Happy Birthday Honor!

Honor starts getting ready for her birthday back in January, when Brian has his birthday! This year has been no exception. We wanted to have a big party with friends on her actual birthday, but could not book the club. We'll do that next weekend. It will probably be more of a giant playdate, with friends and classmates, but we'll have a cake and pizza, etc. Brian had a big party previously, this year it is Honor's turn. He's just happy that we are renting the same bouncy castle as he got to play on recently at one of his friend's parties, and that some of his friends will be there too.

Honor's class made a big deal of her at school on her actual birthday, then she got to choose what we had for dinner that night. Papa John's pizza! We decorated the living room. Brian and Honor helped set up the table. Poor Brad got stuck late at work. I held off as long as I could, but eventually I put in the order and just hoped he could get in about the same time the pizza arrived. He beat it by about 10 minutes.

After dinner, was cake time. Pony cake! Honor reaaally wanted a pony cake that was like Brian's dragon cake. I wasn't sure if I could translate it. The dragon cake was tricky enough (for me), but how was I to make a pony? The dragon sort of lounged, laying down, on the platter. Ponies do not lay down like that! Not healthy ponies. We wanted a pretty and cute pony, not a flopped on the ground, ill pony! I had to figure out an up-right cake.

I baked two round layer cakes, cut one in half, put the halves together - that was the body. I made a 1-piece head and neck shape with part of the other half. It curved from the platter, for foundation. and up, leaning onto the body pieces, which I'd cemented together with pink frosting. I realized that, with the ears I'd put on the head, and the rounded back, I was making a pretty good rabbit cake. Rabbit was not on the menu. So, I lopped off the ears, and flattened the back. I used the back pieces to make legs, and I ate the ears. Now, with the 2-layer-thick body, plus legs, and the 1-layer-thick neck and head, I had made a very good representation of the Sphinx. "My Little Egyptian Landmark" was not our theme!

So, try again. I realized that the pony really needed a mane to fill out the shape properly, so I added some extra cake pieces on top. I mixed blue food color into the last of the pink frosting, and painted the mane and tail violet. I used extra frosting on the mane.. and lots of prayers... so that the whole thing would not slip apart until after we sang Happy Birthday.

When Honor got up from her nap, she helped me choose some candies to decorate with. She made sure I added a candy corn horn so it was a unicorn pony. We also sprinkled some colored sugar (an treat from an Easter goody bag) on the mane and tail - as magic pony dust. And most importantly, she reminded me to draw a rainbow on its butt. No proper pony goes around without some cute tattoo on it's read-end... I've never really understood that, but I dutifully drew on a violet rainbow! Cake time!

Brian gives his little sister a big birthday hug. Ramses steals her chair and hopes for goodies.

Ta-daa! The pony cake made it to the table without its head falling off!

Make a wish!

Our Happy Birthday girl.
The fun part, part two. Opening prezzies. Oooh! What's this?
She's been wanting this match game for months! Brian and Daddy got it for her.
Her own Barbie learning laptop game. It is full of fun games, the only problem is it will either play English or Spanish, depending on how you set it after you turn it on. Honor hasn't quite mastered that yet. Fortunately, she's just as happy to play with the Spanish as she is the English. Maybe she'll teach herself the language?
Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the lovely gifts!
A baby! Honor loves her baby dolls now and this one came with outfits for her to change.
Sweet baby snuggles!
Honor models the new dress up dance costume from Grandma and Grandpa.