Yesterday was Ginger’s 6th Birthday but she didn’t want to have to share her special day with Mother’s Day so she had her party on Friday. A few simple requests from a girl that is so easy to please!!!
cake, friends, and bendaroos!
May you never lose that smile that is always pasted on your face!!!!
And may you continue to grab life and completely experience it with such exuberance. My happy little tornado!
Happy Birthday Ginger!!
Yesterday was my oldest babies 15th birthday. Every year I tell my kids what The Day They Were Born looked like. They kid me and make fun of me when I start to retell their tale of the fateful day of their birth but I know deep down they love to hear each little detail. And funny–15 years later I can remember the day Jake was born like it was last week.
My first….. you have taught me so much in what today seems like a heart beat. Hard to believe it has been 15 years. I am so proud of the man you are becoming and the boy that you still are. No rush…slow down….a lesson to us both….15 only comes around once. I vaguely remember 15—-it was a long time ago…but as I recall….it is good to be 15. Enjoy my little boy!!
Molly wanted a Hamburger Cake for her birthday. We trolled around the Internet and looked at lots of photos and ideas. This is what we came up with. It might look like something difficult but let me be the first to tell you-I am not much of a baker and if I can put this together anyone can! I don’t have any photos of the cake in progress.
I bought 2 cake mixes-1 yellow and one chocolate. I made the chocolate in a 8×8 brownie pan-square patty like Wendy’s burgers!
I made 2— 8 inch rounds out of the yellow cake but filled one with more of the batter (bottom bun smaller-top bun larger.)
After they cooled I trimmed the patty to make it nice and flat as well as trimming the bottom bun. Then I took the extra chocolate cake and added it to the top of the top yellow cake bun to make it more dome like. Make sense?
I bought 3 cans of frosting 1 chocolate and 2 white
We took some frosting out and divided it into 3 bowls for condiments and added food coloring –red for ketchup, green for lettuce and yellow for mustard. You don’t need much. After you reach the desired color put each into a plastic bag and squeeze down to one bottom corner. set aside.
Take more white frosting into a bowl and add color to look like American cheese—use this to frost graham crackers to look like cheese slices on the burger.
Take the other can of white frosting and make it bun colored-we added a bit of the chocolate frosting for some color plus some food coloring.
Now to put it together
bottom bun cake first with burger patty (chocolate cake) next. Frost the chocolate cake with the chocolate frosting-making the edges look burgery!
To that we put the graham crackers already frosted on the edges of the burger cake-hanging over a bit. We didn’t go all the way into the middle of the burger with these I wanted it to stay stable and thought this might make it tippy and too sweet. We did use more of the cheese frosting between the graham crackers and on the edges to look like melting cheese.
Then top with top bun. Use the bun frosting to glue the dome shape together. Try to smooth the frosting out as much as possible. Now get your condiment frosting’s and cut a tiny bit off the corner (a little larger for lettuce) and pipe lettuce around the bottom edge and squeeze squiggly ketchup and mustard on the cheese frosting.
We added a few slivered almonds on the top for seseme seeds.
This really wasn’t too hard. And it was surprisingly good. I thought it was going to be way too sweet-but it wasn’t. It was a little hard to cut but no one seemed to mind!
You greeted me in the kitchen this morning at 6:50 AM with two of the seven kids you had spending the night for your 11th birthday party. The three of you had decided early into the party that you would be staying up all night. And just like you-you met the challenge! Your drive and inner strength never ceases to amaze me. Yet I am sorry for the times when I expect this strength from you. It is easy to forget how young you still are. You have become quite a young lady in the past year. The pre teen years are not an easy time. I know it is both a public and internal struggle and I promise I will try to be more patient with you. You deserve that and so much more my middle child-and all the baggage that comes with that placement.
It is a beautiful sunny day today much like the day you were born. About this time 11 years ago Tanya, Nina and Kellie were rubbing my swollen feet with essential oils trying to help me relax and and encourage my labor. (this is after they made me drink caster oil and root beer shots but I really try to forget that awful part) Mostly because at this point my water had been broken for 34 hrs and you still were not ready to come out! So stubborn!! We chatted as I drank tea (that tasted like dirt) and opened my mouth and lifted my tongue for tincture after tincture that burned holes in my gums. I was pretty tired because I had been running the steps the previous day (while rubbing my nipples to try to jump start my labor). So now I was ready to be pampered a bit. Your Dad and I headed to the bath tub and sure enough around noon my contractions really started. You were by far the easiest of my three births. About 4 1/2 hours later you were born in our bed with Jake cheering you on. By 7:00 that night we were all sitting on the couch eating Chinese food and watching the Disney movie (Fly Away Home, I think). You were easy going and so beautiful-dare I say one of the most beautiful babies I had ever seen. And today you have certainly grown into that beauty. But not with out a fight-that red hair brings much fire with it but that is what makes you so special!! I keep reminding myself that fire will serve you well-it is what will drive you so far ahead of the rest. What may be a disadvantage to some, is to you a different and better way of doing things. Your creativity, individuality, spunk and drive are so astounding to me. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings for you!! I love you Molly!! Happy, Happy Birthday!
(I wish I had some baby photos to share-I need to learn to scan!!)
