rivka | (no subject)

I have my flaws, but sometimes I think I get the mom thing right.

Alex is having a Fairy Tale Princess birthday party this afternoon.

Five or six friends will be coming over dressed in their finest princess gear. Michael and I are also dressing up in costume as the King and Queen.

I got plastic wine glasses at the party store, which the children will decorate with stick-on jewels (I decided to go for "easy" rather than "permanent") to make themselves royal goblets. We're also planning to play three games: The Cinderella Relay, in which one shoe from each kid is piled in the center of the floor and in relay teams the kids run to the middle, find their shoe, put it on, and race back to their team; Musical Sleeping Beauty, which is just like musical chairs except that instead of chairs there are beds made from baby blankets, and when the music stops the kids need to find a spot to fall asleep for a hundred years; and The Queen Says, which is a royal version of Simon Says.

Alex has been watching out the front window for her friends since right after breakfast.

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I can't imagine how you could possibly make cake cone-shaped. Special pans, I guess? But even then!

I used prepackaged icing. For the first time in my life. Because my sister warned me that homemade buttercream would be way too heavy.

I had never done the "crumb coat" layer of icing before. The cake looks so pathetic when only that is on! But it really did make all the difference.

I've used prepackaged icing but it's definitely heavier than what I make myself - but then, I ice cakes MAYBE twice a year, usually, so what would I know? And before I had Linnea, I'm not sure I ever iced one... it's quite possible that the first cake we iced was her second birthday cake.

Oh - and I figured cutting cone-shapes from loaf cakes, and making little roll-out icing cone covers for them, glued on with hot jam.