Anna's 9th Birthday Party

We celebrated Anna's 9th birthday last weekend with a pool party at the YMCA.

The birthday girl requested a chocolate cake with purple frosting.

There were some other yummy snacks.

Note to self: next time don't fill the pinata so full. It was so heavy that it broke our broom handle.

Cupcakes

There's a fourth grade class who will be enjoying these dark chocolate cupcakes with purple-ish vanilla buttercream frosting today. Perfect treat for birthday girl to bring for the last day of school before the Thanksgiving holiday break.

While I was making these last night, I thought about how special I would always feel whenever it was my turn to bring treats in to school for my birthday. We'd get to bring a friend along with us to help hand the extras out to the principal and the ladies in the office who would all 'ooh' and 'ahhh'. I made sure to make lots of extras for birthday girl to share.

Aren't those the cutest cupcake toppers?

I printed them from this template at Martha Stewart's website and then taped them to toothpicks. So much fun.

Hamburger Cake

Here is the Big Mac cake that I made last year for my step-son's birthday.

It took me a lot longer to put this cake together than I was expecting and it was a tad difficult to transport. All the ooohs and ahhhhs more than made up for it though. I used the Woman's Day recipe, but replaced the pine nuts with slivered almonds.