Happy Birthday Boys!

My boys each celebrated a birthday over Spring Break, Todd turned 6 and Scott turned 7 two weeks later. Last night we had a joint party for them. Todd had a hockey theme and Scott went with Wall*E.

This was the scene before the guests arrived... Scott waiting patiently and looking out the front window for his school friends to come!

- 2 Birthday Boys
- 2 cakes
- 2 tables
- 2 sets of friends
- But only ONE party and one shared movie!

The boys each had 4 friends over, and Todd technically had 5 friends because he let Elise join his table - what a guy! I sure noticed a big difference in the kids from Kindergarten to Grade one... wow! Way more energy in Gr. 1, plus they are so much more familiar with each other that they seem to know what the other ones are thinking. It was great to watch my kids interact with their friends.

Here are a few pictures...

The Wall-E cake started like this, with just a black outline - I was tempted to leave it like this for an abstract kind of look. But, I didn't!


All coloured in with icing. This was fun to do, but the next cake was definitely easier!

Todd wanted a hockey cake, and this one was decorated in just a few minutes.


Todd loved it.


Now that the party is over, these posters are going on the wall in Todd's room.

Scott surrounded by Wall-E things on the other side of the dining room.

Where's the FIRE!?!!!

I don't think this firetruck would be much good at putting out the flames, but it was still a hit at Scotty's 6th birthday party, yesterday. Party pics to follow, but I just wanted to share a few pics of the cake!!




The Playmobil Fireman that we got Scott on his birthday came in pretty handy as props around the cake!!

I used red string licorice wound up to make the firehoses.


I had a new flashing Canada Flag pin, so I thought it would nicely complete the cake as the firetruck lights! A #6 candle sat in the bucket on top of the cake for Scotty to blow out... (you'll see that in a later post).

Seeing Red!

My oldest has recently turned 6, and we have his party coming up (it couldn't be on his birthday because the kids were away at my parents' over his "real" birthday!) He decided on a Firetruck/Fireman theme for his party and so I, in my loads of extra time (that was sarcastic, if you missed it!) decided that I would make a perfect firetruck cake. I've seen them online and they can't be that hard, right?

Well, the cake itself is not the problem... I spent 2 days (well, pieces of 2 days, not a full 48 hours!) trying to get the perfect red coloured icing for the truck. It started out like this....


Then I added red (no-taste) Wilton gel. But all I could achieve was this at first: (I don't think Scott would be happy with a "Cameo Coral" firetruck cake!)


Finally, after a lot of asking around, and even putting a plea to my pals on Facebook who are cake decorators, and more mixing and adding gel colouring, I came up with this... There is a bunch of chocolate icing in this as well, which helped create a richer red. I am so glad that the gel by Wilton is no-taste, otherwise nobody would eat the cake!

The colour seemed to darken a bit after I left it in the fridge. It is a great firetruck colour, now, so I am very happy.

Once I finish decorating the cake I will post the pictures!

Here is the invitation that Scott and I made together. These are some super-cheap invitations to make, but I think they turned out pretty cute, and in keeping with the theme!

The beauty in roses....

Just found this picture in my files, and it kind of reminds me of the "Wilton Rose" that I recently learned how to make. I do think God does a better job of creating roses than I do, though! (and His smell a lot better, too!!!!!!!).

The Wilton Rose

Tonight was the last night of my level one "Wilton Method Cake Decorating Course"... I loved it! We worked on perfecting the rose tonight. I think I did ok... It's just too bad that the icing tastes so yucky. But I think part of my problem is that I flavoured the icing tonight with the "Butter Flavour" and it is just raunchy. Steve had to hold his breath when I opened up the container to show him the cake... so, I am not going to be using that flavouring again... I should have stuck with vanilla. Next time. I am sure the kids will want a piece of it, so it won't go completely to waste. I don't think I can eat it. After messing about on it for so long, I hardly want to look at it anymore!!!

But I thought you might like to see it, so here you go :)




Leanne and Judi's cakes were fabulous tonight, and I want to show them as well.....

Judi's.. I love Judi's little sweet peas - she got them down perfectly!


And here's Leanne's... Once again, Leanne totally wins for the colour combo she chose. Love these colours, Leanne!

Crazy for Cupcakes!!!

Tonight was the third of four classes in my Level one "Wilton Method of Cake Decorating" course at our local Michaels store. I had so much fun tonight. First of all, Judi and Leanne and their families joined us for dinner before the class. Then the girls went off to our class, and the guys stayed back here (with all the kids!! Seven kids in total) and just hung out for a couple hours!

The class was so fun, and it was "cupcake night" so I had a great time decorating mine. The instructor is really great, too, and she makes the steps easy to understand and is very thorough at demonstrating each technique. The kids will have a wonderful surprise in the morning when they wake up to these guys..... (but they'll have to wait until snack time to eat them :)

And these flower ones were Steve's favourites of the ones I made....

Then, to practice my "shells" I did these 2 white ones below... and the blue one is just using up leftover icing...

And just another shot of the tops of the cupcakes:

I am looking forward to taking level 2 at some point... don't know if it will be later this fall, or if the 3 of us might take the next level together in the new year. This has been something on my "to do" list for awhile now, so I am so glad that Leanne and Judi asked me if I wanted to take the course with them... it just came up in conversation one day, and about a week later Leanne called and said, "Meet us at Michaels in an hour, we're signing up!" So there you have it... you just gotta DO IT!!!! Thanks ladies... it's so fun hanging out with you each week!

NSR.... but still artsy!!

A couple weeks ago, I joined a Level one Wilton cake decorating class with my friends Leanne and Judi. In the second class, we had to decorate a cake.... oh the pressure! Here's my cake... and while it tasted pretty good, and the icing was very yummy (I used a store bought chocolate for the flat icing, and I made up the buttercream recipe for the decoration part, it's not the fanciest cake in the world... but I know that by the end of Level 3 I'm going to rock!!!!!