Hello!   I’m still alive!  Fall has started out rough, and we may still be sniffling and coughing, but we made it through the birthday season.  I want to share what went down!

The kids’ birthdays are a little over a month apart, and I am usually crazy(ier than normal) for weeks before the big party days.

We tend to do the low-key, immediate-family parties.

The kids, traditionally, get to dictate the theme and feel of their party.  And then I have to come up with something that knocks their socks off in the cake department.  (To me — and them! –this means both taste and presentation.)

Some years, obviously, are better than others.

This September, A.W. turned 3.  He decided to have a Batman theme.

I drew so many Batman sketches and did so much cake-designing brainstorming that I made myself sick.

I looked all over Pinterest and found lots of great cakes, but they all used fondant to get that smooth finish. We don’t do store-bought fondant because of all of the additives (remember, we’re allergy peeps!) and the fact that, to us, it doesn’t really taste good.  Besides that, I have this amazing buttercream frosting recipe  that’s few ingredients, super easy to make, and stores well for a week or so.  It also works very well in using up my extra crock pot clarified butter that always seems to be hanging around.  (Frosting recipe here.)

Oh, and it’s very mold-able and shape-able if you freeze it and then add a little water to your fingertips!  I love that!

Surprise, surprise!  I got all side-tracked and off-course. Bringing it on back!

It’s a quirky thing, but I like the cakes to look good while still looking homemade. So we’re back to the Batman cake.  Well, it definitely looked homemade.  Maybe a  little too homemade! I was back and forth on what to do until the day before A.W.’s party.  My lack of preparation shows.

In my opinion, the Batman cake wasn’t the best looking; but it did taste good!

Of course, most importantly, my Superhero Big Boy 3 was smiling ear to ear!

I can be a little hard on myself, especially when it comes to really pleasing my kids (or loved ones — or friends — or strangers that look nice).  Ha, ha…?

After the Batman cake situation (what I’d even call a semi-fail, maybe), I started sketching early for my next challenge.  A.S. is a horse-crazy, just-turned-5-year-old little lady.  No surprise that she picked horses for her birthday theme.

I was feeling confident.  I had my go-to cake recipe. (You can find that here.)  I had my go-to frosting recipe. I had some dollar store candy.  I had some ribbon.

And I started sketching weeks before the party. (Don’t mind the chocolate cake all over the rough sketch; I forgot to get a pic prelaying on the cake to cut shape.)

I showed it to A.W. secretly as I was working on it, and he said, “Oh, my goodness!  It’s a real horse, Mommy!?”

Perfect!  Just the reaction I was looking for.

This was a success!  The birthday girl was quite pleased!

And just as I was wiping the frosting off of my brow, I realized that I needed to come up with cupcakes for her class!  Same go-to recipe for frosting and cake, but what to do about decorating them?

I totally cheated and google-copied someone else’s idea!

Here’s the inspiration.  Gotta give credit where credit’s due!

And here’s what I sent to school for the class:

Birthday season is officially over!

Now to find something to do with the 15 pounds of apples we picked at the orchard this weekend.

C