Mission Accomplished

There. I've survived my first "kid" birthday party. Yay, me! This is the first year that Camden has had an actual birthday party - - I figured he was old enough this year, where as before I'm not sure he really grasped what was going on, so we waited. He had such a fun day today. He had five of his little friends come over for lunch, cake, ice cream, and a pinata. Everyone did great, and went home strung out on sugar.

I think I'd mentioned in an earlier post that Camden was wanting me to make a Lightening McQueen cake again this year, and I wasn't exactly thrilled! It is a Wilton cake pan and is one of the more difficult ones I've ever tried, probably because of all the different colors you have to use. After everyone went to bed last night, I started working on it. At one point, Camden appeared from the basement and asked if he could watch. He proceeded to talk without coming up for air, for about 15 minutes, until I reminded him he was supposed to be in bed! I forgot to take a picture of the cake (sorry, Mum!) until after I'd already poked candle holes in it, but here it is:

My nemesis...the Lightening McQueen cake

I had some fun making sugar cookies to give as party favors. By the time I went to bed last night, I was feeling rather Martha Stewart-y, I must say. I love making these particular sugar cookies - - they are so yummy, and it is a great recipe to use with cookie cutters.

I made some tags on the computer with Camden's picture on them, and I like how they came out. Here are a couple of neat products that you can find at your local WalMart:

The cookie icing on the left is something I just discovered recently - - it is really great when you don't want to go to the trouble (and mess) of making Royal icing from scratch (Royal icing is used for decorating cookies because it dries hard to the touch). The FoodWriter edible color markers are really fun because you can then draw on the dried Royal icing. I used them to draw the number 4 on Camden's cookies. WalMart carries a lot of Wilton products, and Wilton has recently come out with so many fun things for making and decorating cookies and cupcakes.

Camden, taking a whack at his pinata

left to right: Joy, Paco, Camden, Hayden, Josie, Javier's legs, and Brendon (unfortunately, Camden's friend Hailey was on the other side of the table!)

Griffin, Cameron, and Brendon