharp corners and rounded edges out of fondant would be so much easier with an exacto knife. Wish I owned one.

8. A paring knife kind of works for such cutting. Kind of.

9. When cutting letters out of fondant, it is best to cut them out backwards. What I mean is, when you are looking down at the letter template and it is facing the right direction, flip it over so that it is facing the wrong direction instead. Therefore, the fondant cut out can be turned over the right way, and you will have the smooth side of the fondant, with no crinkle marks around the edges where you drug the paring knife through in the process of cutting it out, to display on the cake.

10. It is important to practice cutting out fondant letters before-hand, so that you are aware of crinkled edges and can find a solution before such ugly-edged pieces make it onto your cake.

A Good Day

I'm just happy today. I don't know why. I have nothing in particular to be happy about. Of course, I have nothing in particular to be unhappy about, either. Maybe it's because Sweetpea's birthday celebrations are finally all complete, and I have nothing else to do with that. No, that couldn't be it because we still have thank you notes to write. Maybe it's because I actually enjoyed making Sweetpea's birthday cake - twice - and didn't even get frustrated with it. Maybe it's the excitement of actually wanting to do something to get my house more in order, unpack more boxes and start on a home improvement project. Maybe it's an adrenaline rush because we are finally going to fight the pain-in-the-butt attorney that makes life at the office miserable weekly, if not daily. Maybe, that's it, maybe not. Maybe it's because I got to do some cross stitch finally this weekend, and Mom's santa is one step closer to being complete. Maybe it's because I got a comment from a new reader and follower of my blog (Hi PJ! Welcome aboard!) Always makes me feel good to get repeated hits from people I don't know - I wonder why this is. Maybe I'm happy because I finally, finally got all of the post-dated blog posts I had started finished and actually posted, and I feel like I'm accomplishing something. Maybe I'm happy because this morning I was able to get Sweetpea out of bed, dressed, ready for school and delivered to the front door on time with no yelling whatsoever. Maybe I'm happy because my baby is happy. Maybe it's everything combined. Or maybe it is just a plain 'ol, nothing special, all around good day.

Whatever it is, I wish the same to all of you! Have a good day!

The Festivities

WOW! How is it the 18th of February already? I can't believe how busy its been. But then, it seems to always be busy around this time of year. With Valentines Day, my birthday and Sweetpea's birthday all within a week's time, we generally have a lot going on. this year I've been extremely preoccupied with planning three parties for Sweetpea. That's right. Three. Yes, she's spoiled. (Although it wasn't really my choice to have three.) But since my family lives in Wyoming and my husband's family lives here, it's kind of a given that until she gets older, she will have at least 2 parties every year - one here and one there. This year, though, she also wanted to invite her friends to a party. Originally I had wanted to have one party here, with both friends and family. But then I decided I really didn't want to cause anyone, including myself, a mental breakdown. So then I decided that we should have the kids' party first, followed an hour or two later by the family party. All the festivities (or most of them) over with in one day. Unfortunately I was planning this over the long President's Day weekend, and since Valentine's Day was a Saturday, that only left Sunday or Monday for the party. Also unfortunately, we couldn't seem to get everyone's schedule to gel. So, we ended up with the family party on Sunday night, and the kids' party on Monday afternoon.

Oh, and did I mention that we had tickets to tour the new LDS Temple? Its dedication is sometime in March, I believe, but right now it's open for tours. My husband secured 20 tickets for 2 separate dates so all the family could go. Unfortunately the first date ended up being on a day my friend and I had a road trip planned to go to a Passion Party my sister was co-hosting. So that just left the second date - Valentine's Day. Yep, I toured an LDS Temple on Valentine's Day. With my in-laws. And my daughter. LOL! Well, it was definitely an interesting experience. But that's a story for a different day.

As you can tell, my life was insane there for quite a while. Sweetpea decided she wanted to invite 25 kids to her party. Well actually, she wanted to invite 21 kids to her party, but I felt bad that there were only four she didn't want to invite from her whole class. So I talked her into inviting them. There was one particular boy of that group that is especially mean to Sweetpea. Really, he's especially mean to all the kids, and I believe he might have some emotional/mental issues. Sweetpea really did not want to invite him. I pointed out that he would be the only one she hadn't invited, and she wouldn't want to hurt his feelings, would she? She got this very serious, contemplative look on her face, and said "Well, if he is good for the rest of the week, we can invite him." Ok.... I invited him anyway. As it turned out, it didn't matter since he didn't come to the party. We ended up with 16 or 17 children, ranging in ages from 2 to 14. And I just have to say thank god for my friend and her boys (ages 9 and 14) for coming over and helping with the party. They were truly a Godsend. Thank you, Jen! Love ya!

So Sweetpea's thing right now is Hannah Montana. So we had Hannah Montana-themed parties. Here are a few pictures of the set-up I did for the kids’ party:


Just a word of advice for all you party planners out there: if you are considering a themed party for your child, and considering store-bought decorations for said party, and are also considering a centerpiece from said store-bought decorations, look very, very, VERY closely at the picture on the centerpiece packaging. If it looks like a puzzle that you will have to put together, don’t buy it! I guarantee it will be the hardest puzzle you’ve ever done. I swear, I spent more time trying to put together that damn centerpiece than I spent decorating the cupcakes, filling the grab bags and probably filling out invitations combined! And do 5-year-olds care about centerpieces? Not in the least. But, at least Sweetpea liked it. She was very excited about all of her decorations, and really had a great time getting ready for her parties. I have to say, overall I think her birthday was a success. She did cry several times during the kids’ party, but I think that had more to do with being just plain tired. It was a busy weekend with a lot going on, and lots of excitement, so she was pretty well worn out. As for me, well, by the end of the weekend I was hammered, too.

Anyway, as I said, Hannah Montana was the theme of the festivities. What that meant more than anything else was lots, and lots, and LOTS of Hannah Montana themed presents. By the way, I’d like to send out a special thank you to those who purchased for Sweetpea Hannah Montana makeup kits (there were several), earrings, learn to dance-a-long dvd game, and microphone. You know who you are. Just know that you are responsible for: what will come to be many mornings and many evenings of fights over when and where makeup can be worn – and by whom (I never thought I’d ever hear myself say “don’t put lipstick on that cat!”); half of a single song echoing over and over and over and over in mom’s head (along with images of a lip-syncing Sweetpea pretending to sing into a blue and purple microphone); the monopolization of the T.V. for use of “learning” how to dance like Hannah Montana – or, more appropriately, for use of jumping around like a monkey while wearing a blond wig and head-worn microphone, pretending to try to “learn” how to dance like Hannah Montana; and long discussions about whether it is finally time to get Sweetpea’s ears pierced. I’m really learning to hate that girl. Hannah Montana, not Sweetpea. :-) *groan* So really. Thank you. Thank you all soooo much.

The kids’ party was insane, and began with many small children running around like heathens while screaming like little banshees. If my friend’s kids had not been there to help, I’m sure the little ones would have completely destroyed something, or many things, in my house. I was able to get them calmed down briefly to open presents and have cupcakes and ice cream. Let me rephrase. They calmed down to have ice cream and cupcake frosting. I think only one or two actually ate the cupcakes. After that we had a magician who put on a show a little over an hour long. This man was fabulous! He managed to entertain all of those children and a room full of adults for over an hour and no one got bored! Here’s a picture of him with Sweetpea:

If anyone in our area is interested in hiring him, just let me know. I’d be more than happy to hand out his info. He costs tons less than the local businesses as he is just doing this on the side, and he is 150% worth it!

I also made a Hannah Montana cake to match the napkins, invitations and decorations for the family party. The kids get cupcakes, but grown-ups must have real cake! Here are some pics:

The cake was a double-layer, strawberry, with strawberry whipped cream with fresh strawberries mixed in for filling, strawberry buttercream icing and fondant accents. All by Sweetpea’s request. As it turns out, the flavor got many compliments. I made the topper by cutting out a picture off of a notebook cover, gluing it to a piece of construction paper, and having my husband laminate it, then taping it to lollipop sticks. It worked out really well, and I intend to use it on the cake for this weekend’s party in Wyoming. I will also re-use the fondant stars on lollipop sticks, since no one ate those. That’s a lot of the work already done for me. As for what I learned with this cake, well, the fact is it was actually a relatively simple cake that only took a little bit of creativity with fondant/cookie cutters to pull off. I did learn that I very much like having a cake to do for which I can make a lot of the elements ahead of time, i.e. fondant or paper decorations. That way I’m not in that much of a rush to put it all together. And that’s about it. Not very entertaining, I know, but maybe I have to get good enough at some point to not learn anything anymore. Nah.

As for my birthday, I got a lot of my presents at Sweetpea’s family party. I won’t really go into my dislike for combining birthdays, and just say that I absolutely loved my presents. I got an awesome print that I intend to frame and hang in my kitchen, so maybe I’ll have some incentive to start decorating the bare-walls house I live in. My dear hubby also did not want me to be left out again this year, and was sweet enough to buy me my very own red velvet cake:
What a sweetheart. Love you honey! For my actual birthday, my mom was in town, so we all went out to dinner. I was extremely disappointed in the service, since we’ve never had an issue with it before, but the food was wonderful as always. I also got some new baking toys to play with decorating brownies (which seems to be a new trend), and my hubby bought me a pink sapphire jewelry set, which is absolutely gorgeous! So needless to say, I got spoiled, too. I’m in the process of working on slideshows for all the many hundreds of pictures taken at the various parties, so when I get that arranged, I will edit this post and add a slideshow or two. Now, just one more party to go and we’ll be done with the festivities for this year!!