El Mundo de Elí

Here are some photos from Elí's first Elmo birthday. I guess Elmo is becoming a trend :).Party prep: Elías Sesame Street Crayons and Dorthy royal icing cookiesThe birthday boy and his abuelitoThe birthday tableRainbow pound cake with Italian buttercream frostingBirthday brother eating cakeThe Sesame Street birthday familyChocolate Elmo lollipopsRoyal icing Elmo cookiesDiecut Sesame Street BannersSesame Street Fruit and Vegetable traysWatermelon cake for the birthday boyParty prep: Chocolate covered crayons pretzelsAwesome El Mundo de Elías birthday sign made by NicoParty prep: Sesame Street diecut bunting flagsParty prep: Sesame Street diecutsParty prep: Cakestands

Fourth of July Buttercream Ombré Pinata Cake

This year we celebrated 'Murica to the fullest with a Fourth of July Buttercream Ombré Piñata Cake.Truth be told, after last year's massive flag cake I wasn't planning on making anything too crazy. But my family seemed so disappointed and I ended up caving. I'm happy though that I went for it. I had a lot of fun playing with my my new Russian Icing tips for the first time. Many lessons learned here so next time I think they'll come out much better.And I want to give a BIG thanks to my mother-in-law for all of her help watching the kids and killing it with the clean up!View of the cake from above. Flowers created with Russian piping tips.Here is the cake after we cut it open. I had my husband cut it open so that I could record a little video, but he ruined it when he decided to eat a piece of cake mid-recording :(These are the ombré layers. I use Americolor gels to get super vibrant colors.And here is my little man :) He and I also made American flag chocolate covered pretzels But we will debut those later today...

Fourth of July Flag Cake

Last fourth of July I was SUPER pregnant.  And like any rational minded soon to be mami of two, I decided that I should spend my last days of freedom on my feet, for hours, baking a flag cake.I started by making a 5 layer red test-cake with buttercream filling.  But I wasn't happy enough with the height ratio of the red to white, so I ended up with this monstrosity pictured below.Really this cake didn't reach it's full height potential. But that is only because I reached the max height of our freezer, where I was storing the layers, and I literally couldn't stand on my feet any longer. That being said, it still irks me when I look at the picture above and wish, wish, wish that there was a the very least another top red layer.The most delicious part of the cake was actually the lemon curd filling, which you can't see here. I chose it because it wouldn't detract from the colored layers.These are the royal icing cookies I made with toddler. This was the first time I let him roll out his own cookies and decorate them. He was DELIGHTED!Here is my happy boy with his abuelito.Here he is again with his abuelito and grandma.

Since my second son's birthday is coming up next month my plan was to hold off from making a cake this year. But my family seemed so disappointed that it looks like I'll be baking a cake after all. And I am actually really excited to use my new Russian icing tips. So I think the plan will be to make a red white and blue pinata cake with my toddler.

I'll keep you guys posted...

My little guy's GRRiffic 2nd birthday

He LOVES Daniel Tiger and this was his last rendezvous as an only child*, so I figured we'd celebrate him to the max. And celebrate we did...I went way overboard on all the little details and decorations but I was so busy chasing around my toddler and making sure everyone was having a good time that I didn't get any photos of the actual event itself.  But at least I had some photos pre-party of some of my prep work.*An entire year has passed and I just realized I never published this post. My son (pictured here) turned three two weeks ago and the other one is almost a year old.Daniel Tiger Royal Icing CookiesO the Owl Royal Icing CookiesDaniel Tiger CakeTiger Cake InsidePrince Wednesday, Katerina Kitty Cat, Miss Elaina and Daniel Tiger DiecutsPlaying with the diecutsDaniel Tiger Crayons