1st Birthday

Okay so this is very late news but my daughter had her first birthday. I decided to be extra crafty and make both of her cakes. It was kind of a debauchle. I made a chocolate layer cake and a Winnie-the-Pooh cake just from a plain funfetti mix. The chocolate cake was Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate cake which I had eaten before and was delicious. However neither of mine rose so they had to be trashed. I had to end up making chocolate cake mixes because by 6:00 p.m. I hadn't even begun to decorate the Winnie-the-Pooh cake. The chocolate butter cream was a recipe I basically made up and did not come out terrific but was still tasty, though could have been thinner. Winnie-the-Pooh was more hassle than I had originally thought it would be. It probably would have been easier if I had made all the colors at the same time. Or if I had an assistant that could make them for me! heh I didn't purchase the Wilton colors, I just used regular old food coloring which made it more time consuming to get the colors I wanted and they never did come out just right. A lot of the frosting for Pooh was also too thin and didn't hold its shape too well. But! The cakes were a hit at the party and the party was a hit too. Evan did fall asleep half way through the party but we thought it best so she would be in a good mood for smash cake and presents. She missed out on swimming with all of her cousins but it was just as well. Oh I almost forgot. Instead of making a separate smash cake, after we sang Happy Birthday we simply decapitated Pooh bear and it was really just the perfect size cake for her. Although she daintily scraped all the frosting off to eat instead of digging in and smashing it! She got lots of great presents including homemade hair bows from her Aunt, a homemade tutu which she actually kept on for the rest of the party and lots of lighty up noisy making toys! All said and done it was a great family day and a great day for my daughter. As a bonus I also learned some lessons and realized I really need to work on my writing with frosting skills (see chocolate layer cake). But with no classes or anything I think I did pretty well! Yea me and yea to my big 1 year old girl!

Ni-hao!

In case anyone with kids hasn't checked out Kai Lan yet, my review is 5 stars. My daughter LOVES this show. We have tried Dora, Backyardigans, Tigger and Pooh, It's a Big Big World and Sesame Street. Only Kai Lan has really been of interest to her. Everything else she watches for 1-5 minutes and she's done. The themes of the shows are very cute. Kai Lan and her friends Rintoo, Tolee and HoHo learn about sharing, ways of dealing with anger and overcoming fears, patience and the importance of helping friends and taking responsibility for your actions just to name a few. All with the help of Kai Lan's grandfather who she calls Ye Ye. I personally don't find this show annoying unlike Dora. Although I must admit, having my child pick up some Spanish is probably more practical than learning Mandarin. My only problem now is that my daughters birthday is this week and I absolutely cannot find anything Kai Lan related for her. Currently there are only 13 episodes of Kai Lan in rotation (but we DVR anyways and play them at our convenience) and apparently no new episodes will be out until 2009. I'm not sure if thats accurate just something I read somewhere. I can't believe Nick didn't realize this show would be a hit. It kinda feels like they dropped the ball a bit. If I could only find a stuffed doll or something I would feel like my daughters birthday was complete. Hopefully by Christmas this year they will have released some merch. Just in case, I am going to try and crochet her a Kai Lan blanket or something to that effect in time for the holidays. P.S. I did manage to find a few items on eBay Kai Lan related but they are all handmade anyways so I figure why not just do it myself. Anyone out there got a hand on some Kai Lan swag plz drop me a line.