JP's 6th Birthday with Yoda and Leonardo

Oh month of February, how I loath you... I'm so thankful JP's birthday is over and more so that I opted not to throw a big party for him because I woke up today with the feeling of a head cold coming on. As the day progressed, my suspicions were confirmed. Here comes my dreaded birthday cold, right on schedule. Hooray. 

 Charlotte and I spent Tuesday and Wednesday working on JP's cake and cupcakes. She's such a good helper in the kitchen!

 To celebrate his birthday at school, we made these cupcakes. He wanted vanilla cupcakes, so I added a little bit of green coloring to them, because I knew he would just love that. And he did. The majority of the evening was spent making the chocolate to resemble turtle shells. I meant to take a better picture of them, but his birthday morning was chaos. He couldn't stop smiling at them!

 Before he left for school, I told him he could open one present, knowing he'd pick the biggest one. Last week I went to zip his backpack closed and the zipper completely came off so I found a Ninja Turtle one to replace it. He was super excited to take it to school!

 After lunch Charlotte and I loaded up and took the cupcakes to school while Leonardo, his favorite Ninja Turtle, and Yoda dried. Like usual, I fell down the stairs again when I left JP's classroom. Go me. 

 I really struggled to get the Ninja Turtle to stand on his own. His shell was too heavy! After jabbing a couple looong dowels through his legs, I finally got him to stay. I finished up the lettering 15 minutes before we left to go to dinner at Pizza Hut with Grandma, Aunt Kim, and King Julian. Not that I'd expect you to know, but the lettering is in Ninja Turtle font, though it's from Star Wars. You know, Star Wars meets Ninja Turtles.

 Everyone met up at our house after pizza for cake and presents. Even Aunt Bobby joined in as she was just getting back to town from taking her boards in Helena. (It'll be a long wait until next Friday for her!)

So excited to blow out the candles...

These are the best pictures I have of him with his cake. He requested a chocolate cake, and then didn't even have a piece. Go figure. I wish he hated pictures a little bit less. Just one nice smile for mom? Pleeeease?

Lego-Star Wars Mashup Cake

Hey guys! I made another cake! This one here was for a boy that JP went to preschool with last year, and apparently he's into Star Wars. I knew he loved Legos too, so I opted for a combination of the two and here's how it came out.

The words and the stars are all chocolate. I didn't realize it until after I laid the words down on top that they were a little crooked...but that was probably inevitable since I did that part at 5am. 

I'm getting horrible with my planning timeline. When I started making cakes a few years back, I would make the cake on Wednesday and then freeze it and continue to work on the cake for the next 2 or 3 days. It was a week long process. Now I'm losing my mind when I start them the day before. This one needed to be done by Sunday afternoon, and I baked the cake Saturday morning and frosted it before work. When I came home from work closer to midnight, I power napped on the couch until 2am and worked until 6am. Power napped until 9am and then finished it up while Perry's friend Wayne and his "friend" Ashlie made us their version of eggs benedict, except without the hollandaise sauce...I won't go into details, but two tries later...

It was nice to have a crowd watching me work....hahaha just kidding! But me not being responsible for breakfast in the exhausted state I was in was amazing!

I also made him cupcakes to take to school. I'm really starting to enjoy decorating cupcakes!

Chewbacca anyone?

A Star Wars Birthday For Hunter

We have a 7 year old! I've been calling Hunter a 7 year old for at least a month prior to his birthday, but now it's legit. As of late he's really been into Star Wars, even though he knows nothing about it. All he knows is they fight with light sabers and Darth Vader is pretty cool. 

At his request, despite my disapproval of the color black, I made him a Darth Vader cake. He sat with me on the couch (as he was recovering from an evening of throwing up all over me...no, I was recovering from that) and we scrolled through Pinterest looking at all the different Star Wars and Darth Vader cakes. He chose the simplest design in the worst color to work with. 

I must have rolled out the black fondant ten times, and I may or may not have uttered the words, "You should be very glad that I love you right now or you wouldn't be getting a cake..." The more dye you add to the fondant, the more the fondant begins to breakdown... Why didn't I just use black frosting? Because I didn't want all the kids to have purple mouths... Gah. But Hunter loved his cakes, even with a couple cracks in it. He especially loved that I was able to make Darth Vader hold his birthday candle as a make shift light saber. Mom for the win! 

 He really really really wanted his party at the hotel again and I couldn't say no, even though his party was scheduled to start the same time the Cat/Griz game started... Every stinking year his birthday coincides with that football game weekend... But since he didn't get to celebrate with his kindergarten friends last year, I said what the heck this year. I can't begin to tell you how much fun Charli had with the neighbor twins! To say she loves the water is a bit of an understatement...

 He had a handful of his classmates show up, which was plenty for me! From what I could tell, it looked like everyone had a bunch of fun! I made just enough goodie bags for his guests too. That never happens with me...

Even though he gives Perry and I a run for our money parenting-wise, I love this kid to pieces and can't wait to see what this year brings! Hopefully more snuggles for mom? We're not too old for that yet, right?