Cake, cake and more cake...

My knitting needles have been sadly idle this week, but my kitchen has been busy, busy.  After the off kilter wedding cake last Monday, it was time to start gearing up for the lad's 10th Birthday Sleep-over Extravaganza!

Yes, against all reason, we held sleep over for eight 9 and 10 year olds right in the middle of a pandemic.  Let me explain...my little guy has been wanting a sleep over party in the worst way for the longest time and, long story short, we finally caved.  When he asked for a sleep over party, I'm pretty sure that my internal groan was audible externally.  I'm not big on sleep overs — the whole not sleeping, everyone gets over-stimulated, followed by tired and cranky thing has never really appealed to me, but I can honestly say it was time to throw the little man a bone.  We have not given tons of parties for the kids and 10 is, after all, a pretty big milestone, so really the long and short is that it was time.  And now that it's Monday and the party is behind us,  I have to report that  it was a really fun  and was so wonderful to watch these kiddos enjoying themselves all evening and right into the next day.
To be sure, I have to give credit where credit is due—the lad carefully, and expertly I might add, crafted the guest list.  He picked the perfect combo of kids—4 girls and 4 boys who all get along (and who have parents that will keep them home if they are sick).  Then he set the party agenda—very low key {love that} — watch a movie, have pizza, eat cake ("one of your special cakes Mom"), and "just hang out" — not too scary —certainly even I, a sleep over nay-sayer can manage that.   He's already done most of the work so really my part is just providing the eats, baking a cake, making a path in the house and being willing to play along.

The cake...

It all started when the lad saw a picture of a waterfall cake and fell in love.  The cake was really cute, and it had little water sprites all around it, but it was really the waterfall that my guy was after.   He loved the idea of real-looking water.  This put me in a muddle for a minute—I really like to make cakes that resonate with the intended recipient and in this case I found myself thinking...waterfall, yes...water sprites, hmm?  But then again the lad loves to fly fish with his dad, so...it wasn't long before the waterfall cake turned into his cake—happy, happy all around...

Time to get busy...Thursday...make the cakes...one chocolate and one almond butter cake.
Friday...make the butter cream...

...fill and frost the cakes, cover the cakes with fondant and make lots of pastillage boulders, rocks and mushrooms {love those mushrooms * they make me want to do an Alice in Wonderland cake}...

Saturday morning...put it all together, make a piping gel waterfall...

 

...and try not to get too picky about getting it perfect because ...'cause here they come...

 

Pizza and cake...so far so good {such a fun bunch * lot of laughter and great little conversations here * too much fun}...

 

All in all things went swimmingly...thanks in no small part to a group of really nice kids, my ever helpful sidekicks who picked up the house while I was making sugar rocks, my camp counselor-esque daughter who is not above rocking out with the 9 and 10 year old set, not a lot of sleep, but enough to keep us seeing straight, pancakes in the morning, a beautiful weekend (short sleeves in November!) and the park in our back yard.  Tender mercies and little blessings each and every one.

 

Happiness and joy to you!...alison