Birthday Boy

The highlight of a first birthday party! It was a great day and the only low point, besides the balloons getting tangled on the way outside, was the scraped nose. (which was really no big deal)
His cake was yummy, but didn't look over the top due to the high humidity which caused the sea anemone to self destruct over night. The good thing about working in a bakery for 1 1/2 years is I learned how to quickly decorate a cake so it looks presentable, and quite honestly after the homemade frosting separated the night before the anemone fell apart, I was pretty impressed with how good the finished cake did look. Best of all, it tasted great, which, let's be honest, is way more important!

Winding down

I love the culmination of anything. Case in point, the little boy's birthday party.
If you have been reading along, I tend to get carried away with plans of what I'm going to do. Everything starts out so grandiose in my creative mind, then reality sets in. The husband doesn't come home from work on time and doesn't call to let me know when to expect him, the dog needs to go out more often than normal, errands take twice as long as planned, the baby won't take his naps and all creative plans fly out the window. The bright side, and the part I love the most, everything still comes together, I'm usually a whirling dervish trying to get done the absolute essentials(in this case, the birthday cake) but everything does come together. Sure it's less grand than anticipated but I'm the only one who knows how grand that truly was and there's always next time. My 35th birthday party was a prime example of this, I had truly remarkable images of what it could be. It wasn't the image in my mind's eye but it was well worth the effort and memorable I would think to many of our guests. Same with our wedding 3 years ago. In that case, we were tight on cash so I had to do WAY more than I would ever take on again (feeding 35 people when you are also the bride probably not the brightest of ideas!!) But the reality of that day was many of our 35 guests commented on how wonderful our wedding was and that it was one of the nicest they had attended to date. Not because it was over the top but because it was down to Earth, accessible and heartfelt. The handmade aspect was minimal but added to the overall simplicity and lets be honest, allowed us to keep our costs down.(our entire wedding and honeymoon cost us less than $1500)It also allowed us to offer a menu we could not have afforded to get catered. We served Cantonese BBQ pork, tri colored asian slaw, dim sum, rice, vegetarian spring rolls and they were all homemade and very, very yummy! Basically what I'm saying is what's essential is what ends up coming together and all that extraneous stuff falls by the wayside. The same will be said of my little one's birthday party, but truth be told he is the most important part of the day (and the best thing I ever made and we all know I really had very little to do with that, I was basically a condo for 9 months)!

Birthday cake

Let me just say, just because you are capable of doing something doesn't necessarily mean you should do it! Case in point, my boy's cake topper. In hindsight, I wish they made a Finding Nemo cake pan that I could have decorated with my little star tip and we'd be done. Oh no, that would be too easy. My topper has taken on a life of its own. I have started recreating a coral reef, while it is fun, I have a one year old I have to keep entertained and engaged. This is not an easy task while covered in gumpaste! It really goes back to me and why I have to recreate the actual environment in Nemo and the only answer I can come up with is that I can. So going back to my opening sentence, just because you are capable of doing something doesn't mean you should do it!

Watercolors!

I have the palettes for the kids watercolor paints and I hope to have them listed within the next few days. I'm still working on the boy's birthday cake and have my wedding anniversary in a couple days so I probably won't be able to get much more than that accomplished before Sunday. I always think that I can get so much more done than I actually can! I guess I do get a lot accomplished, it's just the things that I don't plan on getting done or the things I forget to schedule the right amount of time for. Like errands! Today it took us nearly 3 hours to get all our errands done! That's just ridiculous! Oh well, it's time to turn in for the evening, after all our running today, and working out in the yard, I'm a wee bit tired! Sweet Dreams!!!

birthday preps and a monkey on his back

Well, I'm trying to make headway on the little one's birthday cake. Here's a picture of my first (failed)attempt at royal icing coral. I need to thicken the icing a little more. It was very damp yesterday so I think that's why it didn't work well. Very soupy! Today I hope to find a store open that has fondant or marzipan so I can start making his Nemo and Squirt cake toppers. Also, the bug and I went to the store yesterday and I let him walk on his own. I bought him a monkey backpack harness with a leash of sorts, yeah, I know, some people think it's ludicrous to put a leash on your child but I worked in a mall for years and I think it's more ludicrous to let your child run out in front of you unattended!! He loved it! He walked the entire perimeter of the superstore and tired himself out! Here's a picture of Bug with his monkey on his back!

Brief Hiatus

Well the baby's first birthday is in a couple weeks so I'm going to take a brief hiatus so I can work on his birthday cake and party plans. I'll continue to be working on my projects so I may post some pictures if they warrant it.
If you're in the USA, have a happy & safe fourth of July. Lovely Canadian neighbors, Have a wondrous Canada Day!! I love your Country and your people, such a fine lot you are!!!

our little squirt!

So the little one turns 1 in a month. He loves Nemo(we think because he loves orange) and has both Nemo and Squirt plush from the Disney Store. Squirt seems to be his buddy, we take him everywhere (I actually panicked once and even called daddy at work because I couldn't find him when we were getting ready to leave one day. After looking everywhere, I found him under the floor of the pack n play!!!) Anyway, this was the invitation I came up with for his party (since they don't seem to make any with Squirt) I'm going to make his cake with a Nemo theme, get balloons in orange and ocean blue and of course get all the cute party supplies with Nemo et al. If the cake comes out nicely I'll post photos of it and instructions, too!