Taylor's 4th Birthday Party

Today we celebrated Taylor's birthday! We invited some friends from church, and we had a great time together! Below you'll find lots of pictures from our day.

Let me just start with the cake explanations. Over the last several years, it seems like my cake decorating abilities keep flying out the window! I'm always having last minute problems. So this year, instead of my usual procrastination, I thought I'd plan ahead and maybe things would work out better! I had wanted to do a Curious George theme of sorts, so I decided to try my hand at making a fondant monkey and palm tree. I made them on Thursday.

Here's my (monkey ?).

Here's the leaves for the palm tree.

And what I didn't realize, was the fondant actually needed to dry more than the three days I allowed. My palm tree was too thick and too tall and would not stand up on it's own. The monkey started to squish in on itself. I had put floral wire in the leaves, and they kept coming out and breaking the leaves. Now what? And to top it all off, Kyle had taken a big chunk out of one of the cooling cakes to eat! See, I have the greatest "luck" with my cakes!

My solution was to cut down the palm tree several times and then "plant" in in the hole of the one cake and then I patched all around it. I kind of just stuck the leaves that were still whole on the top, and then prayed that it would stand up for awhile. And it did - at least for about an hour and a half. I finished it not too long before the party was to start at 2:00, but our guests didn't all arrive until about 3:30...yep, and that's when the tree fell down! Good thing I took pictures right away!

And should I mention, that I barely had enough powdered sugar to make a batch and a half of icing? But that I really could have used two batches to completely decorate the cake? Either way, it was, what it ended up being!

Here's the birthday boy...before a minor accident! Some of the kids were playing ball outside, and Taylor got whacked either with a hard ball or wooden bat! He got a huge goose egg on his head!! He ended up being okay, and it just added to the excitement of the day!

Our decorated front porch. Don't ya just love my porch furniture? Hmmm...maybe I should spray paint it (the chair, that is) so it looks a little more original?!

Cake and gift table with bunting flags I made to hang on the wall.

Taylor with his #4 piñata.

All the kids who came to the party.

Getting ready to take a swing!

Since I was trying for a monkey theme, we thought we'd have a monkey piñata made. Well, I hate to say it, but it looked more like a devil monkey!

Here's some of the kids receiving their favor bag. It's tradition here to give a bag of goodies, or a small candy treat to all the kids who come to your party. Our favors had a small frisbee, water gun, play dough, and some m&m's in them.

Taylor sniffing his cake while his Mexican friends sang a birthday song to him.

(Notice the palm tree no longer shades the poor little monkey!) =)

All in all, we had a great day with lots of fun with friends! Taylor also got lots of gifts he enjoyed opening later while two sets of grandparents watched online through Skype.

(And maybe I should start planning now for Kyle's birthday in July so that maybe I won't have so many unexpected problems that seem to plague me and birthday cakes/parties!!!!!!!)