It’s become a tradition that every year I make a garish 4th of July cake. This year the kids and I decided to make our most important cake thus far.
This year we made a close the camps cake.
The cake has since been consumed, but the conversations remain strong!
Here are some photos from Elí’s first Elmo birthday. I guess Elmo is becoming a trend :).
Party prep: Elías Sesame Street Crayons and Dorthy royal icing cookies
The birthday boy and his abuelito
The birthday table
Rainbow pound cake with Italian buttercream frosting
Birthday brother eating cake
The Sesame Street birthday family
Chocolate Elmo lollipops
Royal icing Elmo cookies
Diecut Sesame Street Banners
Sesame Street Fruit and Vegetable trays
Watermelon cake for the birthday boy
Party prep: Chocolate covered crayons pretzels
Awesome El Mundo de Elías birthday sign made by Nico
Party prep: Sesame Street diecut bunting flags
Party prep: Sesame Street diecuts
Party prep: Cakestands
As many of you know I am obsessed with Frida Kahlo. So are my sons. Today we celebrate this magnificent woman’s bday.
This year we celebrated ‘Murica to the fullest with a Fourth of July Buttercream Ombré Piñata Cake.
Truth be told, after last year’s massive flag cake I wasn’t planning on making anything too crazy. But my family seemed so disappointed and I ended up caving. I’m happy though that I went for it. I had a lot of fun playing with my my new Russian Icing tips for the first time. Many lessons learned here so next time I think they’ll come out much better.
And I want to give a BIG thanks to my mother-in-law for all of her help watching the kids and killing it with the clean up!
View of the cake from above. Flowers created with Russian piping tips.
Here is the cake after we cut it open. I had my husband cut it open so that I could record a little video, but he ruined it when he decided to eat a piece of cake mid-recording 😦
These are the ombré layers. I use Americolor gels to get super vibrant colors.
And here is my little man 🙂 He and I also made American flag chocolate covered pretzels But we will debut those later today…
Last fourth of July I was SUPER pregnant. And like any rational minded soon to be mami of two, I decided that I should spend my last days of freedom on my feet, for hours, baking a flag cake.
I started by making a 5 layer red test-cake with buttercream filling. But I wasn’t happy enough with the height ratio of the red to white, so I ended up with this monstrosity pictured below.
Really this cake didn’t reach it’s full height potential. But that is only because I reached the max height of our freezer, where I was storing the layers, and I literally couldn’t stand on my feet any longer. That being said, it still irks me when I look at the picture above and wish, wish, wish that there was a the very least another top red layer.
The most delicious part of the cake was actually the lemon curd filling, which you can’t see here. I chose it because it wouldn’t detract from the colored layers.
These are the royal icing cookies I made with toddler. This was the first time I let him roll out his own cookies and decorate them. He was DELIGHTED!
Here is my happy boy with his abuelito.
Here he is again with his abuelito and grandma.
Since my second son’s birthday is coming up next month my plan was to hold off from making a cake this year. But my family seemed so disappointed that it looks like I’ll be baking a cake after all. And I am actually really excited to use my new Russian icing tips. So I think the plan will be to make a red white and blue pinata cake with my toddler.
I’ll keep you guys posted…
He is crawling around like crazy, just got his first tooth, still prefers breast milk as his drug of choice, and LOVES art!
Nursing day and night is no joke. But hey don’t take it from me.
I’m just providing sustenance to a human being.
After two weeks of wonderful fist sucking delight, the baby finally found his thumbs!
Other huge milestones of this week include:
* making constant eye contact with his mami and daddy
* recognizing (and loving) his reflection in the mirror
* holding his head up on his belly and while sitting up
* making splashes of joy in the bathtub
What can I say? I love being a mami.
Do you love nursing your baby? Does your little one “perform” every time he or she is at your breast? I am working on new breastfeeding series that will include the sounds of nursing babies. I am looking for moms to contribute audio recordings of babies feeding. If you are interested in having the sounds of your baby feeding included in the piece please let me know.
Maya Talk 