My 40th Birthday Month-Long Celebration

Forty isn't so bad when you celebrate it constantly throughout your birthday month.  Seriously.  So many celebrations and it was awesome.  The first one, the night before my birthday, was "technically" a surprise party.  While my husband tried his best to keep the party a surprise, him leaving out the detailed notes (date, time, location, #of people) in my office for an entire weekend destroyed any chance of the party being a surprise.  So it wasn't.  But who was coming WAS the surprise and it was good.  ;)  

My family (Dad, Mom and Brother) designed my cake.  For the last 2 years, I've been a Coordinator for my daughter's American Heritage Girls troop.  I've love every minute of it.  Playing off of that "scouting" idea, my family designed some badges that I've earned over the years.  My cake was a really creative recap of my first 40.    

The party guests included friends from grade school (Kim and Jamie pictured below), high school and...

college (Kelly and Marie pictured below).  Oh the stories that were shared.  ;)

Here's the posse in its entirety and we were a silly crew.  This pose is my favorite by the way.  Nothing gets people laughing like trying to take a very serious or angry picture!!  LOL!!

Kids (and adults) love the silly faces....

And here are the nice smiles.  

And then, much to my surprise, I came home to 40 flamingos in my front yard.  Where did they come from, I wonder?!!

On my birthday, my girls got to make me a cake; something they desperately wanted to do.

 I even "let them" frost it too!  

Recycled badges and almost all of the candles -- this was a purdy cake!!  XOXO

The following weekend, I had a wonderful group of my friends over for a few rounds of Bunco.  The theme was pajamas and big hair and boy did we deliver.

If you've never played Bunco, you are missing out!  Get a group together and start playing!  The laughter - the moving - the counting ---- it's awesome!!  

A special thank you to everyone who made my birthday (month) so special.  My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much!  You are all so loved!  Thank you!!!

Baby McDonald

My sister-in-law's niece and her husband are expecting their first child this Fall.  I couldn't be more happy for this special couple.  So, when my SIL requested a Cake Mama cake for the shower, I was happy to hop out of retirement to make it happen.  ;)  

The theme of the shower was woodland animals and the invitation was as cute as can be with a little raccoon and a fox under a few birch trees.  So, I tried to recreate the invite in cake form, and here's how it turned out.

The cake is a chocolate-flecked cake with buttercream filling and frosting.  Delish!

I wish Baby McDonald the best life can offer!  He.will.be.loved.  

Grandma Dorothy is 95

In July, my Grandma Dorothy turned 95.  I had such a great time making her cake.  I wanted it to be a cake AND a story of her wonderful life.  She was going to share this cake with the residents in her community so I wanted to make sure that it would please everyone.  I went with half chocolate with strawberry filling on one side and half vanilla with cherry filling on the other.  

Then, I poured through her photo albums and "borrowed" a few gems.  I took these pictures to our nearest grocery store who was able to copy these pictures onto frosting paper.  And here's what I came up with:

At 3 years old

Her Sweet Sixteen (on the left)

Wedding photo

At her 90th.

I brought my girls and nephew to Grandma's place so we could celebrate over lunch as well.

And I made cake pops for the staff.  They're wonderful!

Happy 95th Birthday, Grandma!!!

Nicole's Patriotic Cake

Nicole is our wonderful babysitter neighbor who happens to have a birthday right around the 4th of July.  We enjoyed a delightful neighborly 4th of July celebration with her and her family and included Nicole's birthday as a part of our patriotic party.  

Her favorite cake flavor is red velvet, so I knew I could do something fun with that.  I wanted to surprise her with a plain old birthday cake on the outside, but when you cut into it....

...there's a little American celebration inside.  

The whole cake was velvet, but the coloring was plain, blue or red velvet to make this pattern work.

A fun surprise indeed.

Happiest of birthdays to you, Nicole!

Blue Cake Pops

I made these cake pops for a bridal shower.  The bridesmaids were going to be wearing a very pretty light blue/teal color dress, so I tried to color match as best as possible.  Wilton doesn't make a sugar that is teal colored, so this sugar was mail-ordered for the occasion.

The cake pop flavor is white cake and boy, are they good!

Best wishes to the bride-to-be!

Evan's Monster Truck Cake

Evan wanted a Monster Truck cake to celebrate his 6th birthday.  I had way too much fun with this one!

The cake itself is a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting.  His mom purchased the trucks for the top and around the cake.  I covered the cake with black fondant and decorated the sides to look like a giant tire.   I made a ramp out of extra cake on the side and purchased some chocolate candy "rocks" from our local candy shop to decorate the sides of the ramp.   More cake was placed in the middle of the tire, where another Monster Truck could crush it.  A grass border completes the cake.

What a fun scene!

Happy Birthday, Evan!

Cake Pops for a Wedding

White with pink trim and pink with white trim.  That's what these cake pops were all about.  The white ones were made with white cake, and the pink ones were red velvet.  These were placed at each place setting at a wedding in June.  I'd welcome the dessert - any time!  Not just for a wedding!

Here they are all wrapped up and ready to celebrate the newlyweds!

Happy Birthday, Dear Laura!

Yesterday was Laura's birthday and we celebrated it right.  A group of us met at a local hot spot and we ate well, drank well and celebrated with cupcakes.

Laura was not expecting us to sing "Happy Birthday" at the top of our lungs and NONE of us were expecting the entire establishment to join in the song.  

After cupcakes, a quick game of  Cards Against Humanity wrapped up the fun celebration.

Happiest of Birthdays to you, Laura!

8th Birthdays are Awesome!

My Josie wanted a Lego party to celebrate her 8th birthday.  She.Loves.Legos.  She loves playing with them, inventing new things, and can put together sets like nobody's business.  She just loves them.  And most of the kids she knows love Legos too.  It was the perfect time to get these kids together for some Lego fun!

Here Josie's posing with her #8 and the sign she made.  Behind her is the cake, but we'll get to that in a little bit.

My husband created the large Lego "punch-out" that you see behind Josie.  It was used as decoration for the party, but as kids left, they got to "punch-out" a circle and take home a Lego mini-figure.

As the kids arrived, we wanted to capture some fun!  The room we rented for Josie's party had a BEAUTIFUL view of the lake, so the early arrivals had some fun out on the balcony!

Let the games begin!

The first station is where kids got to drop Legos into a small cup on the floor.  It was a race!  The first to get all 10 (they each had the exact same pieces) into their cup won.  At this station, the kids earned a Lego marshmallow Pop!

The next station was were kids got to make a necklace or a key chain out of an assortment of Legos.  These were takeaways and I love how creative the kids were!  No two were alike!

At a third station, they had to race to put together a pre-determined model of Legos.  There was a model and then five bags filled with the pieces to recreate the model.  At this station, the kids earned a "Master Builders Certificate."

We had a fourth station where the kids were able to decorate their own goody bags.  I had markers and stickers available to them and it was nice that they could carry all of their loot around in one place.

The fifth station was where we had a jar filled with Legos.  The kids had to guess how many Legos were in the jar.  At this station, the kids received a bag of Lego candies.

Josie did a great job decorating for her party!  Here's a toaster!

While we waited for the pizza to arrive, there was time to play musical chairs, to the song, "Everything is Awesome" of course!

Dinner is served!

Pizza breadsticks that look like Legos!

Jell-O made using Lego molds!

The kids also enjoyed fruit salad, chips and juice or water.

And then there was cake.  Josie selected the Chocolate Flecked Cake.  Totally her favorite.  To make this guy, it was three full layers of 8-inch cake on the bottom, torted (so 6 layers of cake to 5 layers of frosting).  The top tier is another layer of 8-inch cake torted and a top 6-in tier.  All covered in fondant.  The Legos are edible, made of various colors of Candy Melts.

What a crew!!

And on the way out, each kid got to punch out a Mini-Fig.

The next day, Josie brought in Lego treats to celebrate her birthday at school.  These were pinata cookies, filled with mini M&Ms.  

Everything was AWESOME indeed!