Birthday #2 in our annual birthday season. Garyn, Corra, me, and Naomi have birthdays about 2 weeks apart so it makes for quite a lot of cake and frivolity. I love it. Naturally we begin with balloons and cake.

Corra loves Paw Patrol, a show about puppies having adventures with really cool vehicles. She settled on Chase (the leader. A German Shepard police pup.) but Chase needed to be exploding out of the cake but make the cake look like grass. Right, Check, Roger, Got it!

Fondant is a complicated thing…I both love it and I hate it. Food Network taught me that cake sculpture begins with Rice Crispie Treats. Then you cover in fondant, add elements with sugar paper and paint details. The most important thing that I learned from cake competition shows, though, is that crucial pieces will always fall off or break. Those ears, man. The ears killed me. Also the fact that my little girls realized that fondant holds fingernail indentations beautifully. Sigh. Overall the birthday girl was happy, so I was happy.

The party started later in the afternoon, which made for an excruciating morning of waiting. Naomi, sweet big sister that she is, offered to paint nails. Finally, it was time.

We played with balloons, of course.

Since the Paw Patrol puppies all have special badges on their collars we made some too. Corra opted for an unconventional fashion statement with hers.

Corra read a story in one of her magazines about a little girl who makes edible “mud pies” at her birthday and we thought that would be a great party favor. Chocolate pudding, cake crumbs from Garyn’s cake, and crunched up peanut butter cookies. Paw Patrol fruit snacks and Oreos topped them off. I think this activity was the highlight.

Ok, fine. Presents were probably the actual highlight. Great stuffed animals, and LEGOs to build with siblings were appreciated.

It was time. Corra out grew her push bike and Naomi has been wanting a riding buddy for a while. There is still a bit of practicing that needs to happen, but we are all excited that our speed demon has some killer wheels.

The party ended with peach cake, vanilla ice cream, and divvying up Chase’s head. Tomorrow her birthday dinner will wrap up turning 6 for our baby. She’s something else, my mini-me is. True to form as the youngest, she gets her feelings hurt easily and can’t stand to be ignored. But she is a competent farm girl and is a huge help in our goat operations (goats are her favorite animals). She continues to move through life dramatically and she lights up our family. Once again, I’m reminded how glad I am that Corra is not a boy, like I had hoped, but is perfectly herself. God knew I needed her and He loves me enough to give me what I need.