Hawaiian Birthday Cake

That was the original plan anyway.  Emily wanted a Hawaiian cake for her birthday. 

Ok, cool. We found this on pinterest and I decided I could pull that off.  On my recent walk through the hood I scouted for yellow, orange and bright pink hibiscus flowers.  Ready to go.

(These are probably made of gum paste or something but I had no intention of going down that road with the real McCoy so readily available!)

Then she found this one.  Hmmm, two layers, two sizes, lots of artwork.  I steered her away.

But wait!  How bout this one...a nice combination of the two?  

At this point, I'm simply begging her to pick a cake.  Just pick.  

I go get dressed and when I return, THIS is the new cake.  

Wait...what?  But I have the flowers all picked out...white frosting, real flowers, pick, stick, done.  Nope, this is the one. But in the original colors of yellow, orange and pink. 

Ok, here we go...

Bake

Make a batch of frosting

Stack

Make more frosting...when all is said and done, 7 sticks of butter, 12 cups of sugar, and one big mess!

Frost, frost, frost!

Take a break to go get your ears pierced!

Head to the playground

Tell your mom you are tired of her taking pictures

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to my sweetest little girl!  

Twas the Day Before Christmas

I didn't take a single photo on Christmas day!  Too busy enjoying the moments - but here's some of our Christmas Eve fun...

We agreed that our house next year should be a bit more Hawaiian.  Accepting ideas for how to make a gingerbread hut and palm trees :)

So fun that both my girls break out into the hula whenever a familiar song comes on!  I remember doing that as a girl...not!

All wrapped up and ready!

Olivia after her mall makeover - one of her gifts was a little bit of makeup.  Very pretty!

Off to church!

I tried to post the video of Olivia doing the hula during service but it's too big.  

It was a very special way to end our Christmas Eve!

Now, off to frost the cake!!  

Christmas Card

As predicted, the Hughes family didn't get their act together in time for a card this year.  Finally today we had a moment to try and capture how much they are changing!  Both growing up so fast, but we are enjoying those unique personalities as much as ever. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Love David, Jen, Olivia and Emily

EMILY!!

I hate to start a sentence with "poor Emily", because we all know there isn't anything poor about that girl!  BUT...having a birthday so close to Christmas does have some downsides.  No school parties, friends busy or out of town, that kind of stuff.

This year we decided to turn the tables on that birthday and celebrate early!  Emily's school BFF is going to be busy once break starts so they spent the whole day together yesterday playing, decorating, eating, shopping and going to a movie.

Chocolate cupcakes with peppermint swirl buttercream icing. YUM!

Um, yeah.  The dressing alike was a coincidence.  The eyeshadow was on purpose.  Yes, I let them go to the movie like that.

It certainly is!!

Really cute! (and way less trouble than the dolphin cake) 

But don't worry.  She has elaborate cake plans for the neighborhood party.  Oh yeah, you didn't think I could get away with an early celebration and then zilcho on the real day did you?  Ha.

Time for a little shopping at Claire's before the movie.  Nothing silly about these two :)

They had a blast and were both exhausted last night! 

As for me, it was fun to celebrate while I was still in the mood for shopping, baking and gifting.  Our plan for the hood is simple...meet on the playground for cake.  The plan is simple, the cake is not...

The inspiration photos.  Oye.  Of course the inside is yellow, pink and orange also.  We shall see....