my girl wants to party all the time

i wasn't going to share this image, but i wrote about it on facebook and thought some of you might get a kick out of seeing just how much i lack cake decorating skills... seriously! i made two 9 inch round cakes, layered them together with icing in between and then frosted the top with a clear glaze. it looked fine. but after looking at it for an evening, i decided it just wasn't enough for my first birthday girl. and so off to micheal's i went in search of some cake decorating equipment. i came home armed with piping bags, tips, special frosting dyes and tubes of sugary goo.

i opened it all up to discover that the kit i bought (made by that duff guy from ace of cakes) did not include directions. i do not watch that show and consider myself to be a pretty good cook and an ok crafter... how hard could this be? after 20 minutes of trying to choose the correct piping tip and trying to get said tip to stay on the bag i felt like i might be able to pull this off. well, the peanut, egg, gluten, dairy free icing i bought was a different texture/consistency than the duff frosting tubes... and as you can see, it was all over from there. not to mention, i have the shakiest hand and my icing lines were a mess. i threw in the towel and headed to the local bakery for a professionally made cupcake for my popcake! a cake decorator, i am not!

a few of my friends have some sort of misconception about little old me, so here's to keeping it real:

now that we have THAT out of the way, i'd like you to see how cute my birthday girl was.

she thought it was a hoot when we stood her in front of a pile of gifts and all watched her. she did some cooing, clapping, dancing and then was sort of like, "what? why is everyone looking at me?". after she started getting into her gifts she was as giddy as a schoolgirl. she loved her ball pit filled with balls and stayed in there for the duration. she opened the rest of her gifts while sitting immersed in her little pit... and she was delighted.

she tossed 'em and kicked her ankles in them. she licked them and made them rain over her own head.

she liked it so much that she cried when we took her out for cake time. after we calmed her down, we began the cake party. she loved it!

"for me? are you all singing to me? is this cake mine? ahh, i love my birthday!"

she started out timid...

but that didn't last very long. apparently strawberry butter cream is quite tasty... i wouldn't know as i was too busy snapping pictures and noshing on that green glob from above.

REALLY TASTY!

happy birthday, sweet girl! you are such a gift to us and we love you so much!

oh, and one final note: our sweet poppy woke up at 10:30 with a rather intense belly ache. it seems she may have had a wee bit too much cake. sorry, girl! but based on your reaction to taking in the cake, i'm guessing that you'd say the belly ache was worth it! out of our three girls, you are the one that liked your cake best!