XBox 360 cake

I don't think I did a great job. It looked differently in my head than how it came out and I definately will do things differently next time BUT the birthday guy loved it and so did all his friends and family. I got a lot of compliments on it and was told how much it really looked like an xbox plus everyone loved the taste so that's what counts, right?

The controller is made from rice krispie treats (see the pan in the back?). It's covered in buttercream (real) and fondant (which tasted pretty good btw). The knobs are rolos I cut in half and covered. The A, B, Y, X buttons are M&Ms upside down. I wrote the letters on them with edible food markers. The cake was yellow boxed cake (x 2), a box of pound cake and 1 package instant pudding powder (pound cake and pudding help make it more dense for carving) with buttercream frosting, pineapple preserves and fondant. I used silver luster dust to make the silver metallic details and edible markers for the writing. All the air holes were made from poking a food thermometer into the fondant. I won't go into my mistakes but I'm sure you can see them. LOL This is only my 2nd time working with fondant though so I won't beat myself up too much.

Birthday Party Time!

Finally. Today was the day. I was running around like a crazy person this morning. I had to decorate the cake and smash cake, run to the store to have the balloons blown up, go to Publix and get the drinks and ice and stop in Walgreens to pick up the photos for the favors since our printer didn't have the right ink last night. I got home and people were just getting here so I got started a wee bit late. I'm so glad I got all the baking done and the frosting made yesterday.

Everything went well though. Bella looked cute as a button in her birthday dress. We had a simple spread- make your own sandwiches and chips and dip. That's it. I bought 2 loaves of whole wheat bread and dh didn't think people would like it. I went ahead and grabbed a loaf of white at the store this morning. Guess what went first? Yep, the wheat. Now I have to run to Costco again to get more for our family! I made fresh onion and ranch dips too. Yum! I barely got any they went so fast. Note to self- buy more food for the next birthday party!



I got a ton of compliments on my desserts. I made a vanilla Giant Cupcake with fresh strawberry frosting for the general party goers and a mini one for Bella's smash cake. I also made Bakerella's cupcake pops in chocolate. Time consuming they were but so worth it! They came out so cute!

Giant cupcake- REAL strawberry frosting. The cupcake liner is actually some vellum paper.

See all the bits of strawberry in there? Yum!





Bella's appetite has been off the last two days. She barely ate anything yesterday and only had a banana today and a few tiny bites of other stuff. Needless to say she didn't do a lot of smashing or eating her smash cake. Oh well. We had pics from her actual birthday of her enjoying a cupcake. I made her cupcake smash cake from scratch. It's this recipe from Martha Stewart. The frosting is from that recipe as well. It was good! For her high chair decor I bought a simple chocolate brown towel to cover the usual navy blue cover and made her a pink tutu. She looks so tiny still in her chair.




This give you a better idea of just how big the *mini* giant cupcake is.


My niece enjoying a cupcake pop.


I love this photo of her. I think it will go up on our wall.


One of MY favorite gifts of the day. My dear sweet friend Julie knitted Bella some cupcakes!! How sweet are they?!




Bella seemed very taken with her Tinkerbell card. That's my girl! ;) I love Tink!


Pulling Minnie Mouse (not a gift) out of her new stroller/walker.


Of course you know babies, they'd much rather play with the wrapping paper and packaging than the actual toy!


Her balloons. Did you know Party City will blow them up for you for a nominal fee? It was cheaper than buying a helium tank myself!


The party favors. The pictures and holders were for each family to take home and the goodie bags for each kid. There were 3 *flavors* of photo holder although only 2 are pictured (chocolate is missing). Goodie bags had Hershey Kisses (pink from Valentines), a cupcake bookmark, cupcake birthday stickers and a Krazy Straw.


Her party was a huge success. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Bella missed her afternoon nap so she was exhausted tonight. I still can't believe it's been a year since she was born. Time seems to go by so quickly. Thank you to all my friends and family who came today. Love you all!!

Birthday Photo Shoot

Talk about exhausting. Trying to take a photo of a one year old is like trying to catch a shooting star. Bella is just quick! I'd stand her up and by the time I was 2 ft from her she'd be crawling back to me. I had to wait for dh's help and it was still a tough job. Here are a few of our outtakes.

Pulling out her bow


I'm all up in your face!


Crawling away


Chillin' on da balloon


Reeaach


Phew. All this picture taking makes a girl thirsty!


Cutie pie


ET impression? No idea what this face was.


Oopsie!


Vogue. Work it!


No more pictures!


Our favorite of the bunch.

Happy 1st Birthday Bella!!

With all the excitement I haven't been able to blog about my Bella-boo! She turned one today and I can't believe it! Here is my birth story from just one year ago and a bit more if you are interested in reading it.

So with all the excitement we didn't get to do much for her. Uncle Frankie stopped by and dh brought pizza home for dinner so he ate with us. My mom stopped by too and ate some. They both signed Logan's cast. I baked some cupcakes and gave Bella the first one and we tried to take some photos outside but since the grass is still pretty much dead and all she wanted to do was pull it up, they didn't turn out the best. She was tired by the time 7pm rolled around so it was into the bath and straight to bed for my baby girl. Dh wants to take her to the toy store and see if anything catches her eye. LOL I guess we'll do that tomorrow night. Here are a few photos of my baby girl's birthday! Happy birthday Bella!! I love you little mama.

Handuls of grass.






Testing a small bit of icing first.


Digging in




Funny face

Random

First, I still love my Diva Cup. I don't think I could ever live without this thing! Don't know what it is? Here's my original post. Now I can go to the beach or pool without fear any time of year!

Next, I realized last night that one of Bella's Pediped shoes was missing. I bought them at a steep discount before she was born and love them so I was upset when one went missing. I know it was in my car but she hasn't worn them in a while so I had no idea where to start looking for them. On a whim this morning I called SuperTarget since I go there a couple times a week and at first she didn't see it but she must have remembered something and asked me to hold on. She came back and said she had it! Woohoo!! I guess it fell out of the car at some point and some nice person turned it in. Thank you nice person!!

What's left? Oh I was at Joann's this morning getting some more tulle for Bella's party tutu and happened to see their discount aisle. It reminds me of Target's Dollar Spot but everything is $2.50 here. They had cupcake stuff!! I got the CUTEST cupcake bookmarks (3/package) for the goody bags. I put the bags together when I got home and they are adorable. I can't wait to give them out!

I'm back

I got a yucky tummy bug on Tuesday and I'm getting better but I'm not 100% yet. I had dh take Logan to tumbling tonight so I could hang at home. I'm supposed to be cleaning but then who will watch Bella? ;) Heaven forbid I stick her in a playpen!

So here are just a few catch-ups from this week. We got to see the space shuttle Discovery go up on Sunday night. Beautiful launch! We didn't actually go over to the Cape but we were able to see it just fine from way over here. We're a good 3 hour drive from the Cape on the other coast so it's really neat to know we can still see it! Unfortunately my SLR camera had an issue (easily fixed) but I wasn't able to take photos with it at the moment so I had to run and grab my little P&S so that means quality isn't the greatest, especially at night with the long zoom.

Smoke trail



That star looking thing is the boosters falling back to earth. Remember, we're clear across the state!


St Patty's Day was Tuesday and Logan had to make a leprechaun trap for school. I'm not an engineering major (or minor!) so this was the best I could do. The one dh made for Ian last minute was far better. It had a fake floor and trap door!




That morning they visited our house first. Thet left a box of Lucky Charms cereal and turned the milk green. They also left some green beaded necklaces for the boys to wear. His class loved when they came back from lunch and they had been visited by those little green men. They left footprints, peed green in the class bathroom and left some candy.

Other than that our week has been pretty much the same old, same old. I'm still trying to pick a date for Bella's birthday. More than likely it will the the 1st weekend of April. No competing with her uncle's 40th birthday that way. I've gotten most of the stuff I needed and her birthday dress came in the mail today! It's so cute! I can't believe she's almost one already. It seems like I just had her. Time goes by way too quickly!