For me to write another blog post. It's been a long time. Since my last post, Lydia celebrated her first birthday and her second Valentine's Day. The birthday party was a big success. I had planned for a while to make her a ladybug cake, and being my typical perfectionist self, I wanted it to be perfect. Because I knew that Lydia would be eating it, I didn't want to use cake mix, with all those preservatives and unnatural ingredients. To prepare, I looked all over the internet and found many examples of ladybug cakes. I decided to make a large white sheet cake for the bottom and put a chocolate ladybug on top. I was a little unsure about how I would make the ladybug, but I lucked out when I went to Michael's the day before the party to get cake decorating supplies. I found a wonderful Wilton ladybug pan, complete with detailed decorating instructions. So, Friday night, I set to work on the cakes and homemade buttercream frosting. It was already pretty late when I started, but wonderful Don offered to pitch in and made the chocolate ladybug cake while I made the frosting and the big white cheek cake. We finished at midnight, and I started the decorating on Saturday morning. I was so happy with the final result, shown here. I think it looked pretty good for a novice decorator.
The party was lots of fun. We had 35 guests over the course of the day (including our distant travelers Nat and my parents). We ordered pizza and Don made tamales, but it was really a relatively stress-free day. Lydia wouldn't take her nap early, so she ended up missing her afternoon nap, but she held up incredibly well. She was her usual cheerful and fun self, watching us all sing Happy Birthday and eating her birthday cake with gusto. She didn't melt down until around 7:15, and she slept like a rock through the entire night.
The next day, we took advantage of the warmer weather and went to a petting farm. Lydia was so cute. We could really see a difference in her behavior since we last visited in the fall. She was much more interested in the different animals. She helped feed the goats, she tried to jump into the pen with the geese, and she loved looking at the big dog and the calves. It was lots of fun, and made me really look forward to spring.
4 comments:
Just to say again, this cake is AMAZING. You are amazing...in so many ways! I don't know how you manage to do it all!
The cake is beautiful! I've been thinking of you because I knew her birthday must have been some time in the past few weeks. Happy birthday, Lydia!
Happy birthday Lydia! It sounds like you all had a wonderful celebration. I'm SO IMPRESSED with the cake. I'm such a dunce of a baker, I'm tipping my hat in a gesture of respect in your direction.
What a great cake! You did an excellent job and I never would have guessed it was your first. Makes me very nostalgic as I used to make decorated cakes for Emma and Jordan every year and taking a picture of the cake became part of the birthday ritual. Can't wait to finally meet the birthday girl in 2 months!
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