Nathan is 4!

Oh my goodness you guys. I have a 4 year old! We’ve had lots of birthday fun going on this week that I’m really excited to tell you about.

His birthday was earlier, and we did a few things to celebrate on his actual birthday. I had to run a few errands, but he got to pick out a couple of new cars to bring home. We got Chick Fil A and took it to John’s office to meet him there for birthday lunch. The boys always love to visit Daddy at work, so that was really fun. We had Nathan’s favorite meal for dinner (pasta with tomato cream sauce, aka “Nathan’s Favorite Pasta”) and brownies for dessert. After that was PRESENTS.

Spencer getting in the way… ;)
I think this has been his favorite thing so far. I was hesitant to get Legos, but he loves them and so far Spencer hasn’t tried to eat any…so…I guess we’re okay for now.
I think all of John’s dreams for fatherhood were starting to come true right here…at least until Nathan got bored with the building part and just wanted to play with the finished product, so I sped along the building process because Spencer was waving bags of Legos in my face saying “open NOW!”.
 
So they had a good time playing with his new presents. :)

Today we had a large-ish little party for Nathan and his preschool friends. I kept telling myself that I needed to keep it simple, but then I kept thinking of things I wanted to do and it got bigger and bigger (at least with the food – I just can’t help myself)

My biggest self-imposed task with the birthday cake. I had so much fun doing the Tiffany’s bridal shower cake that I was itching to make something else.

So I decided to go all out and make a pirate ship cake. SO FUN, right?!
If I had actually taken the time to plan this out better (I basically found a picture on pinterest and was like “oh yeah, I got this”) I would have done a few things differently, but overall I’m really happy with the way it turned out since I was totally ‘sailing’ by the seat of my pants here. I was realizing that even though I decorated a sculpted cake at pastry school, I have never actually made one with real cake (most of that one was styrofoam). So again, I was just kind of putting it together as I went along. ;)
And Nathan LOVED it, and that’s all that matters :)

Nathan doesn’t really do group party games, so I didn’t plan any games, but I had the kids make pirate hats and hooks and they all seemed to really enjoy that. Say “ARRRRGH!”

And they mostly just played – we had plans to go to the park for the first half of the party, but it RAINED ALL DAY TODAY. Lame. But I think they all still had fun playing here.

I had a fun table spread for lunch. This would be where the rest of the self imposed complexity happened. I love setting up themed food tables ;)

Chicken salad sandwiches for the moms and “sea serpent” (chicken) nuggets for the kids :)
I realize this is a misnomer, as it’s supposed to be citrus that prevents scurvy, right? Just work with me here…
I just HAD to make cookies too, you know ;)
I’m pretty sure the treasure map numbers were my favorites – I LOVED the way they turned out!
Spencer was SUCH a stinker and kept swiping cookies from the table. But he’d only take one bite of each one before moving on to another. After the 5th cookie I finally moved the whole platter back into the kitchen. He was kind of mad about that…

After lunch we had cake!! I put the candles into the sides to look like cannons :) We sang (and at the end of the song, Nathan got a surprise kiss on the cheek from his little preschool crush! eeek! All of us moms were DYING) and had cake and there was general chaos until it was time to send everyone home.

I’d say it was a success! Now to clean up alllll the kitchen mess I’ve made in the last week ;)

Happy birthday Nathan! We love you and are so glad you are a part of our family!

Tiffany’s Themed Bridal Shower Cake and Cookies

It’s been a loooooong time since I’ve made a real cake but I had to opportunity to make one for a bridal shower this past week and while it meant a LOT of late nights (because I can only work on it when the kids are sleeping), it was fun to get back into cake decorating a little bit.

**I’m going to apologize ahead of time for the bad pictures, again, I’m working at night and the lighting isn’t so great and I was pressed for time as it was – while the week went smoothly for the most part, I had some major mom brain moments ;)

The inside was vanilla cake with a chocolate ganache filling – Yum!
I was really happy with the way it turned out, especially considering I don’t sink my hands into fondant all that often these days. I think the rosebud belt was my favorite detail.

I also made cookies as favors. I had to do some research on how to get that Tiffany blue, but I think I got pretty close!! (sorry if you can’t tell on your computer screen, I promise it was close, ha ha)

All packaged up and ready to go!

I loved having the chance to do a cake again! Maybe I’ll need to bust out the fondant again for the boys’ birthdays this year…hmm…we’ll see… ;)

Eagle Scout Court of Honor Cake

So you might remember when I was 36 weeks pregnant with Nathan, I made a wedding cake. This past week, at 35 weeks pregnant, I made an Eagle Scout Court of Honor cake. Maybe we should just make it a tradition. ;)

Thankfully, this cake was a very simple design, so it was totally manageable. It was 3-tiered with white fondant and white fleur de lis and ribbon. Bam. Done. And they had a cool porcelain eagle they wanted on top. Easy peasy. What was not easy was trying to get all the cake baked off one morning with a cranky toddler. Who suddenly decided he liked cake and really wanted to eat it. Mean mommy wouldn't let him. It's tough to be 2.

Anyway, it turned out very nice, even if assembly was stressful. (It's always stressful) I had to take it over to the church in three pieces because otherwise it would be too heavy for me to carry and I had to do it myself because John stayed home with Nathan so I could make the delivery. But it all worked out.

So here it is!

Very glad to have that done! I was completely exhausted all week, but I enjoyed making it. I actually have another cake request for the 28th - which would put me at 38 weeks. The verdict is still out on that one, am I crazy enough to take it? Any bets? ;)

On the Go 2nd Birthday Parties

Once again Little Man got not one, but TWO birthday parties this year. And I’m exhausted. ;) It’s been so fun though.

I went with a transportation themed party this year, not only because he loves all things cars, trucks and trains, but because it suits his personality – he’s always on the go!!

I found a really cute clipart package on Etsy that fit perfectly with the theme so I used those images to create an invitation and based the rest of the party on that.

We had our first party last weekend at Nana and Papa’s house and just like last year, Nana rented a bouncy house and it was a wild success with the kids that came. Nathan tried it out before the party and wasn’t too sure about it – he probably doesn’t remember it from last year. But we added a raingutter regatta this year and he really enjoyed playing in the water.

I had a very fun time putting together the food table. I made another cake this year, and some sugar cookies and oreo truffles, and we served café rio pork salad for dinner.

He was so excited about the cookies. The train ones were his favorites.
“Choo-Choos”

After lots of time to play in the water and run around on the lawn we sang Happy Birthday, cut the cake, and opened presents! I did manage to get him to try the cake, but he ate one bite and didn’t want anymore. His favorite was the cookies ;) And he got lots of fun presents!

On his actual birthday this year (yesterday) we got to do a few fun things to celebrate. We went to Target to pick out a new hot wheels car, then met John at his office for birthday lunch. We had his favorite dinner of pasta with tomato cream sauce and finished the night off with brownies (his favorite dessert) and I let him watch the whole Frozen movie. He’d only seen the first half when we gave him a haircut a few weeks ago. He LOVED it. I don’t really think he understands the movie, but he loves the music and he’d get this big grin on his face when the songs came on. It was adorable. The three of us snuggled on the couch for our first family movie night. It was so fun. It was also the first thing he demanded this morning when he woke up. Sorry, buddy. We’re not watching “Let it Go” every single day. Yet. ;)

Today we had his party here at home with some friends. The nice thing is that I can reuse most of my decorations from last weekend and it came together pretty quickly. We had it at the same park we went to last year and it worked out really well again this year. There’s a playground and a huge sand box for the kids to play in and we set out blankets for everyone to sit on to eat. The weather was a little warm today, but we had a little bit of a breeze and a small patch of shade and it was great!

My mom came up for the day (I had a baby shower this morning that she came to as well, so it was a day of parties today!) and Nathan loved having Nana at his party this afternoon.
This kid had THREE brownies this afternoon. Oof.
Definitely starting to get that whole present thing down ;)

We ate, chatted, and had a lovely time with our friends.We finally got everything cleaned up, put away and the birthday boy in bed. I’m pooped!

But we had so much fun! Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate our Little Man this year!