A colleague is leaving their job and there will inevitably be a going away party. How much trouble would I be in if I made a cake based on the image, if not the words, of this Monopoly card?
You would think that all I do is bake cakes judging by the number of pictures here. A colleague’s baby shower is tomorrow and so I was asked to do a cake. I won’t even be there!
This one is supposed to look like a baby blanket but due to sleep issues — I need some — I had to simplify it a bit. It is pretty anyway. Ran into a few frosting problems but it is what it is.
My poor daughter sees all of these cakes being made but knows they are not for her. She usually likes to watch me color the frosting, during which time she repeats over and over “This cake is not for us. I can’t eat this cake. This cake is for other people at your work. For my birthday I had a cake. Maybe you can make a little cake just for me to eat!”
While in California it was my nephew’s third birthday. He likes trains. He likes cake. So I made this for him.
Click on the photo for a larger version.
I just finished decorating a cake for a baby shower at work tomorrow. It is a half-sheet (12″ x 16″) and the theme of the party is baby books. Click on the photo for a larger version, though you still cannot see the edible sparkles too well. The Goodnight Moon and Very Hungry Caterpillars were pretty tedious to do and I guess I could have done the thought bubble coming from the pram a little bit better.
I was tempted to do more but at a certain point you run a risk of making a major mistake or just overloading the cake with too many decorations.
Last night was Barack Obama’s historic speech to the nation. And on Elysia’s ride home yesterday she was told “Why don’t you go back to your country?”
That would be New York City.
She was entering the Pentagon’s Metro station at the same time as an African-American woman and her daughter, who was about 8 years old. The woman was smoking and Elysia asked her to put out her cigarette as they descended the escalator. This prompted an angry barrage, probably because she had been called out and knew she was in the wrong.
Since the woman kept smoking in the station, Elysia asked a Metro officer for assistance. He said he would look into it in a minute but clearly did not. In Washington DC you get occasional news stories about Metro police handcuffing children caught eating in the stations but the one time I complained about someone smoking on the platform I was told to go tell someone else.
The woman wound up on the same train where she continued her tirade.
We wonder if it would have made any difference if Elysia was still in uniform. She says that often the uniform is an equalizer that trumps other identities. On the other hand, maybe it would have been the same.
We had Citrus’s birthday party today at a nearby regional park next to a carousel and miniature steam locomotive. It all went pretty well except for the train derailment, but no kids were lost.
Planning for this party introduced me to a whole new world. I guess I had never been to a true party planning store with everything under the sun that you might want and probably don’t need.
It is ridiculous that it is possible to provide a child with a 24-hour relationship with a cartoon character. From the moment they wake up to going to sleep, there is a branded product for every activity and bodily function. So it did amuse me to see that you could buy branded pinatas and have your child beat the living daylights out of Dora The Explorer, Spongebob, Wall-E, or Elmo.
We skipped a pinata, however, and settled with Pin the Tail on the Bunny. Elysia drew a donkey and a bunny, and the bunny was better so with a bit of construction paper we had a party game. This was, of course, after my idea of Pin the Tail on Flat Mommy was rejected. When it was her turn, Citrus refused to wear the blindfold and still put the cottontail near the shoulders.
Naturally, our daughter requested a Hello Kitty cake. I would never stay up until 3am decorating a cake painstakingly filling in an icon of multinational corporations with a #14 tip.
It’s been a few days since my last post, and I have been baking up a storm. Coincidentally on the hottest days we have had. Click on the picture for a larger version.
On Thursday we had a going-away party for Steve Ma, who left AARP to launch Live Green a new non-profit in Washington DC. The launch party is Wednesday, June 16th in DC. That’s the logo on the first cake.
Live Green is going to make green living easy by helping people navigate to the better eco-friendly resources in their community. A few years ago Steve did a 1500-mile one-man walk for campaign finance reform in New Jersey and visited all 40 legislative districts, so when he’s passionate about something he really throws everything into it.
On Saturday we went to a double birthday party for two 3-year-olds. One wanted farm animals and the other wanted trucks. I had a Food Network reality show moment when, one hour before the party, something fell out of the kitchen cabinet and grazed the pasture. Fortunately the damage was reparable and the toddlers were forgiving.
I finished my eighth, and final, basic cake decorating class. We had to come up with something using a Wonder mold, which makes a dome.
I decided to make an aging hippie.
I definitely need more practice, but here is my first rose and rosebud cake, which I did this evening. We are going to a 2-kid birthday party in early June and I have offered to do both cakes. Have to figure out how to make farm animals. Sheep seem like they should be relatively easy to make but I think I’ll need more than that.
