The Party and the Cake

Sigh. . . . I tried and tried to think of the perfect cake for Carson. He is ABSOLUTELY obsessed with Cars and Balls. I couldn't decide between the two: balls would have been much easier, but in the end, I decided to go with cars. Here is his cake. Don't look too closely. . .


It took some people a while to realize that the "2" on the cake is actually the road. Ryan did the road (lines and vehicle placement--thanks, Ry) and decided that he'd never seen a road where there was a dotted line on such a tight curve--hence the double "no passing" zone. Leave it to him to notice a detail like that! I'm glad he helped because I was a tad bit neurotic at that point. You see, I'd read somewhere that you're supposed to freeze the cake to make it easier to frost. So I did, IN the pan. I could NOT get the cake out for the life of me. So I called my friend Heather (thanks for the help, your advice worked) who does amazing cakes, and she told me to set it in warm water for a minute. (this may be a "duh, Sarah" moment for many of you, but I am not good at this stuff). So, there it was. Carson LOVED the cake, although he saw it before it was cake time and had a very difficult time behaving during and concentrating on his bday dinner: mashed potatoes and gravy and black olives are among his favorites and all he cared about were the "CARS!!! CARS!! CARS!!!" that were in the other room. So, needless to say, he was pretty psyched by the cake. Good decision, mom!


Here he is with his cake (the CUTE picture of him actually blowing out the candles was very fuzzy, so this will have to do!)


All in all, I'd say he had a GREAT birthday. We gave him a rug with roads on it to use with his cars, and he received a motorcycle (a BIG hit) and additional cars from family members. As you can see, he was QUITE pleased:


And this is how he spent the rest of the afternoon. Cheapest birthday ever. Nice! Can't go wrong with a 99-cent Matchbox car!