Chronicles of the cakes...

Birthday cakes. They are not something I dreamed of creating when I thought about motherhood. Honestly, never even crossed my mind. When I started planning E's party last year, Sharon and Maria were all giddy in wanting to help plan and create his cake. Here's what we all came up with:


I have to admit, it was more fun than I thought. So, in preparing for birthday #2, I started brainstorming. I found a cake online that was perfect for our Backyardigans theme. Then I stumbled upon some matching adorable cupcakes. Well, you win some you lose some, right? The cake turned out great, the cupcakes...uh...well, take a look. Here's the Backyardigans (Pablo, the blue penguin, is E's favorite character):

Here's how our cake turned out:


I love it!! I can say that because I didn't make it all by myself, Russ and my parents helped too.
Here's the adorable cupcakes that I found to make online:

I would like to say that Eliot made this, but no, it was me. And my mom. This is what we came up with (If you're laughing, it's WITH us, not at us...we're laughing, too)

Not a big difference from the online pic, right? Oh my, it reminds me of the playdough Mr. Bill from when we were kids! So, we made it a 'craft' for the kids to do themselves instead of staying up even later to make more of this disaster. Good thing the cake turned out so good!

By the way, I got inspired to start using fondant after seeing Heather's birthday cake for her daughter. If you want a yummy fondant recipe, just click here!