The very first cake I ever made

Yep, that's right: I had never baked a non-cheesecake cake before I decided to give it a try for Eve's birthday. I want to say that I've also never decorated a cake until then, but once when I was in 8th grade my mom had baked a kitty cat cake for one of my sister's birthdays and was trying to figure out how to make whiskers on it. I suggested uncooked spaghetti noodles and my mom let me place them on. So does that count as previous cake decorating? Even if the spaghetti whiskers count, I still hadn't ever frosted a cake before. I guess you could see it one of two ways:

1. I love Eve more so I felt like putting more effort into her cake.
2. I love Kylie more and I didn't want to ruin her cake so I ordered them from the grocery store, knowing they would look good.

Which one of those options is it? That's for you to figure out, I'm not telling (HINT: it's neither!). So I baked 3 cake mixes and cut them into shapes to layer. Then I called my mom who told me I needed to put a glaze over the cut edges or they wouldn't frost. So I did that, but I don't think that I did it right. I also made marshmallow fondant; not enough to cover an entire cake, but just enough to add a little something. While I was doing all this, Kylie asked me if I was making brownies since she had never seen me bake a cake before. I thought that was pretty funny.

Thankfully my mom showed up the next day with a couple of tricks up her sleeve on how to frost the cake. She did lots of the actual frosting while I did the fondant part:

This is what the table looked like when we were done:
And the final product:
The birthday girl with her cake:

Here I am bringing Eve her own little miniature cake while carrying a cranky and tired Kylie. We are all wearing tutu's since we had a fun little tutu party:
As you can see: Eve loved her cake. I'm not surprised. This girl loves food and loves making a mess. Kylie on the other hand, simply likes food enough and hates to be a mess, so Kylie was much more dainty and much less messy. Just another example of how different my two girls can be.

I saved these next two pictures for last because while they were taken while Eve was in her chair waiting for her cake, they don't really look like birthday pictures. But these pictures really capture the way Eve really looks in her candid state better than any other pictures I have of her. She is just a real life doll:

Lots of Reras!

Kylie's 2nd birthday party was lots of fun. We decided to have a small party since her first birthday party was pretty big. For those of you that don't remember we combined our graduation party with her first birthday party last year since we both graduated from Kansas State that same day. The option of having a park birthday (which would have been fun and easy) was not feasible since Kylie has a December birthday. I really wanted to keep the party in our home... only we just have a two bedroom apartment, so that limited us too. So Jason and I decided to invite immediate family only. Since none of my sisters have any children (and what's a 2 year old birthday party without children to play with?) we decided that Kylie could invite one friend. It was an easy choice, since Kylie is always asking to "go play with Josey." Josey is one of 4 kids, so she ended up having more than one friend at her party, but somehow we all fit comfortably in the apartment.

Here are all the birthday party kiddos:


Of course, Kylie's party was Dora themed, or as Kylie calls her "Rera." When she saw the party decorations (table cloth, streamers, wall hangings...) she said: "Look! Lots of Reras! I like Rera and Boots!" (Boots is Rera's sidekick for those of you who don't watch the show.)

And what's a Rera party without a Rera cake?

Oh yeah, it was Jason's 27th birthday, so I made him a cheesecake.

Eve was just as excited about the party as her older sister. In just 3 months she'll have her very own birthday party! How crazy is that thought?

Kylie and Josey... how sweet!

Just one random shot of Kylie opening presents. It was funny because last time she opened a present was a year ago for Christmas. She had just turned one. So she didn't remember that the present was supposed to be unwrapped. Of course, it was not hard to teach her what to do, but it was just funny that we had to show her.

If anyone wants to see a whole lot more pictures, click here and you will be able to see all the ones I posted on facebook.