Foodless Friday: Birthday

My son is one year old (almost). We celebrated his birthday early because his cousins were here visiting, and it is always more fun to have a birthday when there are cousins visiting! I wanted to make a cute cake for his first birthday. I have always wanted to decorate cakes and this was a great opportunity to do so. In doing so I realized something... the images I have in my head and the outcome of the final product are two totally different pictures.

This is what came out:

Notice how the top block is anything from a perfect square? Yeah, that is the only block that contains cake. The bottom blocks are rice cereal treats. They are much easier to work with! I think I actually got the hang of the fondant by the last block I decorated. I couldn't get the fondant to wrap nicely around the blocks, so I ended up cutting squares (or shapes that closely resembled squares) and placing one on each side of the block - hence all the seams.

So this was my son's first birthday cake. At least you can tell what it is suppose to be! Of course my son did not care what it looked like.

At first he was a little shy digging into it. Maybe it was because he had a plate... we never give this boy plates because he tends to lift them up and turn them upside down. This wouldn't be a huge problem but he always turns them upside down when the plate is not over the high chair tray! No plates = not all of his food gets on the floor.

Here he has the whole piece of cake to nibble on. The plate has not been turned over yet.

Notice I said yet... He did try to turn his plate sideways and upside down, but I was one step ahead of him. I put the cake and ice cream on the tray and took away the plate when he first lifted it up. I think my son needs to learn about gravity... or cause and effect. 'If I drop my cake on the floor I won't get to eat it' - that should be motivation enough to keep it on a plate! Good thing his Mom caught him before it ended up on the floor.

Yes, my son LOVES chocolate. Hence I made him a chocolate cake (made with a cake mix, chocolate pudding and melted chocolate chips. There was also chocolate buttercream frosting in between the two layers of cake.

I don't know if we'll ever get all the chocolate out of those white sleeves... You see my plan was to take a few pictures and then take the shirt off - Didn't happen. Maybe it was because we kept taking pictures, and by we I actually mean my husband. I was sitting there with a pounding headache. Not how I expected to celebrate my son's first birthday.

I'm just glad he enjoyed his cake. And yes, he did get a bath shortly after these pictures were taken! He also loves taking baths, so it was a great celebration for him. His bathtub still has cake crumbs in it. Not that I'm admitting to just draining his tub and leaving cake crumbs in it. Just remember I had a headache so I am not responsible for my inattention to details.