It's official, Ben is three years old! This year I made him a lightning McQueen cake. This is the first character cake I've ever made. For his first birthday he had a monkey cake thanks to Grammie. Last year we ordered him Nemo cake from the local grocery store. So this year Mommy made his cake, even though Daddy was the one who picked out the cake pan months ago.

So we'll begin with how it looked coming out of the pan.


Very detailed. My mistake was I went ahead and did a crumb coating but oh well.


I told Nick to make the frosting since his is better than what I've made. Ben decided to help.


I really look like I know what I'm doing, right?


Starting to come together. I've decided that the auto flash isn't always a good thing, it kept reflecting off the foil.

My little helper.


Fair warning: Ayla unplugged the computer so I'm starting over at the auto save point.
Lightning's starting to come together better. Downside the numbers kind of blurred into the flame but again first time I've done a cake like this.


Here it is! I was happy with how it turned out. I have some things that will be changing if I ever do another cake like this, like I will have multiple tips of certain ones, but over all I feel good about it.


You didn't think I'd have so many pictures without one of Ayla right? She is going to be well acquainted with birthday cake for her first birthday.


His presents. We got him a game for the Wii that has Elmo and a controller that is the perfect size for his little hand.


Eating poor Lightning.

Here is a video of Ben blowing out his candles.

So it begins

We'll start off with a cute picture of Ben. He's had that horse since Christmas but has only recently been interested in it.

Homemade chicken nuggets. We're going to have to tweak the recipe a little but they turned out well, for a first try. Not nearly as complicated as I thought it would be when Nick found the recipe.

Ever tried sewing with a cat who has an addiction to thread and yarn? Not too easy. There is a video that'll give you a better idea at what she was doing.

Before

After.

I've finally started on my massive project for Ben's room. These are the first (and easiest), some throw pillows. I just used three that we already had, but that had holes and fluff coming out. I've gotten one completely closed, the hand stitching takes forever. I don't even want to think about what they did before sewing machines. But it's a start.

I'm working on my junior goddess badge

Today I made a big step in my cooking ability, I've been a little leery since the whole sugar pierogi thing. I made potato broccoli and cheese soup. Not out of a can. Yeah me, insert little happy dance.
It was good enough Nick had seconds.