Kinsey had an awesome 3 year old birthday party, or as she calls it, her "3 birthday" and now she can't wait for her "4 birthday"!
The cake decorating was quite interesting. Kinsey said she wanted a WordWorld party so Douglas decided that we could pull off a Pig cake from the show. The show is based on words, so the pig character is built out of the letters P-I-G and when they make a cake, they get the letters for cake and push them together and the cake is made out of the letters C-A-K-E. So Douglas saw this cool thing where a lady spelled out words on the side of a cake with different colored m&ms. So we sort of combined the two ideas into a heck of a cake. I'm so proud of my husband for taking this on. He is crazy talented and creative so the next few pictures showcase his awesomeness at decorating this cake. Party pictures to follow, I promise...
So first we had to layout the C-A-K-E design (we got the M&Ms at Lamme's candies). The funniest part of that story is that we needed to figure out how many M&Ms we needed and we had to figure out the circumference of the circle of an 8 inch cake. Well us trying to remember that formula was ridiculous. Seriously, kids suck the brains right out of your head :). Turns out we needed 50 M&MS around on each row. So Douglas laid out the letters, starting of course with the "C".
We figured out to make the letters look right, we needed 10 M&MS high, so that meant instead of a regular 2 layer cake, we needed 4 layers.So then he laid out the rest of the letters for C-A-K-E...
and we realized we had enough space around the cake for a few more letters, but not enough to write cake twice. So we decided to go with I "heart" cake. 
My part wasn't nearly as cool since my strength is not the creative stuff, but someone had to do the nuts and bolts :) First step, bake 2 cakes, cool them and level them.
Next, it was time to make the buttercream icing, which is just so yummy!!! Main ingredient - powdered sugar! Let's just say after I mixed it, there was a thin layer of white on me and on the whole kitchen. 
Finally time to crumb coat the cake, which as I have recently learned means a thin layer of icing to make the final icing look prettier and it kind of seals in the moisture.
Then it sits overnight to set. That was all on Wednesday night.Thursday night it was time to get serious.
Every week, Thursday night is Pops and Nana night. For her birthday, they came over as usual, but this time they brought presents and birthday brownies :). They played like mad while Mommy and Daddy worked on party preparations.
First, it was time to open presents. Pops and Nana got Kinsey a WordWorld DVD, some books, and a basket for her bike.
GG sent her a Clifford doll and some Clifford books, which is one of her favorite shows.
Ok, so this is so funny. Tag was just getting good at army crawling at this point and he was pretty fast when he had a target in mind. Check out the next few frames as he makes a bee-line for Clifford. 
So then we had to try out the new bike basket. She put some stuff in the basket and got on her helmet. She's getting pretty good at steering. She's really good at knowing right from left so as long as we tell her which way to turn she does well.
Inside the WordWorld DVD box, there was a map of WordWorld with all of the hangouts and homes of the characters. Really cute. So Kinsey wanted to put that in her bike basket and find each house on her bike trip. So here she is taking a rest to check out the map. 
And then they were off again to Bear's Cave or Pig's Barn :) 
During all of this, Nana, Taggart, and I were watching from the blanket and Tag was practicing his new game of "Where's Taggart". It's so cute and he laughs so hard!
Here he is!
So after some serious bike riding, it was time for the birthday dinner. As requested by the birthday girl, we had shrimp, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, corn on the cob, and cheese.
And finally it was time for the birthday brownie. Can you tell she's excited?
Then it was time for Mommy and Daddy to get serious about decorating the cakes. First step, practicing the P-I-G character. I made a boatload of icing and Douglas found a drawing to copy. He traced the outline with a toothpick and then piped all of the details himself. I was blown away - it was such a really good likeness of the show's PIG character! 
After the design was approved, the master started on the cake :)
After the outlines were done, it was time for the colored icing.
When the top was done, it was finally time to put the M&Ms on the cake. It took almost 2 hours to place all 500 of them on there, but we thought it was worth it :).
Here is it in process...
The finished product!!! 
While Douglas worked on the cake, I put the goodie boxes together for the girls. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the full finished product, but it was so fun putting these together. Since Word World is based on letters and words, I decoupaged small shoeboxes with scrapbook paper that had letters and words and brightly colored patterns. It was crazy messy but they turned out so cute! Inside they got Word World coloring pages, crayons, glitter sticker letters, and a necklace bag with letter beads that spelled their names and other fun beads in there. 
Finally the day of the big party arrived. We had three sweet friends and their families meet us at Ready, Set, Play in Round Rock. Here's Kinsey waiting for her friends to arrive...
Emma arrived and shortly after, Ava and Riley. As usual, the girls were instantly drawn to Tag. 
But soon the lure of the slides and bounce houses drew them in. They slid and bounced for over an hour and had a blast. 
In the meantime, Tag was hanging out with his buddy Cody. Cody is Riley's little brother and they were born 1 hour apart. I think this was the first time they really noticed each other :). 
I wish I had videoed them - one would flap his arms at the other and then the other one would do it. They were so cute. Can't believe how big they are already!
Time was winding down and there was a cake waiting for us at the church office. So the girls did two final slides - one with Mommies :)
And one with just the girls. Not sure what Riley is doing, but she was smiling at the end :)
So then we all went over to the church office for some cake and presents. Here's the cake again with the 3 candle.
First we had them eat some pb&j and have some juice before we hit the cake. 
The girls wanted to dig into the boxes right away - here's Ava with hers 
And here's Riley with her sandwich 
We sang and she blew out the candle. 
And of course ate the cake :)
Then we started on the presents. Such sweet friends - she got some great stuff and has really enjoyed playing with all of it! 
After presents, it was time for some coloring :)
Riley had to go home. Here are Emma, Kinsey, and Ava just before it was time to go.
It was a great birthday - nothing beats awesome friends, yummy cake, fun presents, and lots of little girl sweat from running and playing :)One of my favorite pics from the day was when Tag found the floor vent at the church. He kept coming back to it and talking to it while it was blowing on his face. Too funny!
I have to say, this was probably the smoothest birthday she's had. Her 1st birthday, she was very sick and we had to totally cancel her party at the last minute. I think you can see those pics under March 2007 archives. For her 2nd birthday, it was like 50 degrees and we had the party at the park with crazy wind and freezing cold kids. Fun, but not exactly easy. This year we decided to not chance it and do it inside :)Ok, we still have pics of our vacation and other recent stuff, so I'll try to post some more in a couple of days.
1 comment:
That cake is amazing...way to go!
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