Carly's Party

Thank you Comfort Inn for the internet service.  (Now we know the problem is with my Mom's router.) 

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Andrew and I drove down to Mississippi for our cousin Carly's 8th birthday party.  I literally spent 90% of my time in the kitchen, which you know if one of my favorite places.  Andrew had a great time playing with his cousin Alex.  I have no pictures of our days before the party because like I said, I was in the kitchen.  

The luau party was on Sunday and I made her cake.  We looked at lots of pictures of cake ideas and this is what the birthday girl came up with:

I had a lot of fun making the gumpaste flowers.  It was my first time attempting them and I think, overall, they turned out pretty well.

Blowing out the candles...

Since it was a luau birthday party and her invitations had pink flamingos on them, I decided to make some flamingo cupcakes.  They were SO CUTE!  Good thing I didn't bring them outside until cake time because it was so hot that their little chocolate wings melted rather quickly!

The birthday girl's piece of cake.  She wanted some "grass" and her name.

I think she liked it!

This cake was so much fun to make.  But I must admit that I felt like a first timer on the food network show, Challenge.  Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong.  In my haste I put too much milk in one of my cake recipes.  I learned that pink fondant will fade VERY quickly if the sun is shining through the window and humidity is NOT your friend when trying to cover a cake!  But I overcame all those obstacles and managed to finish the cake.  *whew*
Here's one picture of me and a very sleepy Andrew...this one is for you Daddy.

And something really funny that I just HAD to share....

There's a place called "Frosting" (genius idea) where you can go in and decorate your own cupcakes.  They make the cupcakes and provide a candy wall with every imaginable decoration you could put on a cupcake.  They make them for all occasions.  But take a look at their brochure:

 Divorces and Parole Hearings?!...ONLY in Mississippi!