Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

You know who had a birthday last month and I completely missed sharing about it? Miss Gail! I *cannot* believe our little princess is 5 years old! I tried to convince her to stay 4 for just a little bit longer, but she insisted on having a birthday anyway.

For the last two birthdays she's wanted a Minnie Mouse cake, but changed her mind at the last minute. From Minnie to Cinderella and from Minnie to cats. This year it actually stuck though! (Frozen and Moana were tempting her a lot!) Her birthday seems to just sneak up on me every year. We count down to it, but I'm still not ready for all the planning birthday celebrations entail. 

We did have a little party for her with her family the day before. Cousin Casey rode over on a special trip with Nanny. Robin and her boyfriend, Marshall, also made an appearance at the party. I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on the cake while the kids played.

Some time during the morning, my mom took the kids to the store and Casey came back with a wind-up boat to play with. The bowl he found wasn't big enough for the boat to float around in, so I filled up the sink for him. Before I know it, both him and Ms. Gail are running off to change into their bathing suits and then they hopped into the sink as I pretended to not be watching. You can only do this at Aunt Sadie's house! They were so sweet to watch! I couldn't stay no!

Ms. Gail love love loved her cake. It's not my favorite, but if the birthday girl loves it, then that's all that matters.

I seriously can't get enough of these two! Nanny had gotten Ms. Gail a "phone" which had lip gloss in it that resembled apps. I can't tell you how many fingers she painted with lip gloss!

She also could not wait to try on her pink hair! She thought it was the best thing *ever*!

 

Ms. Gail had to share her birthday with me this year as Mother's Day landed on her special day. Because I knew how much she enjoyed bike rides, I opted to have us check out a trail that runs through town. It did not disappoint, though Ms. Gail found herself having to walk up several hills. I think we biked around 3 miles round trip.

Conveniently enough there was a gas station right off the trail so dad suggested we "go check it out." Ice cream all around! The perfect incentive to go just a little bit further.

Because we didn't get to roast hot dogs at her party, like requested, we gathered around for a roast that evening. Pretty sure roasting hot dogs is one of the kids' most favorite thing to do.

S'mores are just an added bonus :) 

A Kittie Party on Mothers Day

Ms. Gail had been counting down to her 4th birthday pretty much since she turned 3. For her, it's been helpful to count the long length of time by reminding her who's birthdays have to come first before she have another. With every birthday marked off the calendar she quickly became more and more excited to turn 4. I'm sure, for the last 3 months, she reminded me her birthday was coming soon every day, since JP and myself already had our birthdays.

Last year she really wanted a Minnie Mouse cake, but changed her mind a couple days before hand and switched it to a Cinderella cake. Ever since, she's been a bit sad and confused why she didn't get a Minnie Mouse cake for her birthday so I was prepared to theme her cake as such this year. She pulled the switcher-roo on me again though after she typed "C-A-T" into Pinterest to look at cat pictures and stumbled upon a cat cake. And then we were done. There was no changing her mind at all. She wanted a cat cake for her birthday.

Because I'm still new to the area, and don't know many people, her party wasn't much. We did plan it for a Sunday though so her cousin and auntie could come celebrate with her. Nanny and Grandma were also able to make it to her little party, along with my Aunt who road-tripped out with my mom, and also my cousin who lives in Portland.

Aunt Bobby was going to come out for her birthday as well, but decided to come a week so she could spend a little extra time with the kids. (And because Perry and I needed a sitter!) Before Aunt Bobby left, we took Ms. Gail to a nail salon to get her toes painted. She did so good! She acted like a little princess! Because she wasn't tall enough to have to toes soak in the tub, the technician had a bit of extra time so Ms. Gail also got her finger nails paint too. She was pretty spoiled!

I spent the majority of her actual birthday working on the cake. Due to some health issues (I'm sure I'll write about them later), I was *extremely* tired, and my new medicine was making me irritable, so that was awesome... Around lunch time, JP gave her some flowers for her birthday. Last year she requested HD give her flowers, but we decided to have them alternated each year. She loved it! 

Then we brought in our present for her to open. She had been asking and asking for a kitchen, so we caved.What she didn't know, was that the box was empty because Perry had assembled it the night before. She was pretty mad when she opened the box to find it empty. Lol.  

Her kitchen came with a little play phone too so she spent the next several days calling and texting everyone, as in "I can't come to eat yet! I'm texting someone!"

We all took a break in afternoon from being cooped up in the house to go see Beauty + the Beast while it was still in theatres. I loved the cartoon version, and loved this one as well! I spent the remainder of the evening putting together all the kitties for her cake and probably stayed up a bit too late doing it too!

The kitties are a little hard to see, but I ended up making replicas of some of her kitties. Baby Booties and Mama Booties, of course, made the cake. She loved them all, and really enjoyed checking on their progress throughout the evening.

 In the morning between football games, I let Ms. Gail help finish up the cake by decorating it a bit more. I had added some pearls to the side of the cake the night before, but I knew having sprinkles on her cake was important for her, so I let her do the sprinkling, before my OCD kicked in. She also took great pride in arranging the kitties on the cake. When all the kitties were where they needed to be, she looked at it and exclaimed, "Oh wow! It's like a cat party on my cake!"

Seriously, how is she FOUR already?!

We're now 3 weeks into being a four-year old and she's already planning her next birthday and insisted we put up her birthday count-down in the kitchen... I keep reminding her, let's be four for a while before we start thinking about being five, shall we?

My Princess Turned 3!!

I am so tired right now I could cry. Actually, I might have before leaving for work at 10:30pm. These Friday night shifts are killing me! But lucky for me, I had a friend stop by the house to drop off somethings and she brought me coffee. Exactly what I needed to get through the morning!

Charlotte's birthday last year was super last minute, and this year wasn't much different. I was originally planning on having her party Friday evening, but then I heard cousins Casey and Dylan wouldn't be there so I moved the party to Thursday. Then I heard Aunt Kile was going to come, but she thought it was on Friday. I moved it back to Friday, after I agreed to work the overnight shift. Some serious poor planning right there. You know, thankgoodness it wasn't on Thursday though. At one point there was 11 kids at my house ranging from 8 months old to 7 1/2 years old. It was chaos. I was just glad my mom and neighbor were there too! I would have never gotten anything ready for her party while watching Charlotte + Kady + 3 babies during the day. 

Aunt Bobbi occupied some of the kids by playing baseball in backyard.

After baking and carving the cake Thursday, I woke up semi-ready to tackle Friday the 13th. Charlotte was so excited when she woke up and ate her last jelly bean on her countdown to her birthday! Ridiculously cute! Just as I imagined, she requested Cream of Wheat for breakfast, her favorite. 

Charlotte and Aunt Kim in the hammock. 

 I spent the morning tidying up the house knowing that by the afternoon, you wouldn't be able to tell it was tidy. I powered through just so I wouldn't have to work on decorating the cake. I keep putting it off until the last minute. I think I'm burning out on the caking... At one point I had two babies at my feet, and two very curious girls watching me frost the cake. I can't tell you how frustrating all the questions can be when I'm concentrating! But I got it done with time to spare.

 My parents showed up just in time to help make the burger patties and prep the toppings. Perry arrived home to a house FULL of people, and just in time to grill. Unless I miscounted, there was 20 adults and 12 kids. I don't think we've ever had this many people at our house at once. Especially for a 3 year old's party! I loved it!

 Hunter enjoyed his time with cousin Casey, but also had a friend over to play with as well. (He just shows up at our house pretty frequently so instead of sending him home, I said he could stay for dinner. Then he set his plate down and the vulture-dog of ours ran off with his hot dog.) JP didn't care for all the people, which didn't surprise me. I found him in our spare room watching a movie "having some Jimmy time." Charlotte was later found in Hunter's room crying because of all the people. Poor little thing!

 We quickly cleaned up dinner and moved on to cake and presents to perk up her spirits. She loved the cake, but she wasn't into pictures today. Go figure. This is the best of them. Booties helped her to at least look at the camera. 

 She wouldn't even cheer up for Daddy!

 She did perk up a bit when her bestie came around though! Just a little.

 After I took all the pictures I needed of the cake, we sang her the birthday song, and wasn't overly impressed about it. She did request mom and dad to sing it again to her at bedtime and her face was all smiles!

 I'm pretty sure Hunter adores Casey as much as Casey adores Hunter. I sense some trouble coming on with these two in a few years...

 Once she ate her cake, Charlotte made a mad dash for the presents. All the kids did. She had been waiting all day to open up the present JP gave her. He had me pick up a box of Whoppers for her and he wrapped them with the message, "To Charli Love Jimmy" on the box. If that doesn't melt your heart....

The other night at dinner we asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she was quick to spell it out for everyone. A bike from JP, a pink flower from Hunter, her "purple-red" blanket (it's actually teal) from Dad that's been sitting high on a shelf for several months (only Santa can reach it, her words not mine!), and a light saber from mom that looks like Hunter's. She later changed my present to puzzles thankfully. Other than her blanket which is already hers, she received everything she asked for!

 Perry rode her bike in from the garage. I had bought a few bows to put on it, but they didn't make it to the bike. The pedals didn't make it on the bike either. I found it posted online from a church friend and immediately spoke for it. It has princesses on it too! Perry helped her ride it down the hall after Casey helped her put her new helmet on. 

 Once all her presents were opened, we all got a really nice thank you out of her. She opened them all so fast that she didn't process everything she was opening. After all the guest left, she dug through her box of stuff excitedly!

 Casey enjoyed her new pom-poms :)

 Before the nephews left, we attempted to get a cousins picture. #1 I can't see Dylan! Sit Dylan up!

 #2 Stay there Dylan! JP look at the camera! Hunter put the bat down.

 #3 JP look here! Casey! 

I think we should have stopped after the 1st picture.

Much to our surprise, Aunt Erin and cousin Stevie were in the area and were able to join us for the party! Such a fun surprise! I'm excited to hopefully see them again before they head home next week!

Happy birthday sweet Charlotte! Where have these last 3 years gone?!

Cinderella Cake

On Wednesday, I delivered a Marvel Superhero Cake and then a few days later, I had a Cinderella cake to deliver. I can't even start to tell you much I love girl cakes compared to boy cakes! But good grief did this cake give me a run for my money!

The same lady that had me do her son's monster truck cake, asked me to make her daughter's cake. Repeat business! Woohoo! She had sent me a few pictures of what she and her daughter wanted the cake to look like and I did my best to combine them all into one cake. I didn't start making a plan for it until after the superhero one was done, delivered, and cleaned-up after. 

It literally took me all day to just bake the cake. I don't know what it is about my 6 inch cake pan but I was ready to throw it across my kitchen a few times. I was thankful I had extra batter. Baking it wasn't my only struggle though. the first time I attempted to frost it, the frosting started dripping off the cake. I was glad Perry took the kids to the cabin for the night. There is no way I could have managed to get it done with them running around. I put everything in the fridge and sat on the couch and cried for while before going at it again. 

The top tier of the cake was a disaster for me too. I haven't covered a cake with one piece of fondant for a while and apparently I was pretty rusty. I had lumps and bumps to cover up and then it started cracking. I was on damage control for quite a while fixing one mistake after another. I was SO glad when I was finally done. I even debated throwing it at my wall and starting over at 9pm the night before. That would have been a mess...

Saturday morning turned out to be a little busier than I had anticipated. I went golfing with my dad and sister Robin. Somewhat relaxing after I started getting decent hits. After that I went downtown to pick up my sewing machine. The thread cutter wasn't cutting anymore and the top thread kept shredding, so I had them take a look at it. Turns out there was really anything wrong with it, so the owner wanted to show me a "few" things. An hour later I was about to start panicking because I had to deliver a cake and was still at the sewing shop...

By the time I got back home, I had about 45 minutes to make the ribbons for the bow, pack up the cake and get it to where it needed to be. Turns out my cake box that I thought I had was gone. No where to be found. Thank goodness I only live a couple minutes from Michaels! But I had to wait in line for a while to check-out...by the time I got it all box up and to the soccer arena, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. Then I couldn't get it out of the car... Pearls were falling off left and right and I was getting frazzled and frustrated. 

Here is it finished. I was so glad to just be able to walk away from it. 

A little crooked, but whatever. Do you know how long it took to "tweezer-place" all those pearls? FOREVER!

An hour later my blood pressure dropped significantly and I fainted. Well, not quite, but I was on the edge of it for quite a while. Gah.

Look Whoo's Turning 1!!

A year already! Say what?! 

When she was a newborn, I wondered what she would look like when she was a year old. Now that it's here, I look at her and think, "When did that happen?" 

This little girl took two naps today because I knew she would need the extra rest. She woke from her second nap right before dinner, which gave me just enough time to change her into her birthday outfit. (Nanny bought it for her nine months ago, and it still fits...) She is just so CUTE! I held her hands as she practiced walking to the living to see all of her party guests. I helped her balance there for a while, but eventually she forgot because she was too distracted by her beads. Every day she's getting better and better at standing alone. 

 I was pretty determined for her to wear this headband, but she's at a point where she hates any kind of headband. I hate it. She looks so adorable with them on...

I have yet to post a tour of her room, but it's owl themed. Sticking with the theme, so is her cake! The top reads "Look Whoo's 1!" And this girl knew it - she was such a show off today!

After dinner, Charlotte opened her presents, with *a lot* of help from Hunter and JP.  

 She has the cutest giggle and shared it with us when she was checking out this toy from Nanny. 

 I spoiled her a little this morning and let her play with this cabbage patch doll before I wrapped it. When I handed it to her, she snatched it up and gave it a kiss. So sweet!

It was a gorgeous day out today, so I opted for us to do her cake smash on the deck. 

 She didn't go too crazy with it. At first she just picked off the letters on the top before she eventually went for the owl head. 

 Before she could devour it, Hunter came to the rescue to free the bird head from her mouth, and the body from her hand. 

 

 A couple minutes later, she was done. She realized she had that dreaded headband on, so she took it off and scooted away. 

 After all that decorating, this is what is left of her cake. So much work just to be smashed, but totally worth it!

"Owl" always love you!

To see her party in motion, go here!