I am incredibly blessed to work with amazing couples. After meeting with Haylee and Max for their consultation and tasting, I came home and told my husband that they were the kind of people that we would totally be friends with. Our conversation just flowed …
Oh, pregnancy! I don’t think I’m out of line to say that pregnancy is full of emotions. Emotions of every kind–excitement, nervousness, panic, joy, love, fear, gratitude, sorrow, and the list goes on and on and on. And if you’re anything like me, I experienced …
As you can imagine, birthday cakes are kind of a big deal in our house. I always let my boys choose their cake, so we start talking about birthday cake themes several months before the actual birthday celebration. Typically, Jack is my steadfast, predictable child who knows what he wants. I have noticed, however, that since he began kindergarten in the fall, he’s not quite so predictable anymore. This year, his birthday cake theme ideas ran the gamut between monster trucks (we did that last year) and an under the sea cake. He ultimately landed on one of his latest obsessions–Mario.
Now, we aren’t super techy people, especially when it comes to the boys. They just received a Kindle Fire tablet for Christmas and we are still rocking the old school original Wii gaming system. And while I’ve always known of YouTube’s existence, we never spent much time there–until recently. Somehow, my boys discovered that instead of playing video games yourself, you can watch OTHER PEOPLE play video games on YouTube. Again, I’m not techy at all, but I assume that there is some way to record yourself playing the game and then upload it to YouTube for others to watch. The boys would sit there all day and watch Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Toad, and the whole gang run around on the screen if we let them. They actually say, “I’m Mario!” and “I’m Bowser!” They love it.
So, I wasn’t super surprised when Jack said that he wanted a Mario cake. I thought it was a great idea! Ryan found a set of figurines to place on the cake and we spent several hours together creating various iconic items from the Super Mario Bros. world. We were very pleased with the finished product and Jack beamed with excitement when he saw the cake for the first time all put together. That was all of the reward that I needed.
Honestly, the pictures don’t do this cake justice. The colors were much brighter, just like in the video game, and the details really popped from the cake when seeing it in person.
Jack requested chocolate cake for the top tier and funfetti cake on the bottom tier and both tiers were filled with raspberry buttercream–he has good taste! I covered both tiers in a super smooth layer of vanilla buttercream that I tinted a bright blue.
For his birthday celebration at school, I was able to get him to narrow down his wide range of requested cake flavors and frosting colors. As a former preschool and elementary school teacher, I could just hear the “I want chocolate!” and “I want vanilla” and “I wanted green frosting!” So, I did his teacher a favor and had him choose one cake flavor and offered to swirl together two frosting colors. He chose funfetti cake and blue and purple frosting (his two favorite colors).
I think that he was just so proud and excited to walk down the hall to his classroom while carrying the big box of his birthday cupcakes. I saw him later that day at school for his birthday lunch and he was beaming with excitement. He really felt special that day and that makes me so happy. I love you, Jack! Happy birthday!
I have always loved the game show “Family Feud.” From the comfort of my living room couch, I am pretty good at it, too! If they were to survey 100 people about occasions where cake is served, birthday’s would HAVE to be at the top …
I have three children. Three male children, to be exact, and I love it. Life is crazy at our house and it seems that the minute after I pick something up off of the floor, there is already something new to take its place. Can you say monster trucks?
As with most parents, I quickly fell into calling my boys nicknames. I seem to prefer “Buddy” and “Bud” for all three of them. Occasionally, I will use a unique nickname for each of them, but more often than not, it’s “Bud.” And on the rare (ha!) occasions that I need to let them know that I mean business, I bust out the first AND middle names. On a side note, a few months ago, there was a solid week where my three year old referred to my five year old by his first and middle names. Apparently, I meant a lot of business that week…
During the baby years for each of my children, I would occasionally call them “Little Man.” I’m not sure why it never translated to the toddler and preschool years–maybe it just feels more appropriate for a baby. Therefore, when I was asked to make cookies and cake for a Little Man themed first birthday party, I was very excited.
The neckties, the bowties, the moustaches, the suspenders– it’s just adorable! Mom and Dad chose a teal, gray, black, and white color scheme, so those colors were used across the three items. These cookies were all unique. No two were exactly the same!
The cake was almond flavored with a truly swoon worthy raspberry buttercream filling. The outside is covered with vanilla buttercream and fondant accents in the gray, teal, and black party colors.
The Little Man’s smash cake was a festive funfetti with vanilla buttercream and a fun piping design on the side. It was topped with a black fondant moustache to bring the whole theme together.
I was so happy to see pictures of the birthday boy in his buttercream covered glory and to know that this family had a fantastic time celebrating a special little boy’s first year of life!
Do you remember being 13 years old? I sure do. For me, my thoughts centered around my friends and the boy that I had a crush on on that particular day. And as my teenage diaries would tell you, that was a revolving door, though …
I just love the look of all of the sweet and simple, single tier cakes that I have been seeing lately. There’s something that is so innocent and fresh about them. Don’t even get me started on extended tier and double barrel cakes! I …
As parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, we often see something and think to ourselves, “Gasp! (Insert name of a loved child) would absolutely love that!” That’s exactly what happened with a doting father and my unicorn cake from a few weeks ago. Well, I doubt that he gasped, but he knew that his daughter would fall in love with the cake and wanted to give her one for her birthday.
This was my first official order after my maternity leave and I could not be happier that it is going to a sweet little girl to help make her 3rd birthday celebration even more magical and special. Happy birthday, Kadence!
As I create the cakes, cupcakes, and cookies that my customers order, I like to think about the recipients and how they will react to their unique treat and also about the special occasion that they are celebrating. This usually leads me down memory lane to significant occasions in my life. In this case, I was taken back to some of my boys’ particularly memorable birthdays.
This was the very first cake that I made for one of my children.
It was the night before Jack’s first birthday and I remember being up so late trying to finish this cake. He wasn’t sleeping through the night yet, so I had to stop several times during the making of this cake to go put him back to bed. It was worth it, though.
At “cake time”, Jack wasn’t quite sure about the whole smashing of the cake idea, so I tried to tempt him to really get into the cake by giving him a taste of the buttercream frosting. He was still skeptical and eventually let us know that he was NOT happy about all of the cake and frosting on his hands.
This was Wyatt’s second birthday cake and it will forever hold a special place in my memory and heart.
He was crazy about airplanes at the time, so he loved the cake. But the part that is so special to me is what happened when we were singing Happy Birthday to him. It has to have been the happiest Happy Birthday that has ever been. There is no other way to explain it except to say that there was pure joy on his face.
Wyatt giggled and smiled the entire time, which caused the rest of us to laugh and smile, too. It was so sweet and innocent. I have the whole thing on video and it is truly one of my most treasured moments.
It is a true honor whenever a customer chooses me to play a part in their birthday celebration because it’s not just cake or cookies that I create. It’s the backdrop to a special day that may stay in their hearts for the rest of their lives. That is not something that I take lightly or for granted.
Here’s to many more birthdays!
