Goat Cake

 

My ten year old daughter is obsessed with goats.  I don't quite know how it happened, but it did. And now for the last two years, when anyone asks what she wants for her birthday, Christmas, 4th of July, etc, she says, "A goat."  Her Grandpa even got her a really nice stuffed animal goat for her 9th birthday.  She loves it.  She named it Fitzgerald Goatpants.  But still she asks for a goat.

As you can imagine, she won't be getting one.  We live in a suburb.  We don't have a fenced yard.  I don't have the slightest idea how to take care of a goat.  And have you looked at goats lately?  They are adorable as babies, but when they are adults - yeeesh!  Those crazy eyes aren't very pretty to look at. 

So we buy her shirts and sweaters with goats or sheep on them.  We check out books about goats from the library.  We let her set the background screen on the ipad to a goat photo.  We made sure to pet the goats at Cedar Point last summer.  (I know - who would think Cedar Point would have goats?  They do!)  My eleven year old daughter drew her the cutest goat picture for her birthday.

And me?  I make her a birthday cake in the shape of a goat, exactly as she requested.

The cake conversation went like this:
     Me: What kind of cake do you want for your birthday?
     Daughter: lemon (Good girl! Yum!)
     Me: Great.  But what do you want on the cake?  What do you want it to look like?
     Daughter: Can you sculpt a cake.
     Me: Ummm, no.
     Daughter: Can you make it 3-D?
     Me: You mean, something on top of another cake, like a cut out?
     Daughter:  Yes.
     Me:  Yes, I could do that.
     Daughter:  Great.  I want the bottom cake to be a grass cake, and I want a goat on top.
     Me:  ooooookay.

That kid cracks me up.  So I looked for a few cute pictures of cartoon goats online and found a really cute one.  I printed and enlarged it.  Then I baked two 9x13 inch cakes, one lemon and one french vanilla.  I made the french vanilla one thinner because I was going to cut the goat out of that cake.

I frosted the lemon cake green and then covered it with green frosting using the Wilton grass tip.  I froze the french vanilla cake for about a half hour.  When I was ready to cut the goat out, I took the cake from the freezer and placed the enlarged goat picture on top of the cake. With a sharp knife I cut around the picture until I had a goat shape in french vanilla cake.  I carefully pulled the excess cake from around the cut out goat and then transferred the goat to the top of the grass cake.  I initially thought I would just frost it with a knife, and then decided stars would look nicer.  I frosted the horns first, then started squeezing stars all over the goat.  I finished with a few lines to better define the legs and then the eyes and nose.

I showed it to my daughter who absolutely loved it!  And so do I.  One of the things I like most about it is that I didn't copy anyone else's cake.  I listened to what my daughter wanted and made it happen.  I love knowing that she is happy and is getting exactly what she wants for her birthday cake.

A 40th Birthday

This year my husband and I are both turning 40.  Our original plans were to not actually have a party for either of us, but to go away for 4-5 days (without kids!) while my Mom and Dad watched the kids.  We have never gone away for more than a weekend since having the kids and it has been several years since we've even done that.  Unfortunately, both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer this year.  My Dad's prostate cancer was discovered first and successfully removed and his bill of health is excellent.  Unfortunately my mom was diagnosed with stage IV inoperable liposarcoma in early August and passed away on September 16.  It has been a difficult adjustment to life without her, and on top of that her birthday (would have been her 70th) was the day after my husband's 40th birthday.

I had to wrap my head around everything and so planning for Brendan's party was put off a little until I finally got in the mood to celebrate.  When I finally did I had about three weeks to get everything together for a little family soiree.  I decided on a DC superhero theme, as Brendan is a huge Batman and DC comics fan.  I tried to make the theme both fun and not too juvenile.

What I finally came up with was a few neat decorations, a fun cake, and some themed drinks and snacks.  My kids helped by making some posters and Emma even made herself a "Super Emma" costume that I somehow did not get a picture of.  (In my defense, she took it off by the party, getting tired of tripping on her blanket cape.)

My first concern was the cake.  I have a Wilton Batman pan and have made Brendan a Batman cake with it, so I felt he needed something bigger and better.  I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, but he told me to make what I wanted.  So after much internet searching, I was inspired by this Cakes Infinity cake and made my own little version.  The top two tiers are pumpkin spice cake with cinnamon buttercream filling.  The bottom tier is chocolate chocolate chip cake.  Vanilla buttercream frosting with marshmallow fondant decorations.  My brother-in-law told me, "Best cake yet!"  A pretty good endorsement!

3-Tiered Batman Cake

I have also been inspired by all the beautiful tablescapes fancy party planners put on the internet and all over Pinterest, so I made a few decorations for our party table.  First, I made labels on my computer for the party beverages.  I chose four of the top Justice League Heroes and chose names and drinks to go with their hero name.  My first creation was "Flash Fizz."  Since his main color is red, I bought Jones Soda Strawberry Lime flavor and removed all the labels.  I attached the new labels voila, four bottles of Flash Fizz.  I repeated the process with "Green Lantern Soda" (Jones Soda Sour Apple),  "Batman Brew" (Guinness Draft) and "Superman Suds" (Blue Moon Beer).  After making four of each bottle, I placed them on either side of the table so everyone could see them.

Superhero Drinks

Next I made my husband's initials with paper mache letters from JoAnn Fabric.  I painted them blue then used Mod Podge and some pages from an old Batman comic book to really personalize them.  (And let me tell you - first time for using Mod Podge and I love it!) 

Batman Initials

Finally, I bought some sour apple rings from my grocery store on a whim. I called them "Green Lantern's Rings" and then labelled a bowl of pretzels "Riddler's Twists."  Overall I think the table turned out really neat and I know my almost four year old nephew thought it was really cool!

Superhero Party Table

Overall, it was a successful party.  My husband appreciated the fun little details and I had a great time creating them.  Now to figure out how to celebrate my 40th in about six weeks.

Birthday Cookies

My two oldest nieces, Rose and Hannah, turned 16 this December, 6 days apart.  I wanted to make something special for the two of them.  I also had to make something that would mail safely and taste good after being in the mail for a few days.  So I came up with these sweet sugar cookies and a little birthday cash.

Here are some of Rose's cookies:

Her favorite color is blue so I chose green as a complementing color and then made these sweet little cupcake cookies. 

Hannah's cookies ended up being very similar, but I chose orange (her favorite color) and used pink as the complementing color.

 I really love how they turned out, and I'm really happy I was able to surprise them both on their special birthday!

Happy Birthday Post

Thursday, December 30th was my 38th birthday. And even though it is the new year, I want to talk about my birthday from last year.


I had a really great birthday. In the morning I made muffins to take to my husband's grandparents, who we visited in the afternoon. December 23rd happened to be Brendan's Grandma McKillip's 95th birthday. Her party, unfortunately, was the weekend we had planned on going to Ohio for my family's Christmas. I had talked it over quite frequently with my mom, and with Brendan. My mom had offered to move our Christmas, but the only available weekend would have been the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Brendan didn't want her to have to do that, and for me to miss my extended family's Christmas, so we went to Ohio and missed Grandma's party.

To try and make it up to her, we decided to take the kids and visit Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. We had a lovely time visiting and had carrot cake and ice cream that they offered us. We also had some of the candy they received for Christmas. Brendan's grandparents have to be the two nicest people in the world. I feel so blessed and lucky to have them in my life, especially since all of my grandparents are in Heaven already.

After visiting with Grandma and Grandpa, we took the kids to Vaughn Athletic Center to go swimming. They have a great indoor pool complete with water slides and a splash zone. We all had a blast riding the water slides and the kids wore themselves out swimming and running across the lily pad floats in the pool.

Considering the late hour after we were done swimming, we headed to Portillo's and got take out for dinner. Ahhh, no cooking for me on my birthday! I had a fantastic hamburger and onion rings and we had some almond chocolate chip blondies for dessert.

I was serenaded with a rousing version of Happy Birthday by my kids and Brendan. and then got to open my gift. It was a pink iPod nano!!! Complete with $15 iTunes gift card! Brendan even had it engraved on the back, "To my favorite lady." It is awesome considering my iPod mini no longer would allow new music to be uploaded to it. I can now listen to my tunes again!

I have to also mention some of my other favorite birthday gifts, too. My sister got me "Cake Pops" by Bakerella. She gave it to me at our Christmas in Ohio, so it was just in time to help me with the cake pops I made for the first time for Christmas. (Pictures to follow in a later post.) I can't wait to try some of the other ideas in that book! My sister-in-law and brother-in-law got me a Starbuck's card! Woot! Woot! Now I have two gift cards to spend at the 'Bucks! It's going to be a fun January and February! And my mother-in-law got me a black zipper hoodie in a tall size! It goes all the way past my wrists! I'm in seventh heaven! (Talk to tall girls about finding clothes that fit, not fun!)

Anyways, it really was a great birthday. (Wow, I also like exclamation points!)

A Month for One Birthday!

Zoe turned six this month, but it seemed like we were celebrating it one way or another every week this month! I know I baked three different treats for the events, and she made her own ice cream pie to celebrate with. But, it has been fun.


The first treat I baked were cookies called half and halfs. They are a half chocolate chip cookie, and half chocolate chocolate chip cookie, stuck together! I made these extra large and sent them in for her birthday treat for school. According to Zoe, they were a hit!



Because I was making so many cakes/ treats for her birthday parties, I suggested that Zoe make one of her famous ice cream pies for the family to eat on her actual birthday. She chose chocolate ice cream and sprinkled a variety of chocolate chips and sprinkles on top.



The first cake I made was for our family party. Usually, this is the only party my kids have each year. But Zoe has been asking for a "friend" party for quite some time, so we decided that she could have a friend party, too, this year. This cake was a two tier cake. The bottom tier was chocolate chocolate chip cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, the top tier was white almond sour cream cake with almond swiss meringue buttercream. I made the decorations out of marshmallow fondant. Zoe explained the colors and decorations that she wanted, and I came up with this cake.


The following weekend was her friend party. We had ten little girls running around our house having a great time for Zoe's first "friend" party. Zoe loved being the center of attention and also loved her big 6 cake that she requested I make for this party. I took two nine inch chocolate cakes, cut a hole in the middle of one and carved the other one to look like the top of a six. Then I frosted over the whole thing with vanilla buttercream frosting. Zoe requested orange frosting with polka dots, so that is what she got! I was very happy with how the cake turned out.

Overall, I think Zoe would say that her month of birthdays (and treats) was a good one!

Turning 37

Back at the end of December I celebrated my 37th birthday. My morning started by taking my 10 year old son to 7:00 AM mass because he was an altar server. On the way home we stopped and got some birthday donuts to share with everyone.


We are not into grand celebrations, but Brendan took the day off from work and we spent the day together as a family. At some point Brendan made some excuse to leave and brought me back these gorgeous flowers. I let each of my three kids pick a board game and I played each one with them. I made something for dinner and we ate at home.


Lots of my friends and family asked if I made myself some fancy cake. The answer is: No. I made myself homemade cinnamon rolls. And not just any cinnamon rolls, but the most delicious and yummy cinnamon rolls I have ever made or probably eaten in my life. They were huge, soft, and gooey. I made a delicious cream cheese frosting that sent the rolls from great to FANTASTIC! And the best thing, the recipe made 17 rolls. So we had rolls the next morning and later the next day for a snack! We stuck a candle in one of the rolls and my kids and husband sang "Happy Birthday" to me.


After the rolls I opened my awesome gift. It is a heated mattress pad! If you have never had one, just imagine your cold, chilly bed preheated to a cozy warm temperature. Aaaah, I've enjoyed it everyday since!

My Baby Is Five!

My youngest daughter, Zoe turned five today. I let her pick dinner and my benevolent daughter passed over bacon cheeseburger roll-up, probably her favorite meal of all time, for tacos, something her brother and sister both like. (Let's just say her big brother and big sister don't particularly enjoy bacon cheeseburger roll-up and leave it at that.) After dinner we sang "Happy Birthday" to Zoe and had ice cream.


We had the family over on Sunday to celebrate and had lots of fun and good food. I made my current favorite hors d'oeuvres, bacon wrapped lil' smokies. Can you say, "the way to ruin a diet?" Anyways, let's just say that they all got eaten along with the sugar coated pecans, cheese and crackers, dill vegetable dip and M&M's.


Zoe requested a Scooby Doo cake this year, so I made her a chocolate chocolate chip cake frosted in both chocolate and vanilla buttercream. Luckily I had a Wilton cake pan from when my son wanted a Scooby Doo cake several years earlier and so this cake was fairly easy to make. Zoe really loved it, which is always what is the most important to me.

Zoe got lots of great gifts, three dresses, a Barbie Thumbelina doll, a Hannah Montana doll, a book, and her favorite gift of the day: The Imaginext BatCave. It comes with the Batcycle, a Batman, a Robin, and lots of cool little features inside the BatCave itself. All three of my kids have now played with it every single day since Zoe received it and yes, Thumbelina and Hannah have been inside, as well as Brendan's Batgirl from on his dresser.


Now I just have to get used to the fact that my baby is five. Not sure how long it is going to take for that to sink in!

Happy Birthday To Me, I'm Now Thirty-Three

Okay, you caught me. I'm not actually 33. I'm really 36 today. But it made my title rhyme, which I really liked.

I had the birthday that I think is fitting for a 36 year old stay-at-home mom of three rugrats. My morning started off well enough when my kids let me sleep in until 7:30 AM. I wandered downstairs with my 9 year old son and my 6 year old daughter and was immediately bombarded with inquiries into playing the Wii. I acquiesced and was soon watching my son battle thugs and others as Indiana Jones on our family room TV. My daughter snuggled up next to me and about 15 minutes later my 4 year old daughter found her way downstairs. A request was made for a green bar (a Nutri Grain bar) just as I excused myself to use the bathroom. I told my four year old that I thought they were on a high shelf, but she could try to get them if she wanted to.

After washing my hands my son told me he had slipped and hurt his knee. Usual stuff, he was still walking, wasn't too concerned. Then I walked into the kitchen and slipped. I looked down to see what was making the floor slippery. I couldn't really see very much until I took a closer look. There in a huge pool on the floor was my essentially full bottle of olive oil on it's side, and oil EVERYWHERE. I tried to think quickly and finally decided I needed a towel from the laundry room to mop up the oil. I asked Ian if he knew what happened. He said he didn't know. It was then that I noticed that Zoe, my four year old, was nowhere to be found. I asked Ian if Zoe had spilled the bottle. Ian of course didn't know because he had been playing the Wii at that time, thus his brain could not observe anything except how many lego studs Indiana Jones had collected. After cleaning up the oil with the towel, scrubbing the area with Murphy's oil soap and water, then washing all the towels used to clean up the mess, I went to find Zoe. She was hiding under her covers on her bed. She was so upset, and afraid I was angry at her. I assured her I was not angry and then escorted her downstairs where she decided on a bowl of mini wheats instead of a green bar for breakfast.

Next I made myself a lemon cake from scratch. I love lemon cake. I sifted my ingredients three times just like the recipe called for and baked it up to perfection in two 9 inch cake pans. Having never made the cake before, I wasn't sure how lemony it was (it only had lemon zest, no juice or extract). So I decided to make a lemon buttercream frosting to top the cake with. By the time I was done the cake looked very pretty. Unfortunately when we ate it after dinner, it didn't taste so good. Actually, the cake was really yummy, though not real lemony. It was the frosting that wasn't quite right. It was a little bitter and tasted odd. I think when I zested the lemon I may have gotten some of the bitter pith with the zest. I am mostly mad that I wasted 1 1/2 sticks of butter in the frosting, one that won't get eaten now. I'm contemplating scraping the frosting off and still eating the cake. Next time I'll use extract instead of real lemon zest and juice in my frosting. I think it may taste sweeter that way (and less chance for screwing it up).

After dinner and blowing out my candles on my cake, I opened my much anticipated birthday gift. I don't usually have one particular item on my list that I want more than anything else. But this year I let my husband know over and over again what I wanted. And guess what, all my subtle (and not so subtle) hinting worked! He got me the Provo Craft Cuttlebug! I can't wait to try it out.


Oh yeah, my night ended with my husband and I forcing my peepee hold dancing four year old into the bathroom so she wouldn't have an accident. Apparently we were watching the wrong kid, because not more than one minute later my six year old daughter was running through the family room with wet pants yelling, "IAN MADE ME DO IT."

Yes, truly a fitting end to my 36th birthday.

More Cake And Some Favors

Over the last three weeks I've made more cakes than I can count (okay, not really, but I've made lots of cakes lately.) The first one was for Elizabeth, my sister-in-law's, baby shower. This is her first baby and my first niece or nephew on my husband's side of the family, so I'm very excited to get to hold another baby again! (That's Elizabeth with Zoe and Emma - isn't she the cutest pregnant woman?)

Her only request for the cake was the flavor, my snickerdoodle cake. It is a cinnamon cake with cinnamon buttercream frosting. I've never met anyone who doesn't love this cake. So after lots of internet searches for ideas for a cake, I finally came up with this cake:


The clothes are just cut from scrapbooking paper and hung on with little clothespins I found at Michael's Crafts store. I found the idea for this cake here.

I wasn't sure the three layered cake would be enough for everyone, so I also made 12 chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes frosted with vanilla buttercream. I topped them with little plastic carriages I also found at Michael's. Here are what they looked like:


Along with the cake duties, I volunteered to make the favors for the shower. I made 25 little paper onesies with three Hershey's milk chocolate nuggets inside each one. They turned out so cute that I had to share them here:


My husband's Aunt Mary, also happened to be having a birthday on the day of the shower and her sisters wanted to surprise her with a cake. So with the other half of the batter from the cupcakes, I made a nine inch round cake for Mary. Here it is:


Finally, I made my husband's 36th birthday cake, too. Since I've been married to him I've made him a cake every year, but none have been particularly exciting form a decorating standpoint. But this year, I wanted to surprise him. He has been talking for a few years how when he was little he had a Batman cake all done in the frosting stars. Then in March at Zoe's 4th birthday, he made an offhand comment about how he would like the same birthday cake Zoe had. So being the good wife that I am, I made him this cake:


He loved it!

That is all of my cakes (except for the pumpkin spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting I made for Bunco two days ago) from the last three weeks. I'm going to focus on pumpkin pie now!

Happy Birthday, Brendan!

Today is my husband's birthday. He is the love of my life, the father of my children, my best friend, my confidant, my rock.


He is an amazing dad, son, brother, husband and man. I am so proud and lucky to have been married to him for almost 13 1/2 years now. I also have now known him for half of my life. I feel so blessed to have him. Happy Birthday, Brendan! I love you!

Now, head over to his blog and wish him a happy birthday!

Birthday Cakes

Way back in August we had a double birthday party for Ian and Emma. Ian's birthday is in July and Emma's is about two weeks later in August, so it just makes sense to combine them when it is going to be a family affair. Since they were little I've been making their cakes myself. I love seeing their faces when they see the cakes they requested.

This year was no exception. Emma changed her mind repeatedly and finally decided on a cake with hearts all over it. Ian initially talked about a Pokeball, which I thought would be pretty easy. And in the end he did pick a pokeball, but not the regular recognizable one. No, instead he chose a Masterball, which are more successful when being used to catch Pokemon. After asking Ian to describe the Masterball to me, I decided to Google it for an image I could understand. After finding and printing out a picture of the pokeball, I went to work.

The resulting cakes looked like this:



Emma's cake is on the left. Her's was a yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. The hearts and her name are made out of marshmallow fondant. I brushed some pink luster dust on her name, and she wanted me to add more to the hearts. Here's a close-up of her cake:



Ian's cake is the Masterball on the right. He requested chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I used the top of two cupcakes to make the bumps on top of the cake. The cake is covered in marshmallow fondant. In the end Ian was thrilled with his cake. Here is a more detailed look at it:



Actually, they both were happy with their cakes, which made me happy. I can only imagine what they'll come up with for next year!

Fun Monday - Birthdays!

This week, Penny over at Dungarees Ablaze has given us our FM assignment, which is this:

Let’s hear about your favorite “Birthday”, it needn’t be your actual birthday just a "birthday" celebration. You can use one you planned, one you attended, one you crashed, just a fun time for this FUN MONDAY.

One of my most memorable birthdays was my 18th birthday. My birthday is December 30th, so even though my parents did an awesome job of keeping it separate from Christmas, I rarely got to celebrate with my friends on my actual birthday, just too busy a time for many people.

The day of my 18th birthday did not start well. Our basement flooded overnight the night before. I am the youngest, and therefore was the only one home with my parents. Guess what had to be done? Yes, I had to help clean the basement up, on MY 18th birthday.

After a long day of cleaning up, we were going to go out to dinner to celebrate my birthday. It is a long standing tradition in my family to take the birthday girl or boy to the restaurant of their choosing. My parents were lobbying for a pizza joint called the Rocking U. I just didn't feel like going there, and said, "No, I want to go somewhere else."

A little while later my mom got off the phone and announced that Ken and Jenni, my good friend Leah's parents and also friends of my parents, called, and that we were going to meet them at the Rocking U, and we'd go out to my restaurant another night.

Now, this should have been a HUGE tipoff to me. My parents had NEVER, EVER, in my life blown off my birthday, or my brothers' or sister's for that matter (excepting my sister's 16th, but that's another story for another time!). But, I had no idea. I just sulked as I called my boyfriend and told him we were going to the Rocking U for dinner. I mean after all, it was MY 18th BIRTHDAY, I had just spent the entire day cleaning up the basement, and now my parents were making me share my birthday dinner with Ken and Jenni at a restaurant I didn't want to go to!

I didn't complain to my mom and dad, although I'm sure they saw the sulking. My parents left ahead of me and the plan was for me to meet them there with my boyfriend. Derrick picked me up and let me tell you I gave him an earful about my parent's choices!

You can see where this is going, can't you? Well, in my 18 year old self-important haze, I didn't see it coming at all.

When we got to the restaurant we walked in the back and into a party room where there waiting were several of my friends. They all shout surprise and I collapsed onto the floor crying. I had no idea my parents had planned me a party and I was just about ready to chalk up my 18th birthday as my worst ever! What shocked me even more was who was there. It wasn't just my good friends, but some of the kids I considered "cool". Eric, and many of the other boys, who were my teammates in cross country, April and Heidi, popular girls who I played basketball with, Jason, my good childhood friend, as well as Carrie, Leah, and Allyson, my three best friends. There were others there, too. My mom had managed to invite all the different people who I spent most of my time with, who I cared about, who I cherished.

I think what made it so memorable was the horrible thoughts I was having about my parents were completely erased when I walked in that door that night. And I was truly surprised at some of the guests. If my mom had asked me who I wanted to invite to a party, some of those names wouldn't have been on there, not because I didn't like the person, but because I wouldn't have thought they would have wanted to come to a party for me. I knew my social place in high school, and I wasn't unpopular, but I wouldn't have put myself in the "popular" group, that's for sure! So to see some of those kids there, made me feel happy. Not because that meant I was popular, but because the friendships we had formed were important to them, too. I guess when it comes to judging others, it goes both ways.

Anyways! My 18th birthday was indeed a memorable and happy one for me. Now go check out everyone else's birthday plans!