The Celebration

Yesterday might have been The Day, but today was Party Time!  Daddy was home, presents were opened, and the fun was just about to begin.  What a fun, exhausting day.

THE CAKE:
I've been in love with the rainbow cake ever since I stumbled across a blog and my friend, Nicole was easily convinced to take on the massive project for a baby shower.  For those of you who know me well, you know I really don't like baking; all that precise measuring and mixing and room temperature this and refrigerated that.  Good grief, makes my head hurt.  So even though I moan and groan about baking, I knew I just had to tackle the rainbow cake...Kendra style.  Ok, you can call it cheating.  I used a box.  It's a standard white cake.  I divided the batter into 4 bowls.  I didn't weigh them to make sure they were precise.  I eye-balled it.  Maybe that's why they were slightly crooked.  I couldn't find the primary color food gel, but they had pastels at the store, so that's what we used.  I didn't have a fancy butterfly cake pan.  The stores here didn't carry them.  I used 2 9 inch round pans, 4 different layers, 4 beautiful colors, 2 Twinkies, 2 pipe cleaners, and so much icing (2 containers), M&Ms and candy sprinkles that your blood sugar would rise just looking at it.   It turned out just like I had envisioned.  I was so happy and proud.  Of course, the one downside was that the cake was super moist and I guess the candy so heavy that part of it broke by the time we got to the party facility.  Good thing I took pictures right after it was finished.  It was still delicious.

It was a tall cake!

Blue, pink, green and orange

At least from this angle, it was hard to see the broken area.

THE PARTY:

June is a hot month here and I went looking for an indoor venue to host the party.  Stumbled upon Crafty Things over on the Air Force Base.  It's a craft store that also teaches craft classes.  They offer b-day parties where they do an age appropriate craft (with an instructor) and then give us use of the party room.  They even supplied the table cloths!  This was fabulous!  We ended up having a rainy, stormy day and being indoors was a blessing.  The kids made refrigerator magnets out of some super cool Japanese clay and got to decorate them.  How fun!  We then played Pin the Tail on the Donkey (Mary was way off course) and a kids version of Bingo.  I took a break from cooking and we ordered fruit and vegetable trays from the commissary and Doug picked up an assortment of pizzas.

You know it was a successful party, when this is what you see in the rear view mirror on the drive home.

Happy birthday, Mary!  We've had 4 wonderful years with you!  Can't wait to see what this next year will bring!  We love you so much, Mommy, Daddy and Adam.