Gracie's Tinkerbell Cake

Gracie's birthday cake was a bit of a pain this year. I had planned on making her a castle cake, like Hannah's from last year, but I couldn't get the cake to come out of the pan. So after two tries, one on Sunday night and one on Monday morning, I finally gave in and went to Michael's in search of another cake pan. I wanted Ariel, being that she's Gracie's favorite princess lately, but sadly they were all out. Instead I settled on Tinkerbell, but she came with her own set of problems. I tried one cake, only to have it get stuck to the pan like the others. I went ahead and made another cake that was due out of the oven while I was at the school helping in Sarah's class. I asked Kenny to get it out while I was gone. He did just that, well he got it mostly out of the oven. See he was holding baby Daniel and when he was lifting the cake out of the oven, Daniel lunged forward. Basically it was Daniel or the cake. Personally I think he made the better choice. Cakes are replaceable, babies are not. So that was attempt #4. It was 12:30 when I got home and saw the cake destruction. I decided to throw in the towel. I mean, she's only 2. She doesn't care what kind of cake she gets. She doesn't care whether Mommy made it or whether we bought it at the store, as long as she gets a cake. Then about a half an hour later I decided that I cared. It's the thing I do. I make and decorate cakes for my kids birthdays. I've done it since Sarah was 1 and I really want to always do it. I'm not that homemakey, but this is something I can do, so I decided to give it one more try. Guess what! It turned out perfect! What a relief. I decorated it as fast as possible, a record of about an hour and a half, and it was a hit. I'm so glad I tried again and that it finally worked.

Gracie with her Tinkerbell cake. Looks pretty good for all the work it took.

Normally I try and hide the cakes and not let the kids see them until it's cake time, but due to the difficulties of her cake, I really didn't care if she saw it before hand or not. One of my favorite things was while I was decorating the cake on the counter, Gracie climbed up and sat next to me saying TeenBell (Tinkerbell) She then started singing to her self, Happy to you cha, cha, cha. Happy to you cha, cha, cha. It was soooo cute. She was very excited for her birthday and I loved watching that excitement throughout the day.

Lighting the candles. Can't you just see her excitement?!

After her little family party it was time for cake. She was so excited and climbed up on the counter, laid down on her belly and waited. We finally got her back in her stool so Daddy could light the candles and it was time to sing. She'd been waiting all day for this part (as I mentioned earlier) and it was no disappointment. I snapped a bunch of pictures while we were singing our "Happy Birthday to you cha, cha, cha" song and you can just she her excitement and how much she loved it. I had to include 3 pictures because she was so excited and so cute that I couldn't bring myself to cut any of them out.

So happy to be sung to.

Singing along for a bit.

Back to just enjoying the singing.

After singing she blew out her 2 candles.

Gracie trying to hold Dan. I don't know that he enjoyed it quite as much as she did.

After the candles were blown out it was time for cake. In true Newbry cake eating fashion, the birthday kids gets the head (if it's a person, if not they get whatever part they want) and the kids eat it like crazy people. This birthday was less messy than previous birthdays, but the kids still had fun.

Gracie's favorite part was . . . You guessed it, the frosting.

Hannah's beautiful even with frosting all over her face.

After eating most of the frosting with his hands Ben finally decided to use a fork.

Sarah Kate's too grown up for silly cake eating now, but she's still cute.

Baby Dan's too little for cake, but he still wanted to get in on the action.

All in all it was a great birthday for Gracie. I absolutely love watching my kids grow up. They are such joys to be around and their excitement for life consistently humbles me. I loved watching the excitement on Gracie's face with all the presents, cake and attention she got today. It was a good day.