Every mom wants her kids to have good memories of how she made them feel special.  Some are better at it than others.  I struggle with “fun” crafts…can’t stand them…don’t do them often with my little ones, and when I do it is a labor of love.  Some cook with their kids.  We do this periodically; but if it is a new recipe I am more than likely to get distracted by all of the safety violations and endless chatter by my kiddos.  So cooking together has been haphazard – though each year it gets easier – they are getting so big nowadays that we do it more often <<sniff, sniff>>.  But I always try to make them a special birthday cake.  Box mix, homemade icing and lots of Googling to find great ideas for their particular theme.  We all agree that my Hello Kitty! cake was my greatest success (though I can’t rest on those laurels since that was 4 years ago!).  I have done a (very bad) firetruck – my first attempt at being a Cake Boss.  A superhero cake (first time with homemade fondant – pretty awesome result).  Starwars, that was a cheater, I added little figures to the top – but it is not hard to impress a 5 year old boy.  Ballerina Shoes – that was cute!  Last year we did an “Art Party” and let the girls decorate their own cupcakes (that was easy!).

This year we did a the Pirate Treasure Chest Cake for my Sweet Boy…found it on familyfun.go.com

Last week mySweet Girl and I used the Wilton method to make flowers…well, sort of.  We made flowers and we used the Wilton tips but I think we were inventing our own flowers rather than reproducing actual flowers that you might see in nature – but who cares?! Love the Wilton website – lots of helpful hints.  We bought the Wilton cupcake tree from Amazon and it was better in person than in the picture – collapses too for storage.

Forgive the photography!  Still working on that, but one project at a time.  This time we were focusing on cupcakes and kids.  We are so totally proud of our results – for first timers, we did alright!

JustaGirl…just like you!