Birthday Girl

August is the month of many birthdays in our home. My oldest ds, my baby girl, our nephew, dh's mother, my grandmother, my uncle, dh's aunt, and my cousin all have a birthday in August. In fact, all but one of those people has their birthday the same week. And my daughter and nephew (who are two years apart) share the same day. (That year my sis didn't come to her niece's party - she was a little busy! grin)

Anyway, in spite of the work crunch and the overflowing toilets and melted carpets and school starting and general life chaos, we had another birthday party this weekend. Dd wanted a Barbie party, so we did the bake-a-cake-in-a-bowl thing and turned it into Barbie-in-a-ballgown cake.

For those of you who don't decorate cakes, this one is a level 1 - very, very easy. No hours and hours of piping tiny little stars. Once the cake is assembled, it takes about 30 minutes to frost and decorate. Perfect for those times in life when you are working like a madwoman and have to stop to throw a birthday party. Not as perfect as ordering the cake from Publix, but hey, I wanted to put forth SOME effort, and I'm pretty sure dd heard "I love you!" as she watched me and licked the frosting off the mixer beater.

But before you get to the frosting and decorating, you have to do the baking and assembling. This is not hard, but it does take some time and care, as you have to bake two cakes and let them cool, then slice off pieces and stack them just so and then cut a hole in the middle for Barbie. These things I did early on Saturday morning, while dh was out running errands. He got home around lunchtime and this is what he saw sitting on the kitchen counter:




"Will you make that for MY birthday?" he asks.

Snort. Yeah, I'm on it, honey. Cellophane-Wrapped Naked Barbie is exactly the cake I wanna serve you.