The "Week of EJ," Part III

...and thus begins Part 3 of EJ's birthday.  Just like last year, we were again blessed to have friends and neighbors over midweek for some cake and hang-out time.  This year, it was a Dora-themed cake/event, and although I tried to keep it low-key and quick, the kids ran, squealed and jumped everywhere (and on everything), and seemed to have a great time, and we enjoyed everyone just relaxing and spending time together in our normally quiet house!  Thank you, friends!!!

As with last year(s), EJ didn't know exactly what her cake was going to be or look like. So, I told her to cover her eyes. Look closely at the boys on either end of the picture...way to join in and follow directions!  :)

Singing time.  Video clip here to see it all (it's kind of a long one, but it captures just about everyone that was there):
Happy Birthday Singing

"I" rockin' out with a princess tiara around her neck. 

EJ jumping on her bed in delight that an older kid was not only playing with her, but in her room! 

A close up of the princess rocker

Her pal, Captain, doing what the 2 of them do together best: play on his phone 

Our friend Katie and sweet baby "N"

Mark - always taking good care of the kids.
Dancing, Jumping, Squealing Video

Mark & Lauren - often (for a while there) called "George & Doris" - NONE of us can figure out why they got those names (we don't know anyone with either of those names), but it still makes us chuckle!

Our dear friends, "Captain" & Julia, with crowns on, too

Susie, Katie, "M," Katie, "N"

"Ta da! I'm 3 now!"

A BIRTHDAY CAKE ODE TO PIONEER WOMAN & HER BLOG....AGAIN

So, I have referenced Pioneer Woman (we'll call PW) once or twice...and as I embarked on a I-should-never-be-starting-a-complex-cake-at-this-hour project, I decided to document the length of time it took me (compared to those Wilton Cake elves who probably could do this cake in 20 minutes because they have other elves who color every ounce of icing, pack every decorating bag right, have every decorating tip at their disposal...you get the idea) to make a DORA cake. And, in case anyone is wondering, I have no more affection for Dora than I did before...

By the way, I now have the cake pan and will never be making it again, so you know where to call if you need to borrow.

As PW does, I have a bunch of my ingredients all laid out.

Yea - you think to yourself, "Ooh...those directions look tiny and difficult to read," - now imagine starting thing in the 10pm hour!  It was like I was LOOKING for something to torture myself with!

"Ah, yes," you say to yourself, "I can see the Dora shape! Gosh, that should be easy, Becky."
Do not be deceived, my friend!  

Oops - forgot to include the (expensive) box of food coloring, some of which I already had and now will have food coloring until I'm 85, but they weren't selling individual colors...it's the box in the upper left corner, next to the baby monitor and my phone - just in case someone felt the urge to call me at midnight to keep my company.  This night, I missed those old college days...oh, the energy we all had and the little sleep we needed!  :)

Eesh!  She looks a little scary.  I think I was supposed to "lightly ice" the whole cake, but THIS girl was NOT doing that...it looked like it would make it that much harder to find the lines/grooves.

I think I was about 45 min into it at this point (took a while to make the base icing, especially when the recipe they give you is for 3 cups...then you read and the decorating directions state that I needed 4 cups!  What?  Why did you give me the 3 cup recipe?).  

Looking a little scary!...

OK, was feeling a little (falsely) encouraged at this point.  I figured that since her giant face was the biggest part, if I could get that done, everything else would be (pardon the pun...I can't resist...) "a piece of cake!"  (Whoever came up with that line clearly never decorated a cake before! HA!)
Anyway, I completely misled myself for 2 reasons: #1 - there were like 6 or 8 other colors to mix, find the right tips, get each icing bag just right, outline for that color, then change tips and fill in for that color...you get the idea.  And #2 - despite my best efforts to get the colors to match their picture (and using their called-for colors), it was becoming increasingly frustrating.  Black, especially, is super hard to achieve with white icing and I learned that brown wasn't cooperating any better - double whammy on this cake!

Again, I begin to think, "OK, only about an hour into this.  Other character cakes have taken me 3-4 hours...I'm good."

And then I looked around at my disastrous kitchen...powdered sugar everywhere...empty butter containers trying to mix colors...cocoa powder everywhere trying to get the black AND brown colors...what a mess.
I bet PW's kitchen never looks like this.  Does she ever take pictures of her whole kitchen? 

Another 'corner' of the kitchen...and that's where I stopped taking pictures...I couldn't breathe with all the clutter and had Dora to still contend with...

Time for her shirt and backpack!  As with her other 2 bday cakes, I "manually" added in her bday year number. Since Dora's head is so BIG, I had to squeeze it in on her sleeve...not even room on her backpack.  Oh well.

Look!  Progress!  I think was sleepily halfway smiling at this point... 

Ah ha!  "Map" got done!  (as EJ calls it: "Nap" :]  she gets her Ms and Ns confused....but no, my name isn't Nonny!)
Call it late-night crabbiness (see time below) or whatever, but minus the hair and brown that I morphed into that color with amazing kitchen tricks, I used the exact correct color for Map and he turned out bright yellow instead of the creamish color on their picture. You'll see in pics below, but don't "hate"...it's not my fault. :)

You'd think I'd be done, right?

I'm not enlarging this one any more because then you'll notice I didn't spend 10 more minutes putting the white dot in each of her eyes on her giant head (seriously? they have time to do that?), I didn't include her nose and I didn't spend 30 more minutes making blue and yellow for her bracelet.  Something had to give, and my 3 yr old wouldn't know the difference!

See how peaceful make cake looks among the chaos and mess?  Again, PW - where are YOUR kitchen pictures? (in fairness, I don't spend time on PW's blog...just occasionally peruse recipes, so maybe she DOES share the mess with us little people)

You thought I was done, right?  No!  Still needed to have some chocolate AND have a back up in case too many people showed up and we plowed through EJ's Dora cake (good thing - we had just a few pieces to spare and ALL the adults wanted chocolate!).
(do you like the healthy fruit behind the cake? I like the contrast. :) )

Colored some white frosting PINK to go in the middle...after all, it's a girl's party! 

This is my past-midnight, chocolate-frosting-from-a-can (which has a totally diff texture than the homemade frosting for the Dora cake), best creative moment I've got left.

Simple is best, right?

Just thought I'd show the cleaning I was looking at...powdered sugar even on the cord... :( 

The TWO cakes!  DONE!
I should have put a tongue on Dora...she looks like she's eyeing my chocolate cake, "Mmm...that's looks good!"  (Then she's probably saying in a loud, high-pitched, almost squealing voice: "Map, should we eat some? Backpack, should we eat some?  Lo quiero! Vamos!"  Only other Dora-parent-sufferers would appreciate that!!  HA!!!)
(Dora's head is almost as big as the chocolate cake!  Have I mentioned the SIZE of Dora's head yet? :D )

Not sure if you can tell, but I did SOME cleaning at these wee hours (mostly the counter on the right side)...couldn't handle doing all of it, as much as I didn't want to wake up to it all...I was done.

So, I estimate 3.5-4 hours total...two cakes frosted and decorated, pictures taken, some of the kitchen cleaned, and this Momma wasn't going to have ANY trouble getting to sleep this night...
...just trouble getting up when the birthday girl was going to be up in 4.5 hours....