She is one whole hand now*

E decided she wanted Rosetta from the new Tinkerbell movie to be on her birthday cake this year. I told her that was a great idea because I figured I could get one of those edible picture things you put on the top of the cake and that I would add some flowers (she is the Garden Fairy) and sprinkles and we’d be set. The problem there is that the movie has only been out for a month or so and Disney hasn’t had a chance to cover every possible surface with the Fairy’s faces yet and so there was nothing even remotely close to Rosetta to decorate the cake. We were now onto Plan B which had me drawing Rosetta free hand with gel icing. My hopes were shot down really quickly when, using this for reference:

I did a practice try and came up with this:

Um, yeah. It kind of looks like a praying mantis in a skirt or something. What can I say? An artist I am not.

I did a bit better on Saturday night when attempting the real thing. I made a mistake on the first try, but it was a layered cake so I just made the mistake the middle and started again on the new top. After a very long, slow process I came up with this:

This will probably be the ugliest cake I’ll ever make, but E loved it so I’ll mark it down as a success. Or it was until I woke up the next morning to find her hair had all slid down the side of the cake, but whatever. Here are a couple other shots:

As for the party? It was great. This was E’s first big(ish) party and she had so much fun with all her friends. After everyone arrived we had a total of 10 kids, 14 adults, 4 teenagers and one little baby. My not so big house had a hard time fitting everyone in, but did manage.

We played some games: first a balloon race:

::snicker::

(As you can see most of the kids were a bit too shy too play. K gave it a whirl, but just ended up running around the yard with her balloon while happily screaming when the race started.)

Next we played Pass the Parcel. This was the first time I’ve ever wrapped one of those suckers up and is it ever a pain in the ass. I couldn’t not do it, though – the kids EXPECT to see a parcel and it had better be passed.

Then there was some playing, chatting and a lot of eating and last, but not least, it was time for the cake. I loved having so many people there to sing for E and I think she did too. She blew her candles out…

…the cake was devoured (plus the cupcakes that made up Rosetta’s garden), we passed out the Christmas themed loot bags (for my Christmas baby) and we were done.

After preparing the day before, the actual party time, and cleaning after I was freaking exhausted, but so pleased E had a great day. This was her first milestone birthday so it was worth all the effort.

HAPPY FIFTH BIRTHDAY, E!

*OK, so not for two days, but she started calling herself five from the day of the party so I will too.