Catch Up Post #2

Just for time's sake, I'm going to skip ahead to Zoe's birthday party.  So I attempted to try to make and decorate a cake.  I borrowed someone's cake kit and realized how much easier it was when you didn't have a cheap plastic decorating tool.  I probably didn't think through my color scheme well enough, but oh well.  This was the second time I'd ever decorated a cake, first time to decorate with homemade buttercream icing.  Last time, if you remember, I used homemade fondant.  Not a fun experience, though it worked out. 

I used raspberry extract to flavor the cake, and icing colors to do all coloring, both in the cake and the icing.  Kinda cool to try to do. 

The Beginning stages of the Dora cake.  Icing coloring swirled together...

And the finished product...complete with Dora and Boots character toppers.

Since Zoe's birthday is in the heat of summer, doing a party at the park wasn't an option. So we threw her a pool party and set up all kinds of pools and slip and slides. They had a good time as you can see.

 And all the girls minus our little guy who LOVED having all girls around.  Such a flirt!