it's a 4th birthday party!

Yahoo! We've got ourselves an almost 4 year old and we made the cake to celebrate! With Piper's birthday party one month prior, cold and almost flu season upon us, and a delay from Snapfish getting the invitations out, there was lower attendance than normal which I was honestly happy about. I have been extremely stressed from school and trying to balance every piece of my life has me on my last leg almost every day.

Without fail, I plan all my events with a three hour time frame (I also prepare the same three food options as pointed out by my sister. Meatballs, taco salad, pasta salad, Jimmy John's party platter, and/or chicken bacon ranch pasta). This gives you the perfect amount of time to hang out with friends and family along with buying time for stragglers. Is this mean? I like to think that this is absolutely normal and everyone budgets time for this phenomena. 

All around this party snuck up on me. Not just in the sense of a month flying by, but the morning escaped and I was no where near prepared for the 1pm start time. When the first guests arrived I was still trying to get the balloons filled with helium. Queue my cold ass coffee trying to make a comeback.

In addition to running around the house like a mad woman, it was clear to me that I did even worse at planning for polka dots than I had originally stated. I blew up three balloons that had polka dots and had a polka dot tutu for Ken. GO ME. Did Kennedy complain about this? No, she loved every second and that's when I feel okay with myself, because even though I felt disappointed and that I could have done more for her, she did not feel that she had gotten the shaft.

October 18, 2015: derpy doodles never gives me a real smile.

OMFG PRESENTZ! This is something that always throws me off. 8/10 people ask, "is there anything she needs?" Well she doesn't need anything, we provide her with everything she needs. I then find myself telling people a range of things that I've been looking at for her or things she has specifically mentioned that she would like, 'from christmas'.  The running list had been: puzzles, legos, art supplies, and anything cat oriented. I would say 'low and behold' but since there were less than 10 separate party goers present, the odds should have been slim for duplicate gifts, so instead I'll say: WHAM-O! Two people had purchased the same LEGO set for her and the reaction was priceless. "Wait a second.. what da heck!"

Twice the LEGOS = Twice the mine field that will become our entire house.

The biggest hits for her came from the 218 pairs of socks she got from my mom/granny and the rocking horse she got from my dad/papa and stepmom/gramma Sandy. They had given Piper a tiny rocking horse for her birthday and Kennedy went absolutely crazy for it and promptly informed them that she would like the same one for her birthday. 

I have been picking up socks hourly and have not been able to get the 'clippity-clop' song that this (and Piper's) horse sings since these photos were taken.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for cake (because I forgot to buy ice cream for the party: bad mom point #1?)! Here is the unfrosted Funfetti cake we concocted:

Yeah, it's not so horrible. Not my best work, not my worst. It looks so much more sloppy than the Pinterest cake, but I think that's just par for the course, eh? There were zero complaints from Kennedy. In fact, she asked if she could have it for breakfast that morning!

And that's a wrap.

For, fore, four, 4.

Leia

it's almost a 4th birthday party

Twelve hours from now we'll have friends and family gathered to celebrate Miss Kennedy Grace turning four years old (today we celebrated my dad, Papa Jeff turning 55!). Honestly, I don't know how these four years have come and gone so quickly - I still have four days left until it's official, though. Yes, so stereotypical but it's the absolute truth.

This evening after the devastating loss Michigan suffered, Kennedy and I started to get her birthday cake in order. Initially she told me that she would like to have a Hello Kitty cake for her party; the theme of which she selected as 'dot', which I translated to polka dots and then poorly executed in the end. Well, it hasn't fully been executed yet, but I have an idea. Bad mom point #1, when I ordered her '4' shirt for the party, I inadvertently had it shipped to our old address. Since the address is forwarded via the USPS the package didn't get delivered today. It will promptly arrive on our doorstep Monday morning. Just in time to be one day late for her party!

ANYHOO, back to cake making. I picked out some ideas from Pinterest that I thought I could pull off and let her make the ultimate decision. We ended up picking an unfrosted edge cake. Less sugar inhalation?! Let's roll with it!

Unfrosted Edge Funfetti Cake

One of the main reasons I was excited to try this out was because I am not 100% used to the oven at our new house, and so far I have over cooked almost everything I have put in the damn thing, and if I burned the crust of the cake no one would know since it's gettin' peeled of anyways! 

October 17, 2015: boxed Funfetti and 'canned' cream cheese frosting. No special tips and tricks or family recipes to be found in this post.

Hooray! We're well on our way to make a delicious three layered Funfetti cake! Little did we know that trouble was lurking right around the corner.

Guys, no sooner than putting two cake pans in the oven did Piper choose to make a huge mess. A huge mess of macaroni on the floor? No, but that's what I would have expected and that's why I was cautious getting her out of her high chair. Here I was expecting a sticky face and hands with noodles hanging onto her clothes. Instead I was faced with a baby who had poop creeping up her back. Daaaammmmmmnittttttt. 

Emergency bath in the kitchen? 120% necessary.

I tried to be courteous and blur out the affected area.

I could not believe it. OF COURSE this would happen precisely at this moment. Brendon and I tag teamed the situation though, and had a clean baby in under ten minutes. A clean baby who in no way alerted to us that she had even pooped in her diaper, let alone exploded out of it, and proceeded to laugh and giggle through her entire hosing off.

After the poop fiasco, it was just about time to get the first two cake pans out of the oven and prepare a third. Bad mom point #2, the first two cakes did get burnt on the crust so, thank you Universe for Kennedy's selected cake idea. Once the third pan was out of the oven, and all three were steady cooling it was time to get Kennedy in the tub and send both of them off to sleepy town. Now all three layers are cooled, cut, and frosted; more to come on that in the 'it's a 4th birthday party' post because frankly I have exerted all the extra energy I had preparing the pasta salad while I dumped sprinkles on the top of the cake with the finesse of a.. well, four year old. I should have just let Kennedy stay up late to finish it for me.

*tooting party horn emoji*

Leia