What Ana Does

I'm going to come clean about something ... I am no cake maker. I try, but I stink at it. Big time. I try to make a cake for each of my kids' birthday parties every year. And every year it's a mixed bag of results. This weekend, I made an Angel Food Cake for Leah's 11th and it came out pretty good. It's a simple cake to begin with, so tough for me to mess up. Though, I forgot some kind of (chocolate) frosting. Fortunately we had whipped cream and chocolate ice cream at the ready so this year was a win. Last year she requested whale-shaped brownies, and that was a disaster. You should also know I have an on-going feud with icing, that's were it usually goes wrong. I've never been able to get it right. In the early days, I just used store-bought but have you SEEN what's in that?! It's chemicals in a plastic cup. No bueno. But it's still the go-to when the homemade attempt turns into cement/soup. And that's 90% of the time. Each birthday...

Alice celebrated her birth day in London, but we had the party, that officially triggered her "birthday" in her seven-year-old mind, at home this weekend. Four of her bffs were over for a Paris-themed sleepover party. We ate French fries (with le nuggets) and French bread for dinner. And I made a chocolate cake, decorated with the Eiffel Tower for dessert. Breakfast, we ate croissants, of course. (But they tasted nothing like the real thing, sadly.) They all the best time and the house wasn't that much worse for the wear. And it wasn't like a Paris-themed party was too difficult for me to pull off. I just gathered all my Eiffel Towers and Paris decor and voila! The Party Room! The Cake! Alice Helped Me With the Icing Related posts: All my "birthday" stories

My big girl celebrated her ninth birthday with a small party at our house. She's so funny about her parties. For the past several years she's requested small at-home parties with a few friends instead of the big parties out at places such as jumping gyms like we did when she was little -- or that her friends are doing. She invited four pals and allowed her little sister to include two friends. We had a few games scheduled, but mostly they ran around outside on the swing set. We pulled out bubbles and jump ropes and were thankful it was a sunny, warmish Spring day. Leah Requested Brownies Instead of Cake or Cupcakes We Asked Guests to Bring Sea Animal Stuffed Toys and We Awarded Prizes to Each Then, We Played Pin the Tale on the Whale! Fun party! Related posts: More birthday successes