The Lee Family: Birthday Celebration!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Birthday Celebration!

Since Olivia's birthday fell on Sofia's second day of school, Sofia was convinced that she was going to miss the party! So, I told her Olivia and I would join her for lunch at school and told her our plan to have dinner and cake with Grandma that evening. After dropping Sofia off at school, Olivia and I took Buddy for a walk and did our usual thing before meeting Sofia at school. Now that she's in 1st grade, Sofia is in a new class with mostly different kids. Olivia and I sat next to Sofia at the lunch table and I was surprised that none of the kids talked to me or wanted to play with Olivia. Last year, the kids, especially the girls wanted to play with Olivia and asked me a million questions. I think by six kids are just more aware and sometimes more shy, especially around adults. We had a fun lunch and Olivia loved hanging out with Sofia and her classmates. Sofia was so happy that we came, so it was all worth it.

After lunch, we returned to the house and Olivia took a good nap. While she napped, I made her birthday cake. I figured she loves puppy dogs, so picked out a buttermilk cake recipe from Martha Stewart and pulled out an article I had on how to decorate dog cupcakes. I used the 6" cake pan so it wasn't too big. I also decided to use a raspberry filling for the center of the cake and made a homemade buttercream. For the dog ears, I warmed up several caramels and then rolled them out and cut them to shape. For the eyes, I found small peanut butter cups and a large dark chocolate chip for the nose. For the tongue I warmed up two strawberry Starbursts and combined them. It really turned out cute, although the tongue and ears started to fold down once they warmed up. Olivia helped me decorate, and loved to try the caramel and Starbursts. Of course, she liked both. It was fun to make, but also a bit tiring and took longer than expected.

I picked Sofia up from school and she and Olivia played before CK arrived home with Grandma! We welcomed Grandma and got her all settled in before dinner. Both girls were so excited to have Grandma visit and we felt special that she would spend Olivia's birthday with us! I wanted to make something that I knew Olivia liked to eat and decided on quiche lorraine and broccoli. It was good, although she didn't eat much since she likes to snack in the afternoon, especially before dinner.

Olivia loved her cake and kept saying "Puppy!" while pointing at her cake, which was cute. When it was time to eat cake, we put the puppy cake on the table and took pictures of the girls and Grandma and the girls with CK and I. Every picture has at least one of the girls getting frosting or already licking it off their finger! We sang Happy Birthday to Olivia and let her blow out the candle, which took a few tries but she finally got it. The cake was really good and we all loved the raspberry filling. Of course, the girls loved the caramel ears and both had a little bit since they were both so big!

At lunch with sister