January 14, 2013 - Brianna's Birthday Cake

Okay, since it's only four months until Brianna's birthday, I figured I should probably blog about the birthday cake I did for her birthday last April. Boy, it's amazing how many things I forget to blog about...

So, one day I was scouring the internet and came across this cake:

http://sweetapolita.com/2011/04/rainbow-doodle-birthday-cake/

If you don't want to check out the link, it's a rainbow birthday cake with fondant that you can draw on. Well of COURSE I knew this would be perfect for Brianna who is into all things girlie. It was actually very simple to create.

To Make the White Cake:
2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
2 1/3 c (466 g) sugar
5 egg whites, room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 c (375 g) all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 c (355 g) milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple GEL food coloring. Liquid will not be vibrant enough!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil and line how ever many 9" cake pans you have. I only used three, and just washed them in between colors.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls and then whisk a fair amount of the appropriate food color into each bowl. Keep in mind that the color of the unbaked batter will be the color of the baked batter. Pour into the pans and bake for 15 minutes each.

When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and stash them in the fridge to cool quickly.

There is a really good buttercream icing recipe on the page for the cake. The pictures I have here actually don't have any icing at all between layers because it was a test run.

I then bought fondant (from Walmart/Michaels/Hobby Lobby in the cake decorating section) and fondant markers (same section). I let Brianna decorate by coloring on the cake... again, this was the test run.

My pictures from the party turned out quite blurry so I didn't get a great picture of the inside of the "real" cake.

All in all this was a pretty simple cake that looks pretty awesome to a little girl!

This is the "real" cake from the outside - like I said, all the other pictures turned out quite blurry. But she loved it and I definitely would make this again if she asked me to!

Claire's 3rd Birthday

Alright! Claire (my beautiful niece) is officially 3 years old! And to celebrate, she had parties galore! The only one I got pictures from was her family party. Claire's big present from Granny and Granddaddy was a new water table!!! This held the attention for the kids for most of the time we were there. (As a side note - Brianna and I talked so much about this water table that Oma and Opa bought one for Hunter for his early birthday present!!)

Reese isn't quite old enough to play at the water table, but he didn't really know what he was missing.

Presents abound! (Lots of Spiderman action going on here!)

The three girls waste no time putting Claire's presents to use:

Nothing like cake and matching Spiderman T-shirts courtesy of Claire's closet!!

If there's cake, Hunter wants in on the action!

The three beauties all together!!

And Hunter rocks out the sunglasses in his party favor bag!!

Happy birthday Claire! We love you so much!!

Brianna's Birthday Bash

Okay, I know I just wrote the longest post ever about Brianna but this one is totally new info, I promise.

Brianna's birthday bash actually started on April 17, the day before her birthday. April 17 is my mom's birthday, so you know what that means - double birthday party!!  This year the 17th was on a Tuesday, which is our day with my parents, so it really worked out!

Grandma made a confetti cake with three candles!

Blowing out the candles together:

Birthday hugs while me and Grandpa sing Happy Birthday:

The next day, Wednesday, April 18 was Brianna's actual birthday. We started off the morning by painting waffles! Waffles are her favorite breakfast food, and I saw this on my new favorite blog No Time For Flashcards. So easy - just put a little milk into bowls and put dye into the milk and mix. Then just paint away!

Brianna wanted to wear her new "birthday outfit" to school. It was given to her by her friend Gracie, whose mom owns The Classy Paci Boutique. In this picture she is yelling, "It's my birthdaaaaay!"

On the way to pick her up from school, Hunter and I stopped to get her a balloon from Harris Teeter. (Tip for thrifty moms - they are free!)

When we got home I told her she could have anything she wanted for her birthday lunch. I wasn't surprised when she chose noodles.

After lunch she proceeded to take a 3-hour nap which was really bugging me because we were waiting to surprise her with her birthday present - a new kitchen set!!

Leila found this kitchen set for us at a preview event for a kids consignment sale in Georgia. At just $35 she knew she had found a steal! This kitchen set even has the sounds of boiling water, coffee brewing, and some other things. There are magnets for the fridge, and on the back there is a grill which turns red when you are cooking. It also makes sounds as if something is being grilled. There are tons of little details on this kitchen!

While Brianna slept, Hunter helped himself to her new toy!

On Friday, we had lots to do to get ready for the party on Saturday! We had family come into town and guess what they brought? An old-school Radio Flyer tricycle! How cool is that? (Another consignment find by Leila!)

Hunter wasn't really getting the hang of the tricycle, so he was sticking to what he knows best - soccer! Luckily his aunt Jenn and her boyfriend Seth are patient enough to play with an amateur!

Saturday morning we were up bright and early, and by 7:00am we had THIS in our front yard:

Friday night I had made one of Brianna's two birthday cakes so it could harden overnight. This is a white cake which is rainbow on the inside. The outside is just fondant, which, once hardened, can be drawn on with edible markers. So Saturday one of Brianna's tasks was to decorate her cake! (Juju and I ended up helping after she was bored of it!)

This is the holder I made for the silverware for her party. I got a formula can (I saved a bunch from when Hunter was a baby for times like these!!) and wrapped scrapbook paper around it. I taped it using double-sided tape. Then I made a bow from some ribbon I had in my craft bag and I used floral wire to tie it onto the formula can. Voila!

Brianna wanted her rainbow doodle cake, but she also told everyone she was having a "pink and black cake"! So... here is her chocolate cake with chocolate icing and almost an entire container of pink sprinkles on top! Hah!

The rainbow doodle cake: (I will put this recipe on my recipe blog for step-by-step instructions)

The homemade party favors:

The framed 20 Questions:

The weather was perfect, so we pulled out the pool! All the kids had a blast in it. This pool was totally worth the $10 I paid for it two years ago. Haha!

Brianna got such perfect stuff for her birthday. She got Play-Doh, stickers, activity books, card games, books, craft supplies, bubbles, clothes, lots of Color Wonder supplies, fruit snacks, skates, and hair barrettes just to name a FEW things!! One of the coolest things she got was a butterfly in a jar. Not a real one, of course - go here to watch a short video about it. I would take a video of the one she got but she took it to preschool with her for her special treasure today!!

Another thing she got was a new set of sheets/comforter for her bed! After she got moved into a toddler bed, her Oma and Opa decided this would be her birthday present. They would email us selections to show her, and after showing her many designs, this was the one she always went back to:

I wish I could take a picture of her whole room. This bed set just completes everything, PLUS her new kitchen is in her room. I love that her room is becoming her own place slowly. She loves being up there.

I feel like her birthday party was a huge success. We didn't invite friends from church or preschool, just our family, and we are really glad we did that. It wasn't overwhelming and people were happy to linger for several hours... especially since we paid to have The Mosquito Authority come and cleanse our yard last week!! No mosquitoes all summer is the guarantee!

I couldn't have been any happier with how the day turned out. Thank you everyone who joined us! And thanks to everyone who made it through reading this entire post. Haha!