Dinosaur and Volcanoe Cake

Timmy turns four!

Timmy has a love for turtles and dinosaurs right now.  I thought for sure he would want a turtle cake for his fourth birthday, but he found himself switching between wanting a dinosaur or dragon cake.  And that at the last minute, he decided that he wanted Rudolph on the cake as well.  I wasn't able to fit in the Rudolph cake because at that point the cake was well underway.  But he did finally decide on a dinosaur cake with a volcano, and I thought it turned out kind of cool.  The kids put the dinosaur candles and toys on themselves.  I debated on finding a way to make the volcano smoke, but decided to just keep it simple.  So instead I colored almond bark and piped it down the volcano.  But after seeing Timmy's cake, Sam has decided he wants a giant volcano cake for his Birthday, and so maybe I'll get to experiment with dry ice yet.

Birthday Cakes

Birthday cakes are one of my favorite childhood memories.  I will never forget my panda bear cake for my third birthday, or each of my well thought out Barbie doll cakes (I even had one for my 18th birthday).  Actually, now that I think about it, I think it was my 20th birthday that my sister (Nancy) and I made a Princess Leia cake that was pretty awesome. 
Long before Nathan's first birthday I knew what kind of cake he would have. In fact months before his whole birthday was pretty much planned.  That's because the week we were moving back after graduation from BYU and before the start of lawschool, the Twins were in town and it happened to be Nathan's first birthday. 
After the rough start to Nathan's life we knew that the celebration had to be big. A party at the Metrodome with Nathan's name on the scoreboard followed by a baseball cake seemed to best fit the occasion.  It was not the most extavagant of cakes but with how much Jeff loved baseball, it was perfect.  I used red licorice for the threads and made a baseball cake for just Nathan to destroy.  Then I made a million (okay maybe not quite a million) baseball cupcakes for all the other party guests.
Little did I realize then that the baseball cake would signify the beginning of a fun cake traditon for a new generation.  Before every birthday I found myself thinking and wondering about what the perfect cake would be for the child and the age they were turning.  But then something changed.  The kids started thinking for themselves, so now instead of thinking about what kind of cake I want to make them, I am getting requests.  Some have been trickier than others, but I fear what the future brings.  I am by no means a professional cake maker but I have had to get creative over the years.  And their requests are getting more detailed and elaborate.  But luckily for me, I have had sisters, and a sister-in-law, and moms help along the way.

Disclaimer

It is most likely that while writing these posts, that I have a baby on my lap. I might have a toddler climbing all over me, too. And I am doing something else at the same time. I could be on the phone, making dinner, helping with homework, or potty training a child, or maybe trying to do all those things at the same time.

I tell you this so that you know that I am aware of the misspellings, grammatical errors, typos, and incomplete thoughts. In fact they probably bother me more than they bother you. But if I wait to post until I have time to think clearly, type without "helpers", or edit this, then it will never happen.

And you should also know that this is my family journal. I hope to at some point print this into a book for my family's memories. So if it seems like all I do is talk about my kids and how fabulous they are it is because of a couple things. First, I want this to be all about my kids, and second they are fabulous kids. If you aren't interested in my kids or don't think they are fabulous then don't bother reading my blog.

Let's try this again.

So once upon a time, I had a blog. But then we moved and I have been locked out. They will only send my password to an email address that I didn't know didn't work until this problem arose. I managed to get in once but then I managed to get kicked out again. I have tried and tried to get in, only to be told that I should not try to hack into someone else's blog. I tried to talk to the phone company that booted me out of my email address, but they won't let me into the email address either. And
I can't seem to find a real person to tell my sad story.
But I don't want to lose my old blog posts. So I decided that I will just have to copy my old posts and put them on here.  And I will randomly create new posts as well.