Jude's First Birthday Party

Well, all of our work paid off!

Jude's Birthday Party came and went and it was a great time!

We had (more than) enough food, drinks, cakes, etc.

We were going for a pretty laid back event and I'm pretty sure that was successful. Everyone showed up right around 2:00. Everyone hung out, ate and mingled for awhile and then I decided to do cake.

We had bought a cake for the guests to eat and since I wanted to make a cake for Jude, I made a special one for him.

This was the cake for the guests:

it was a Doctor Seuss theme and looked AWESOME! I loved it! I let Cannon's pretty much design it on their own and I'm so happy I did!

They put little blurbs from different books...

Jude's cake was a banana cake. I used all vegan ingredients (from a vegan cookbook) so that my dear friend Meghan could indulge in Jude's first Birthday cake. Jude loved it! I changed the recipe just a little, but it turned out well (I took some ingredients out, added some extra of another and used a different frosting than they called for).

Everyone gathered in the front yard to sing happy birthday.... so the candle barely stayed aflame.

We opted out of the big "open presents in front of everyone thing". Instead, as most people were leaving, I gave Jude his gifts and opened the cards myself. He only got a handful of toys and played with them all.

Jude's mom-mom (my mom) made him his first birthday shirt

He looked so cute in his little hat!

We had ooddles of food - and Ryan played grill master... and then turned it over to Curt. Speaking of food, I made a Strawberry layer cheesecake thing as my final 'seasonal dessert'! I got the recipe from Barbie. Of course I can't just make it as indicated, so I changed it a bit. I had it at a mom's night and personally thought it could use more strawberries and pound cake, so I got about double the pound cake and easily double the strawberries. I started with the whipped cream bottom, strawberries and pound cake, then did the whipped cream, more pound cake and the rest of the strawberries. The melted chocolate over the strawberries was oh-so-yummy. The dish was gone in minutes!

But back to the birthday... Jude didn't get strawberry cheesecake... instead he got some of the fruit salad.

All in all, it was a great day! The weather was wonderful and the friends were just as lovely.

After just about everyone cleared out, Ryan started up a fire pit and we sat around and hung out for the evening. After a long day, Jude slept like a champ.

Our Second Cinco de Mayo Together

Jude's 1st Birthday was fairly uneventful.

The night before his birthday, I set up his toy room so that he could wake up and go downstairs to play. He seemed confused about why all of his toys were moved, but seem interested in the new space.




After breakfast we had his 12 month check up. He unfortunately had to have 2 shots... which I felt terrible about! The check up went normally. Jude is right on track and doing well. He was 19lbs 15 ounces and 29.5" long. The doctor mentioned that he has noticed that Jude may have a slight heart murmur, but that there's nothing to be concerned about. He advised me that it's not uncommon in young children (and I compared it to my dog Zoey... she had one too that she was supposed to outgrow). He said it's so slight that he has no restrictions for Jude, he just thought he'd let me know in case for some reason someone else noticed it and mentioned it. He didn't want us to think he wasn't paying attention.

I got the go ahead to stop nursing and to switch to whole milk. We're still not totally ready... but at least the options there.

After our check up we had a nice relaxing lunch with Uncle Bryan and Aunt Katy and then headed home. I considered going to a park or something, but there was much to do around the house. Instead, Jude and I planted some stuff in the garden and once Ryan got home we did some painting and finishing touches on Jude's toy room (photos to follow).

The day quickly got away from us and so we decided to go out for dinner. Being Cinco De Mayo, we tried to be a little festive. We went to Applebees. Ok... that's not the festive part... Ryan got a Corona, I got a Margarita (or two...).

After hurrying home to meet up with Uncle Byran and Aunt Katy and Ryan Creed, we gave Jude his first of three birthday cakes. It was a classic funfetti cake with vanilla frosting, and Jude loved it.











The day really went by so quickly. It's still hard to believe that he's a year old!

**I can 'technically' cross off 'make jude a birthday cake' from my list with this cake... but I'd say I officially crossed it off with his birthday party cake. Either way, it's done!

Seasonal Dessert #3:

The other day I was in the mood for baking. I knew winter would be ending and I still hadn't made my winter dessert, so I decided to tackle that.

I ended up making a gingerbread molasses bunt cake.

I put it in the oven while Jude was eating breakfast and towards the end of my mixing and prepping, Jude got a little antsy. So, I threw it in the cake pan and got him out of his highchair.

Before long, the house smelled amazing! After the expected baking time, I took the pan out and took a little taste - YUM! I then got distracted and came back about an hour later to take the cake out of the pan.

Well, I forgot to put the flour int he pan to keep teh cake from sticking, and I didn't take the cake out quickly enough, so it was stuck :( I tried to ease it out, but it wouldn't come. The cake ended up in a crumbly mess on the plate.

Even though it didn't look great, it tasted yummy.

Only one more seasonal dessert to go!

Question: What desserts to you think of when you think of spring?

Me vs. Icing

Icing: 2 - Me: 1

SCORE!

You all may remember the story about my adventure with the Raspberry Buttercream. basically it turned out to be a runny, nasty, hopeless mess (until I added a bunch of flour). Well, the other night Ryan wanted something sweet. I wanted to make something sweet. So I made something sweet.

I decided to make a cake. I bust out my recipe book and whip up a pretty basic yellow cake mix and threw it in the oven. Then I realized - we didn't have icing. Shoot.

I didn't want to go through the trial and error of how-much-flour-is-the-right-amount-of-flour, so I almost just didn't finish the cake. Then I decided I'd give it a whirl again.

In the same book that I got the cake recipe, I found a chocolate frosting recipe. I fortunately had all the ingredients, so I gave it a whirl. I started adding some ingredients and it looked like it was going down the same runny path, but some how it all came together and turned out pretty yummy (and thick enough to actually stay on the cake).

So! Here's to me winning one in the battle for amazing icing/frosting/buttercream.

Updated Photo (raspberry cake)

Once again, what I was TRYING to create:

The first try with no flour:

The revised/re-iced cake (as I said, still not exactly perfect, but thicker and holding shape) - with a sweet little sign from my cousin.

As requested:

The Solution:

After writing out last night's blog about the cake I did a little research and found the solution to my runny cake problem! FLOUR!

It's such a simple solution I feel like a goon for not thinking of it myself.

Flour as most of you know is just a thickening agent. You add it to cookies, cakes, etc to give it the texture, but the rest of the ingredients (butter, sugar, etc) are what actually add the flavor. If flour does anything to the taste, it makes the flavor a little less harsh (ever taste your chocolate chip cookie recipe BEFORE you add the flour? it's very strong). Ryan loved the flavor of the cake with the raspberry buttercream frosting as it was, but one finger dip into the bowl was enough for me, it was just very sweet! With the flour though, it was a much softer taste.

So, what I did, was take the balance of the frosting I had after "decorating" the cake and added a couple cups of flour to it (I kept adding little bits until it was the desired consistency, so the amount used is questionable). I scrapped a little bit of the runny yucky icing off the already decorated cake (some of it had seeped INTO the cake - but if anything it just made it moist) and slopped on the nicer/prettier icing. While decorating I decided it could have used more flour in my opinion (to make it more "manageable"), but at least it was thicker and able to stay ON the cake.

Problem solved! Just goes to show you that recipes are not ALWAYS right!

First Seasonal Dessert

Today I made the first of my four seasonal desserts. On my list of 101 things to do, my goal was to make 4 seasonal desserts each season for a year. So, one summer, one fall, winter and spring.

For my wedding, I had a super yummy raspberry buttercream cake (well, one of the layers, the others were all different). I love it! I thought since raspberries are in season that I would give it a try to make myself. I went so far as to pick fresh raspberries, make cake from scratch, etc.

What my goal was:

What it actually looked like:

Obviously I was disappointed with the way it looked, but according to Ryan it tasted delicious. He said that the cake was much better than the store bought/boxed cake and all though the icing was soupy, it was very yummy (which is saying something since he doesn't like the wedding cake I was trying to imitate)! AND - my cousin Michael just walked in (I had sent a piece to my grandparent's house) and said he devoured it while he was there!

This is my second try making a buttercream icing (last time it was just regular buttercream - no raspberry) and both times the consistency just wasn't right. It always turns out runny. I hope to in the future do a little research and find out how to avoid it from happening.

Some reasons I think it might be off:
- not enough confectioners sugar.
- didn't dry the raspberries off enough
- too many raspberries
- too much butter

If i ever figure out what's wrong I'll be sure to blog about it!

Next season I think I'll try an apple crisp! Stay tuned!