The Birthday that Took All Month

So, Cakes turned 8 at the beginning of August. We spent the day in DC on her birthday, she was baptized on the 20th, her birthday party was scheduled for the 27th, but then Hurricane Irene decided to blow through our neck of the woods so the party at Hurricane Gymnastics was canceled due to a hurricane. Thankfully, they were really nice and super helpful and let us schedule the party for Sept 3rd even though they had blocked that weekend out because of the holiday. If not for that we would have had to wait until the end of October!

She has been telling me prety much all summer about this garden cake she wanted. Mainly, that she wanted it to be chocolate, covered in green, have tiers and lots of flowers. Sure. No problem. I guess it's a good thing that my kids just assume I can make any kind of cake or Halloween costume they come up with; it forces me out of my comfort zone. So far I have managed to avoid seriously disappointing them. I decided to attempt fondant for the very first time ever. I must say it really is easy to roll out. That was no  sweat, which was quite a relief because I usually hate that part. However, I was not prepared for the placement part. I rolled them out to the right size but had lots of issues fitting it to the cake. But hey, that's what decorations are for - hiding the defects. Cakes helped mix the cake and helped decorate. She put almost all of the letters on herself and thought it was cool that all the words end in 'y'.

So...here it is...

All her little friends came and played in the gym for an hour. They all loved the foam pit but had fun trying out most of the other equipment too.

 

 

 

Everyone was having so much fun I had to talk them into eating cake. Never had that problem before.'



The traditional "mom's hands cutting the cake" picture.
Does your family have lots of these pictures? Mine sure does.





The whole gang.



 

The kids gobbled their cake pretty fast (I must say it was really, really yummy. I got the recipe from Wedding Cakes for You) and then Cakes opened her presents, which basically boiled down to replenishing our (I mean her) art supplies and projects for another year. That girl is always making something. And I'm not complaining. She is at this moment writing a book using the blank book, stickers and colored pencils one of her friends gave her for a present.

These are some of the pages she's colored out of her doodling books. Funny little story - Gummy and Mamie both bought Cakes similar doodling books. We've been doing lots of coloring around here. The fish one we colored together. The owls she colored with a friend. They're pretty cool books.