My Nana's 71st Birthday Cake Party

Oh man, it happened and it was amazing.

My Nana's birthday party was wonderful and worth every ounce of energy put into it.

And I think you'll all be proud of me because I happened to take pictures of the cakes. No, I didn't get a picture of anything else. You see, I was too busy chasing around kids, cutting hunks of cake, eating home made pizza, and laughing...a lot.

Chocolate Cake with Carmel Butter Cream

Burnt Sugar Cake with homemade Candied Pecans

Italian Cream

Strawberry Short Cake with Whipped Cream

Death by Chocolate

 And not pictured here is the lemon pound cake.

All amazing cakes and though I swore to myself that I wouldn't eat any of them, I tasted every single one. Each unique and wonderful but I have to say...that Italian Cream cake had a few people fighting for the remaining slices at the end of the night and it was my favorite.

Over and over again I was told to enter a contest or to just start my own bakery.

My dream would be to insert myself in a bakery, coffee shop, vintage clothing shop looking for a little spin on things. Not to start my own establishment.

Mozart said a wonderful prayer at the beginning (when you have a poet in the family, use them!) and the rest of the night was spent laughing with cousins, kissing our babies, entertaining my Nana's church friends, listening to my Aunt and Uncle and of course, eating cake.

It was a great birthday party and I made a few cakes that I'll make again.

So if you have a lot of cake recipes you want to try but don't want to have them sitting around your kitchen and calling your name, have a cake party!

Reid's Rainbow Birthday Cake

We had a great time at Reid's birthday party. Family, friends, hamburgers, cakes, and the cutest little dude in the tristate area.

But you guys. I'm so mad at myself and you may be too. Because I took zero pictures. Oh, the shame. I was so caught up in enjoying the moment and making sure my guests were enjoying iced watermelon slices that I didn't notice I didn't have my camera until the end.

But I do have pictures of the dessert table and the best cake I've ever made.

Peach pie locally made, cold chocolate cake with cream cheese filling, and rainbow cake.

Reid loved the rainbow cake and my mom has a picture of him stuffing his face, so I'll try to get that from her.

Because you can't see the inside of the cake here's a better picture.

The cake recipe and instructions come from Whisk Kid. She's an amazing baker and blogger who was had her own segment on The Martha Stewart Show. I had a few questions for her about frosting (I didn't use her recipe because I didn't think, due to the high butter content, it would hold up in hot weather so I used Wilton's recipe for the icing) and she actually emailed me back. So that was great.

But I'm so happy with this cake. I received a lot of "Oh my gosh!" and "You really outdid yourself" type statements, so that made me feel really great.

There's a part of me that wishes I would have documented the party a little better, but honestly it was nice being 100% in an event.

DIY Gold Cake Topper

This is one of the cake toppers for Reid’s birthday party this Saturday. I used this tutorial. A simple toy lion, spray paint, electric handheld drill, and a candle. So simple and the results are amazing.

I picked a lion because that’s our family’s power animal.

When I met Mozart he had t-shirts with lion prints, a Bronze lion statuette that his mother gave him from Haiti and there was a time when he considered getting the head of a lion tattooed on his back.

The word “lion”, quickly followed by gut wrenching roars, was one of the first things Bean learned to do. Doggies? Cats? Please. Give this girl lion with a mane as majestic as her hair and she’s happy.

The more I thought about what animal I wanted to make into a cake topper, the more a lion made sense.

Do you have an animal that represents you or your family?

Is Your Daddy the Milk Man?

I’m waist deep over here in party planning.

To-do lists longer than I know what, last minute purchases, a guest list that happily keeps growing. But it’s all worth it and more organized than my other parties because I have a new system.

So forgive me if I’m absent from here but exciting things are happening and I can’t wait to share them all.

But for now here’s a few pictures of my little dude.

We’re slowly weaning him off formula (projected ‘No More Milk Day’  will be at the end of August when his formula runs out) and we don’t predict it will be a problem.

This guy eats two or three adult size helpings of everything. I made fish a few weeks ago and he put away 4 pieces on his own!

We took him to a friends house after dinner (he ate three large bowls of chicken and rice) and he ate cereal and spaghetti over her place.

My kids need jobs. Child labor laws what?

Surprise!

I threw my husband a surprise 25th birthday party on Saturday, fiesta style!

It was such a stressful thing to do. Organizing in secret, making sure people showed up on time, juggling buying things for the party while he was out or making up small white lies about the mysterious disappearance of our funds.

But it was worth it. He’s so worth it.

The guests were local friends and family and some of his family from Philadelphia. I had the food catered by Moe’s Southwestern Grill and we drank strawberry daiquiris and Goya soda.

We played pin the tail on the donkey which was a huge hit and he whacked at a pinata.

Here’s a clip from his entrance:

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The next day we dropped Bean and Reid off at our usual child care provider and headed to Ithaca, NY. We love going there but haven’t been in years so this was a great treat.

Here’s a video from our car ride. Didn’t know my husband could dance? Now you do:

We purchased used books, I re-stocked my stationary, purchased a few summer clothes for the kids, ate brunch, and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

It was so peaceful and everything was perfect.



We went to vintage shop and found our way to their sunglasses.

We ended our evening with an amazing meal at Hazelnut Kitchen in Trumansburg, NY.

I really wanted something we’d both enjoy and something that supported our efforts (sometimes) in eating local, organic, and seasonally. Hazelnut Kitchen uses only seasonal organic produce grown locally. Their meat is grass fed and local. We’ve already made a pact to go back at least once a month, even if it is an hour away.

I wish I had taken pictures of our meal but I felt awkward pulling out a huge camera to do that so instead we savored it and played footsie under the table.

We had such a wonderful weekend and it was the perfect way to bring in his 25th year!

Bean's Birthday Party Part 1

So, I'm pretty disappointed in myself about the pictures that came from Bean's birthday. I didn't get photos of the dessert table that had an awesome candy bar, cake balls, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and extremely pretty (and tasty) cupcakes. I also didn't get a picture of TP and I opening a lot of her gifts or even during her time capsule (which was amazing and left many people on the verge of tears). ARGH! What's wrong with me?!

However, the photo booth idea worked out great. Here are some images from that:

-M