Sage is two!

So growing up my mom was the queen of cakes. I have very clear memories of freshly baked cakes spread out across our kitchen counter cut into all sorts of pieces which in the end would result in some lavish, cleverly themed cake. I looked forward to someday doing the same with my own kids...or did I? I have yet to figure out how people frost a cake that has been sliced and diced into who knows what shapes without all those tiny cake crumbs spreading like wild fire throughout all the frosting. So after a couple bad experiences with cakes I was certain I could do cupcakes. Last year I had hoped to make Sage these cute butterfly cupcakes I had seen online done with pastel colored m&m's and a bit of thin black licorice. Forgetting to buy the licorice, I ended up with basically a polka dot cupcake. Lucky it was just a family gathering.

Then for the boys party this past February they wanted an underwater sea adventure themed party so I did one fish cake with a bunch of cupcakes (each decorated with a plastic fish of some sort on top which required no work except a base layer of frosting.) Ty insisted that his big fish cake be chocolate so sure enough the big fish cake had brown specks throughout all of the blue frosting. Of course I blamed the boys for those and told the guests that the boys had obviously been taste testing the frosting and in the meantime created crumbs all over it. There was even a big finger print to prove my case...

So Sage's 2nd birthday is here and all she talks about is Elmo. I knew Elmo had to be the theme but I dreaded attempting the Elmo shaped cake pan w/crumbs look so I settled for doing the cupcakes. (If you read earlier about my quirks (#2), you understand why I didn't just pay the bakery to make one). This was the final product:

I had hoped to have the jumbo size gumballs for Elmo's nose but wasn't up to the task of standing in front of the gumball machine at Fred Meyer praying each time for the orange one to make it's debut down the tube. So Elmo's nose is a bit small. I had a refill bag of the regular sized gumballs stashed away so settled for those. Of course after almost a whole container of red food coloring and no red frosting, I was thankfully able to cover up Elmo's electric pink face with red colored sugar crystals. And after all that work, the hit of the cupcake was the eyes... so next year Sage will be blowing three candles situated in one gigantic marshmallow. The party consisted of Sage and her four friends. How different a party is with girls. They all sat quietly at the table eating their lunch and cupcakes. I don't think I heard one loud squeak out of any of them the whole time. I may from this point forward refer to them as 'fun and GAMES', short for Gretchen, Annie, Melia, Eden, and Sage! What cuties!!! What a fun day!