Birthday Cake – A Slice of My Trash, Travels and Tots

I’ve found myself so busy with everyday life that I decided to stop doing Facebook. What do I mean? I mean, I decided I needed a break. No. I wouldn’t use it that much, just when breastfeeding. I would stop scrolling through all the posts and reading comments and getting agitated or curious.

I really do like any post that makes me think or inspires some sort of thoughtful cognitive application. I love being involved in clarifying discourse. I like the smart people on Facebook who fight battles with their intellect and knowledge. I like being the spectator. I enjoy posts that prick at me, or bother me, and I like ones that inspire me too. I really love them all–(except memes with cute animals or any uncreative “reshare” post.)

BUT….this was taking WAY too much time and removing me from things that I wanted to accomplish, like blog, write, sew, bake, paint… work on my online course–anything more productive that Facebook.

The list of things I want to try grows by the day and I find myself overwhelmed with ideas and unable to tackle any of them. Having two children is great because it really gets you thinking of all the things you could be doing or learning–meanwhile, I’ve got a bucking bronco and I’m trying to change his diaper as he runs off screaming mid-diaper change EVERY SINGLE TIME.

On this blog I like to post what I’m doing; what I just whipped up–even if it’s a bit boring or “imperfect”. What else are you going to blog about if you can’t fit it into your “everyday happenings”, right?

With Valentine’s Day coming up very soon, I thought I’d share a pic of a cake I recently made.

This is a simple little Valentine’s Day Cake. I thought this one up but I’m sure there are a million similar versions out there.

Instead of using a big cake pan (like the big one pictured below) I used the two little ones.

I used the recipe off the back of this Hershey’s Cocoa powder box:

Very easy.

Once the chocolate cake was baked and cooled in the fridge, I whipped up a chocolate ganache (there are a million recipes on the internet). I just used the ones with heavy whipping cream, chocolate chips and light corn syrup.

I made a raspberry filling. I cooked up red raspberries in a little pot with a squeeze of lemon juice and some sugar and corn starch.

Then I made a little raspberry heart shape on the top of the ganache (once the ganache had hardened).

Let your imagination take you away this Valentine’s Day!

“You are not in a contest with other people, you are in a contest with yourself. Every day find ways that you can improve yourself–your character, your efforts, your knowledge, your creativity, your ambitions…your emotions.” –(me–quote from me today)

For my son’s first Birthday, I wanted it to be extremely simple and cheap (use what I already had on hand) but also have some fun and bright memories (and pictures) for future years.

If you’re not into children’s movies/cartoons/videos/characters what to do for a Birthday? I’ve found that a good (and extremely cheap) way to create a “Birthday Party Theme” is to look around your house and take account of toys and books that you already have.

No, I do not go onto the internet first “to look for ideas”. In fact, I highly discourage it because you’ll be intimidated by all the amazingly perfect creations put forth by other experts. You’ll either decide not to do anything–for fear that it will be a failure or you’ll be tricked into thinking that you have to spend a bunch of money “to get the right look”. (I’ve probably been on Pinterest less than 10 times in my entire life! No kidding).

Also, this isn’t very creative is it? The point is, COME UP WITH THE IDEA IN YOUR OWN MIND FIRST and, if you absolutely have to, start surfing around the internet because, say, you forgot the recipe for the frosting you have in mind. You get the picture.

What are a bunch of things already at your fingertips that you can extract a theme from? For us, it was space-related things. Mind you, we only had a couple things in this category, but I thought it would be fun to create a tiny little First Birthday Party for my son along this genre. It would just be our family, of course, since we don’t have any relatives or friends here in Alaska.

I didn’t want to buy a cake; but I did want to experiment with another homemade cake that you form into something related to the theme. After all, I had all the ingredients on hand and it’s more baking practice for me.

This time, I chose a rocket ship. I used the same white cake recipe I’ve used in the past–extremely boring and not the best flavor in the world–but SUPER EASY TO WORK WITH. You can find it on an earlier blog post of mine called “Pagan Party For Kids” or “My Robin’s Easter Egg Cake”.

Once baked and cooled in the fridge in plastic wrap (overnight), I pulled it out and cut the cake into a rocket ship using a template I made from paper.

And I did a quick frosting job here. No, that’s not fondant, it’s just powdered sugar, butter, milk and vanilla frosting that has been tinted.

With a cake like this, we will be flying to the moon in no time.

I also made a couple little rocket ships from cereal box cardboard.

Our Baby having his first Birthday!

Everything pictured here are things that I already had on hand. I didn’t buy a single thing. Even the Birthday candle was my daughter’s when she turned 1! Remember the old phrase, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Birthday presents were sent to us from Grandma and Grandpa and Auntie, of course.