You've Had a Birthday, Shout Hoo-ray!

Birthday week has come to a close at the Hunt home. Mommy is now in the last year of her twenties and Christopher has turned four! 

Jeremy gave me the sweetest Willow Tree figurine, Guardian. It reminded him of Elizabeth and me, and it just melted my heart. What a thoughtful gift. He also stepped it up a notch a home and became Super Husband/Daddy for the day, and I asked him if he could be my hero all year long for my 30th birthday gift. He said he'd do his best (he always does) and the atmosphere here at home has been so much more enjoyable because of it, thank you Jeremy!

And then for Christopher's birthday I went super ambitious this year for his "cake" with a mondo sized plane made from rice crispies and covered in fondant.

Here's how it happened: The fondant and frosting was made the afternoon of the 26th and the rice crispies that night with Jeremy's help of course. We made 10 batches, filling a roast pan for the fuselage or body of the plane, a 9x13 for the wings, and an 8x8 for the fins and engines.

The next night we cut and shaped all the pieces together, frosted all the parts, dyed the fondant, rolled it out, cut and covered the pieces, and very lastly assembled the beast. 

Awesome! It took three hours, not bad when you think of it, and a couple of hidden dowels to do the trick, but we were very satisfied with the results.

What I learned: 9pm very quickly becomes 12am so even though three hours is pretty good for what we did, getting started as early as possible is the key, even if it means putting the children to bed early.

I did stay up for another hour or so finishing the poster for the stations and cleaning a bit, but gave up when the clock read past one.

Next day, the Up in the Air party was a great success; thanks to all that came for the party and helped out with the activities. The children loved playing with bubbles most of all but also took turns with Blanket Ball, Twirlie Flyers, the Frisbee, and for the finale, Jeremy shot off his rocket and the kids ran for the pieces with delight. It was really great that Jeremy was able to take the morning off to be at the party, we love Southwest!

Having the party at the park worked out great, it gave us adults a chance to catch up while the kids ran and played. Here's our two favorite teensies, Lanie and Janie in a swing together, too cute!

I loved the colors that came through in this picture, to the naked eye it was just food, but when the picture came out it made me wow!

There was so much wind that we sang the Birthday song and did a pretend blow at the candles, and then I just let the kids tear at the plane, why not?! They were so good not to do it while the moms were all talking anyway. 

It's a funny thing, but I find the most gratification from seeing the remains of my cake masterpieces, like knowing it was loved enough to be torn to shreds and devoured, or something like that. Over the last few days we ate the fuselage at home but I had to dispose of the remains after the CJ wouldn't stop asking for and sneaking pieces when I wasn't looking.

My next great adventure in cake making and birthday's will be Janie's first birthday. It's going to be a combo bonanza with a Toy Story theme for Janie, Jordan, Jackson, and Carter. Maybe we could do a cowboy hat, or Woody's boot? The jury's still out on that one, have any suggestions?


PS Just the other day I heard of the new Cricut machine that cuts fondant called the Cricut Cake. I would love to try my hand at cakes with that!