**Updated and revised!** A shmorgishborg of birthday cakes, and a tradition is born!

**I am compelled to edit this post.  I realized after publishing this that I have failed to express some of the most memorable parts of making these birthday cakes.  The most important parts, in my opinion.  Really, who cares about a cute cake?  It's great to look at but it gets devoured in minutes and ultimately forgotten about.  If I would have bought a cake at Costco it would have tasted and looked just as great but I wouldn't have the memory of making it.  With almost every one of these birthday cakes, I have had the honor of having either my mom or my mother-in-law with me to help brainstorm ideas and conquer challenges.  Without them in these moments I may have very well had a nervous breakdown!  So, anywhere you see red in this post, I have updated with some fresh thoughts.

I mentioned earlier that my children were the motivation I needed to even attempt to decorate a cake.  As each year passes, their requests get more and more specific, and I suprisingly am up for the challenge!  I love seeing their faces when they wake up in the morning after I have been up (sometimes way too late!) making their birthday cakes.  Those moments are priceless and make every late night worth it.  I have discovered that a store bought cake is not an option and will never again be an option.  But that's ok with me!
Let's start with Logan.  Following his skateboard cake birthday, he had a bowling party, so of course I wanted to make a themed cake.  This is what I came up with using a crazy edible material called fondant:

So the story with this cake is this:  As I was beginning to decorate it there was a knock on my door.  I answered the door with frosting in my hair and on my face, I'm sure, and there standing in front of me was my MOM! (the mom who lives 2 states away and who I had just talked to 15 minutes prior!)  "Surprise!!" She yells.  And her very loving daughter, out of sheer shock and surprise proceeded to slam the door in her face!  After I recovered I got to spend the next few hours being creative with my mom (one of our most favorite thinigs to do together).  We rolled fondant bowling balls and painted "wood" on the lane and my mom was there to interrupt a moment of panic when I realized I couldn't write frosting letters!  Just one more reason to be grateful for moms! 

Then Logan became obsessed with sports and wanted me to make him a replica Cardinals jersey of Larry Fitzgerald.  Really?  Apparantly he really believed in me!  This one was definitely a challenge.  Do you know how hard it is to get a true red frosting?  Almost impossible!  I was determined not to present my son with a pink cake for his 9th birthday, so here is what he got:

What you can't see is that I ran out of frosting and the whole top collar of the jersey is exposed cake!  Good thing 9 year old boys could care less about asthetics when they are about to eat cake!

And as his passion stayed with sports, it migrated from football to basketball and he asked for anything Mavericks and anything Dirk.  I also discovered that sleeveless jerseys are way better than sleeved jerseys...at least from a cake making perspective!

This year he is thinking a Phoenix Sun's logo...we shall see...I will definitely let you know as soon as I do!

The story of Kate's cakes has been a little more, well, girly, pink and sparkly!  After her Barbie princess cake I felt like I had big expectations to live up to.  When we decided to have a pool party for her 4th birthday, I could think of nothing better than a themed cake with a real pool complete with a diving board and pool floats! 

I have such great memories of this cake.  My mother-in-law was visiting for Kate's 4th birthday and I was bound and determined to make this pool cake for her!  I apparantly love to try bold things at the last minute because I seem to do it over and over again!  We filled this pool with blue jello and let it set overnight.  What I didn't realize is how close I cut the pool to the edge of the cake.  In the morning the cake wall was bulging and it looked like the dam was about to burst!  We built a wall of graham crackers and frosting to hold it in and by the grace of God (again) it stayed!  My mother-in-law went on a quest to find Chicklets, as that was my vision for a pool tile border.  Do you know how hard it is to find Chicklets these days?  I knew if there was a store within 50 miles of us that had Chicklets, my mother-in-law would find it!

The following year for her 5th birthday we were in California visiting Disneyland for the first time!  When we got back home, I couldn't resist making this one:

Minnie Mouse was great in theory and seemed easy enough.  What I didn't realize is that black icing dye has an odor to it and when you add too much dye your frosting will taste horrible!  So you can do the math...my frosting tasted HORRIBLE!  With minutes to go, again, my mother-in-law came to the rescue and managed to find odorless black frosting and Minnie Mouse's ears came to life!  Also, who would have known a bow could be shaped out of cookie!

Kate's 6th birthday party was a turquoise and pink themed manicure/pedicure party.  I tried something different this time and decorated with inedible flowers and jewels...beautiful and quick....just what I needed!

This was a quick peek into my world of my kid's birthday parties...I tend to have more fun with these, as personally there is less pressure.  It's great experience for me and I have gotten to the point where I enjoy the challenge of making my child's vision become a reality in cake!  I can't imagine what will be next!

I have realized how lucky I am to have two of the wisest women I know, my mom and my mother-in-law, active in my life.  Not only do they bring humor and experience to my life, but they bring their heart and their love for me and Jimmy and their grandchildren.  I savor the times I have with them and realize that even through the day to day activities and the year after year birthdays, memories are made and moments are created.  That's why we take pictures.  And although my husband will sigh and my kids will roll their eyes as I make them pose for the 100th time to take a photo, I know one day we will look at those pictures, just like seeing these cakes years later, and remember that moment like it was yesterday.

It all started with a Barbie doll and a pair of big blue eyes...

I should have known that the two people who would see the most potential in me would be the two smallest people in my life.  The smallest ones with the biggest hearts.  My kids.  Yes it's true....it all started with a look from my daughter.  One of those "eyes bigger than saucers, please mommy will you do it" sort of looks.  With a princess Barbie in one hand she begged me to make her a cake that looked like a Barbie's dress.  "I don't bake, sweetheart...and I definitely don't decorate cakes", I told her.  But it's those eyes that you just can't say no to, and that confident spirit that you just can't dissappoint,  So there I was with a Barbie in one hand and a spatula in the other and no plan of attack.  But I had a most precious tiny on the cusp of her 3rd birthday and her one wish was a homemade birthday cake.  And there it was.  The challenge.

Lot's of research on the internet helped me somewhat plan for my endeavor and as the day of the party grew near, so did my nerves, but also so did my determination!  I would make my daughter a homemade cake regardless of how horrible it turned out, and I would pray. A lot.  Pray for no eggshells in the batter, pray for low humidity for the frosting, and ultimately pray for a cake that resembled in some way a Barbie with a beautiful dress made of swirls of pink frosting.  Could I do it?  I had serious doubts, but my daughter's faith in me never waivered and neither did God's.

As I neared completion, I stared in disbelief at what had gloriously turned out to be a magical princess cake that surely I had nothing to do with.  It was beautiful, if I did say so myself and I was so proud!  It sparkled and shimmered and nobody had to know that there was at least a pound of frosting keeping that Barbie from falling right over!  For a minute the world stood still as I realized I had done something I considered impossible.  I had overcome my own unbelief.  I was victorious!  Regardless of the bomb that had exploded in my kitchen, and the fact that I managed to dirty every single dish I owned, I had made a cake!

As I look back on that moment 3 years ago, I see now the monumental role that God has played with that cake and with every cake to follow.  Then came my son's birthday request for a skateboard cake:

and then a baby shower for a friend:

Before I knew it I was being asked to make cakes for people.  Me.  The person who doesn't bake.  Go figure.  I love how God challenges us in the places where we feel the least competent.  That way we are challenged to rely on Him to get through it!

With every cake I have decorated since then I have continued to feel inadequate, inexperienced and intimidated.  In my own strength.  Wow, have I ever realized that even in the little things God shows up in gigantic ways and blows my mind every time!  Things I shouldn't be able to do, I do.  It is merely by the grace of God that I have decorated even one cake, and the awesome thing is He makes it work, every time.

This blog is a window into a small slice of my life....into the cakes that I have made and will make and the spiritual journey that this process is taking me on.  One of my favorite sayings is "God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called".  I don't know if I am "called" to decorate cakes, but one thing I do know that God is teaching me that He can equip anyone to do anything if it is His will! 

Thanks for reading.  I will keep you posted.