Birthday Girl

Well, I had big plans for Little Miss P.'s birthday.  And I started on said "big plans" real nice and early.  Nothing was going to stop me from getting the job done--I was prepared, I was being timely, it was going to be a success!  And then, as you already know, everyone got sick.  There are some things you just can't prepare for...

So, I had to scale back on Little P.'s party plans.  Waaayy, waaaayy back.  In the end, though I was disappointed that things hadn't gone as planned, I was glad that, miserable as I was, I managed to get something done for her birthday.  Something is better than nothing, right?

Anyway, part of the plan was to have about fifty or so paper mache hot air balloons.  By birthday day, I had just fourteen.  Thankfully, fourteen is just enough to spell out "Happy Birthday" with and still have one balloon leftover for the cake.

The girls painted almost all of the balloons.  I painted a few leftovers and added the decorations.  The Playmobil kids were nice enough to hang out in the baskets and hold little letter signs.  (Thanks guys!)

And then there was the cake.  I used my favorite Martha Stewart One Bowl Chocolate Cupcake recipe, and sadly,  for the first time ever, the cake was a disaster.  One layer was horribly lopsided (think 2 inches on one side sloping down to about 1 inch on the other side!) and the other layer was constantly losing large chunks of cake off the sides.  Thankfully, after some trimming and patching and a whole lot of icing, the cake looked okay.

Loads and loads of white icing were piled on top to look like clouds and then one last balloon, with it's little passenger, was set floating atop it all.

The birthday girl enjoyed it all--balloons, cake, presents, being the center of attention--it was all great.  And now she is officially two!