It's all about the baby girl!

Our baby girl turned 9 today..... NINE!!!!!!

Inconceivable.

It seemed just yesterday

she was turning 5

trying on dress-ups

and hanging out with me all day

at home...

I miss the short hair....

I can remember when she was just a little bit of nothin' toddling around. Mason was a little baby and we were pretty sure he was our last one. We both had a very strong sense we were "complete". One night Mark watched her walk across the room with sadness in his eyes and said "it's kind of sad we won't ever have a baby girl again." He still calls her "the baby girl". She doesn't seem to mind. He has his own little name for everyone.
Carly: Carcar
Rachel: Baby Rachel
Jacob: JAKE!!!!!!!!!!
Samantha: The baby girl
Mason: The boy

Tuesday was the big day. She requested a mermaid cake but she didn't want regular frosting. She wanted whipped cream and strawberries.

I thought... strawberry slices could make good scales. We can do that.

We baked the cake Monday night but couldn't do any assembly til just before we would be eating it because of the whipped cream and not enough fridge space for storage. I scaled the cake way down from the plan in Family Fun. The original took 2 cake mixes. She was not having a big party just spending her special day with the family. We didn't need a 2 cake mix cake a week after Mason's bday cake.... so we figured out how to reduce by using mini muffin tins for the hair, 3 easy bake oven round cake pans instead of an 8 inch round and a smaller 7x9 cake pan instead of a 13x9.

She was SO excited and happy all day. She was excited to share cookies with her class. She opened one present in the morning as is our tradition. Rachel gave her a big Symphony bar and a gift certificate to buy her a song by Miranda Cosgrove off of ITUNES.

Her birthday dinner choice was Taco salad. YUM. Good choice. We also had corn on the cob. After dinner ended and we cleaned up the dishes I started on the cake. I was tired and everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong. I turned the pattern I had made to cut the rectangle cake upside down so when I cut the pieces they had to then be flipped over so the part that had stuck to the cake pan and was broken was on top. I overwhipped the cream so my "frosting" was not creamy and smooth and easy to frost with. ARGHHH!!

The large cookie sheet I had covered with tin foil to be my platter was too small once we got the crumbly pieces spread out. I was about ready to chuck the whole thing in the garbage at that point. (Do you see the need for M&M's for breakfast the next day now?)

I looked at my little sweetie pie's face and decided to persevere. I found my big turkey platter in the cupboard and YES! it fit. I tinted some whipped cream yellow and frosted the hair. I tinted some green and started frosting the tail.

I sliced the strawberries. I placed the scales and seashells and TADA! it all turned out okay in the end.

In the end.....

She was happy.

I was happy.

Everybody wanted a piece w/strawberries. Good thing I had a bowl of extra slices to add. It was very tasty.

Phew!

2010 Birthday #2 successfully completed.