No bakery will ever hire me. Not even the walmart variety.

I screw up birthday cakes.  Every person, every year.  With the exception of Mitchell's first birthday, and that's probably because I was praying the entire time.

Seriously, it was adorable.  It doesn't even look like it came from *me*

Lets review:

Mike turn 27.  He wants a german chocolate cake.  The recipe my mother gave me didn't indicate you were supposed to cook the frosting, and it was gritty tasting, and slid off the cake. My mother wrongfully assumes I know the basics of cooking.  He never asked for a german chocolate cake again, by the way.

Mitchell turns 2.  I decide to make a carrot cake because he loved it two weeks prior.  Mitchell took one bite and refused the rest of his birthday cake.  Failure as a mother.

Mitchell turns 3. I tried to frost it warm.  Lack of time, I think.  Still edible, but....

Ali turns 1.  I decide to try fondant, for the first time.  And did not give the cake much thought after that.  So, the cake falls apart, and is successfully held together with white fondant.  I made some ugly flowers to go on top.  Had no idea how to attach fondant to fondant, so there was green frosting, um, everywhere.

Mike turns 29.  I accidentally bought "powdered chocolate" instead of cocoa. The cake was 2x as sweet, and frosting too.  Non-edible.

Mitchell turns 4.  I burned his cake and served it anyway.  It wasn't very good, obviously.  It was hard to see it was burned, in my defense, because it was chocolate.

And now: Ali turns 2.  The cake falls apart.  Literally.  As in, I got the entire thing frosted (barely) and one-third of the cake fell away to the floor and tried to convince the other part to follow it. Right before my eyes.  Almost in tears, Mike immediately ran to Sam's Club.  Whose buttercream frosting is made with shortening.

Falling apart so pathetically

However, the fallen cake was probably the best tasting cake -ever- (but you can't give a birthday girl+guests handfuls of cake) and with that, and the huge sheet cake from Sam's, we have *so* much cake.

I'm sure you're all thinking I should probably just stop making birthday cakes.  And while I'm sticking to that for now, birthday's will come next year, and it won't even cross my mind to buy a cake.  It's way more fun messing it up.  I mean, I can have cake for breakfast, every day, for two weeks this way.

Mike took a long overdue day off work and spent the day with us, which was so fun.  Mitchell woke up excited for Ali's birthday.  He sang "happy birthday" to her over and over again.  He was so extra darling to her all day, which I didn't think was possible, actually. She opened a gigantic Mickey and Minnie Mouse coloring book (courtesy of Mitchell) and colored all morning.  Mitchell had preschool, which he declared he wouldn't be attending.

"Why don't you want to go to school?"

"It's Ali's birthday"

"You still have to go to school"

"But it's Ali's birthday"

"But your teachers would miss you sooo much, and you'd miss show and tell!"

"But Ali will miss me so much!"

"I promise Ali will have so much fun with mom and dad"

 "You will not put her to bed?"

"Um....no.........?"

And he went to school, finally.  It's a little sweet, but mostly alarming, that he worries about Ali being alone with mom and dad.  I'm not sure what he thinks actually happens when he's not here.

And when he returned from school, we all went to Gardner Village for some birthday lollies.  Which is my favorite tradition to date.  They have all their Halloween witches out, and we walked around and found them all.  Ali was terrified of them, though, but instantly was comforted by her sucker. Awesome.

Mitchell had a baseball game later that day, which was supposed to be his last game, but then they did a  "makeup" game because the first game was cancelled due to weather.  Even though it was sunny.  I love that the kid is in baseball, but it makes my day a little stressful- mostly because dinner has to be served on time, and nothing is ever on time when I'm in charge.  But, I do love watching him run around the field, even if it's in the wrong direction (seriously).

After baseball, we had family over for some (Sam's Club) cake and ice cream.  And presents! We gave Ali a Calico Critters dollhouse+hedgehog family.  It's darling, and I couldn't resist all the little details and charm.  And she loves it, which makes me so happy.  The hedgehog children jump on the bed, the mother cooks dinner, and the dad climbs on the roof.  Mitchell plays with her and turns all the furniture upside down then "cleans" it.  I love quiet, classic toys.  Kids have such wonderful imaginations.  Mitchell wanted the house to "fly" which involved him carrying the house above his head, swinging it back and forth, but I nixed that real quick, to his dismay.  It was bedtime and Ali carried it upstairs to her room.  Which was adorable, and I'm so glad she loves it so much.  They've played with it all morning.

Mitchell had the "mom" hedgehog making the little bed this morning and kept saying "sheet!  sheet!  sheet! sheet!" in an angry sort of chant, which, you know, coming from the mouths of babes, sounds like, well, something dad would say, haha.

I said, "Mitchell, what are you saying?" and he picked up the small blanket and said "sheet? she's making the bed"

 ".....is she mad?"

"yes.  mom doesn't like cleaning"

haha....oohhhh....I'm such a good example.  I told Mike when we're millionaires, I'm hiring a live-in maid.

My mom+step dad gave Ali a little tea set, which is also so adorable.  She didn't need any help "pouring" the tea and giving everyone sips.  Which, I'm sure, they all really loved, because she had a cold.  I can't wait to have tea parties with her!

Annnnnnddd! It's time for a big girl bed.  I made her the cutest quilt (that would have been cuter if I could have convinced my mom to appliqué it, but she thought I should learn, being in the business of appliqué and all.  And my circles are terrible.  Actually, really terrible.  People keep telling me no one will notice, but no one has not noticed, but it's done and quilted and I finally finished the binding 2 days post birthday (the quilt is huge! I couldn't finish it in one night) so now it is big-girl bed time.

We went to Target and let her pick out her own sheets (she wanted blue sheets) and came home and got her bed all set up, and it's adorable.  She loves it.  And now we can read stories in Ali's bed, which makes Mitchell so excited.  And she doesn't get out of bed, either.  She climbs right up, giggles, rubs her little head in her pillow, holds her baby (book, and water bottle) and goes. to. sleep.  What is this? You're continuing to be the easiest child ever?! It took 2 months to get Mitchell to get into bed, and to sleep, without crying, and it didn't take any effort whatsoever with Ali.  Seriously, I just put her down for a nap and she went to sleep without any tears whatsoever.  I'd say it is my parenting (ha), but she was born this way.  I'm just happy naps still exist!

Naps in bed, naps on mom.  Or both. 

And finally, mom made her the cutest hat and mittens for her adorable coat I'm obsessed about.  This child could model, I'm telling you.

Happy birthday Goo! We love you!