Sunday, April 29, 2007

Julia's turning 1!!!

At approximately 7:06 tonight, our baby will be one year old! We had her birthday party yesterday, and I think she had fun. :) My parents came over, and my brother's family was planning to come too, but their kids were both sick, so unfortunately they couldn't make it. :( Her presents were mostly new clothes for summer (yay!) and one very cool Leap Frog toy from her Ohio grandparents. She loves it (and Sam does too--we keep having to remind him that it's her toy, not his!). I dressed her in an adorable new outfit that my friend Les got her for an early birthday present. The pictures didn't capture the cuteness of it completely--it has a fuzzy teddy bear peeking out from one of the jumper seams, but you can't see it much.

Here are some pictures from Julia's big day:

A happy birthday girl
Checking out one of the birthday cards
The flower cake (this was so much fun to decorate!)
Julia and the cake
Mmmm, this is yummy stuff!

We love you, our sweet little girl! You bring so much sunshine and joy to our lives. Happy, happy birthday to you!!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Happy 1st birthday, Julia! Looks like she knew just what to do with that piece of cake!

Since I have that same cake pan, you mmmmmmust share your decorating secrets with me. You did a phenomenal job on that cake! Was it hard to do the stars thingies?

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday, Julia! I'm glad her birthday party went well. Her cake looks great!

Carrie said...

Alicia--yep, she's got quite the sweet tooth! :) For the cake, I followed the recipe for the Wilton buttercream icing, only I doubled it to make 6 cups. I thinned 2 cups of it with one or two tablespoons of milk, to make the base icing, and tinted it light pink (using "no taste red"--just a tiny bit of it). Then I frosted the whole cake with that. I had to put it on pretty thick because the cake was so dark. I baked the cake and did that layer of icing the day before the party. Plus I tinted the rest of the icing with the colors I wanted that day, too, and just refrigerated it overnight. (Just make sure to take it out of the fridge a few hours before you use it, so it can soften up.) I did about 1/4-1/3 c. light yellow, 1 c. dark pink, and 2 c. light pink, and left the rest white. I planned to do the lettering in white, but later realized the dark pink would look better, so I did that instead. I bought red icing and black icing gel in tubes to do the ladybug, as it takes a long time and a lot of food coloring to make icing black or red! I used the top of a mini cupcake for the ladybug, but I would recommeng using a Nilla Wafer or other small cookie instead--less crumbly! I basically followed the instructions that came with the pan, for the Happy Flower cake, just changing the colors. I think the stars are really easy and fun to do--just practice on some foil or a plate first, to get the hang of it. My sis is an awesome cake decorator (she's worked for a couple bakeries) and she taught me the basics, which was very helpful! I've heard that the Wilton classes are a lot of fun, if you ever get the chance to take one.

And now that I've probably told you WAY more than you wanted to know, LOL . . . :) Happy decorating!

Carrie said...

Mindee, thanks for the birthday wishes and the compliment on the cake . . . I really had fun with it. :)