Halvsies

We've had lots to celebrate around here. Two, count 'em TWO of our kiddos had half birthdays in February.

If that's not a reason to eat cake, well I don't know what is. 

 

Yes. I let 6 month old Hazel eat cake. I have made cakes for all my babies' 6 month birthdays. When Eli was 6 months I was a first-timer and didn't let him eat his cake. But, as tends to happen, I got a little less...shall we say...cautious, with my subsequent children. Amos and Hazel - I let them eat cake.

 

Amos partied hard with cake and m&ms because his half birthday falls on Leap Day, so he won't see another for 4 years. He practiced blowing out the unlit candle for an adorably long time. 

Two and a half, but at least 3 years awesome.

Happy Birthday Fella

Yesterday the fella turned the big 33. We celebrated with cake. As is our custom.

Then, as is becoming our custom, we had a lovely date of dinner and Christmas shopping for the boys. This makes for a very fun and festive evening and gets us all the more excited for Christmas morning. It works nicely to celebrate his birthday a week before Christmas, a week before New Years. Perhaps we can continue to find something to celebrate every Saturday from now until his 34th birthday. Actually, scratch that. That sounds exhausting.

Move over Duff...

There's a new Ace in town.

Now, very rarely do I get any satisfaction out of cooking. It's just not my shtick. Perhaps you remember.

But I do love baked goods. And I love making things pretty.

So I love a good birthday cake.

A handful of times I have conceptualized a cake design in my head, and brought it to life. Talk about sweet satisfaction.

Here is a cake for our sweet Amos in Wonderland.
This reminds me of Princess Leia for some reason.


I tried fondant for the first time and it was easy and fun! I bought pre-fab and rolled it out to make the White Rabbit's clock. Easy peasy.


The flowers were a bit tricky. I couldn't figure out how to make the kind I wanted with the fancy flower-making tips. So I winged it.
It's a little rough, but it worked out ok.

Now, for the shrooms. The party was Alice in Wonderland themed at the Mellow Mushroom restaurant. So, mushrooms were the perfect final touch.

Some back-story: We were huge fans of Mellow Mushroom - a pizza joint in the Southeast. When we found out they were coming west to our fair city we were stoked! So, we went to opening night. We, being all four of us - Me, the fella, Big E, and newborn baby Amos. He was like 50 hours old. We literally came home from the hospital, regrouped, and went to Mellow Mushroom. On opening night. Loud music. Huge crowd. Press. Photographers, and 2 day old Amos. So, it worked out beautifully that they were celebrating their one year anniversary with an Alice in Wonderland-themed shindig, one day before Little A's big day. Serendipity.


Okay, back to the cake. I added a little mouse (made of fondant - love this stuff!) for our little mouse, and a bunch of fondant mushrooms.

Make a wish little A!

The party was so fun! There were kids EVERYWHERE! We had the patio to ourselves and it was full of children and balloons. The kids made mad-hatter hats and had caricatures drawn (Mellow Mushroom's treat). More on party fun in the next post.

Let us eat cake!

We need very little excuse around here to make and eat cake. For one, E-Dizzle really enjoys the process, as do I.

So today we whipped up a lovely little cake for a very special reason. Today is Big E's half birthday. What? You don't get a cake for your half birthday? Why the heck not?Oh, the home sewn cake. What fun. E is very in to Madagascar right now, so this is my nod to Melman, the goofy hypochondriac giraffe voiced by David Schwimmer.

He was soooooo excited. I let him pick out his cake mix (that's right - I'm a boxed mix kind of baker - hey, it works!). He went with funfetti, of course. And he's been anticipating it for days. His excitement was not dampened by the fact that we had birthday cake this morning at a friend's 3rd birthday part. In fact, the promise of cake when he woke up was what got him down for a nap in record time.

Here's something a little twisted about my kid. He requested the piece of cake with Melman's tongue. Interesting.
Poor Melman.

Not long ago we celebrated A-Boogie's half birthday.
He was not as impressed.
Nor was his cake as impressive. No, that's not a ponytail skull cake. It's a mouse. Get it? Amos...A mouse. Go with me here.
My sweet half year old.

Ooooo oooo, but you must see my crowning glory! This is the first time I have ever had a food vision and played it through to its successful completion (food, it's not really my gift).
And. it. was. glorious!
Bad photo - good cake!
And the birthday boy was totally smitten with it. Every time he comes across this little red tractor, he tells me it was from his birthday cake that Mommy made him. Does it get any better?

I expect a call from Duff any day.