Lisa's Cat in the Hat Baby Shower

My lovely little Big Sister Lisa is having a baby boy sometime between now and the middle of September. I personally have bets on the following dates: Sept 6, 7, 8 and 9. Us Littles are always early so I'm pretty certain the prize money is mine. I've already spent it, so I sure hope so.

Last weekend we threw Lisa (and La Babe) a Cat in the Hat themed baby shower. I designed and printed Dr Seuss themed shower invites with the help of my mommy. We went party supply hunting and hit the jackpot at Michael's with some Cat in the Hat paraphernalia such as a 6 foot tall Cat in the Hat poster and party hats (which nobody ended up wearing - boo).

The girls and I spent too many hours the day before baking up a storm. Brownies, chocolate cupcakes with vanilla butter cream frosting dyed blue to resemble Thing 1 and Thing 2, and sugar cookies iced in red white and blue. That's three batches of baking and three sets of frosting, which is a whole lot of dirty bowls and counter tops. Don't worry, Amanda made sure it was all clean long before we were done :) such a good housewife that girl is!

Lisa's best friend made 3 super amazing banners in Cat in the Hat style which we strung up around the living room - I can't even describe how pretty they were. Amanda ordered a Cat in the Hat themed cake which was mind bogglingly awesome. I peed my pants a little when i saw it. The cake sported a quote that said "A person's a person no matter how small.". cute, right?

I came out in costume when we were playing games and we all had a good laugh. The kids were mostly just scared of me. Hmmm... perhaps I will wear that costume all the time as a child-deterrent. uhmm just kidding, I'm not that evil.

I'd like to say I met some cool new people, but I spent most of my time in front of the oven watching things bake and then taste testing them. I then had to sneak out early to drive Jwolfs to the ferry, which means I missed the embarrassing party hat made of of bows and ribbons. It also means I missed the cleaning up- darn, my favorite part!

Overall great party. Super excited for the baby to come. Super excited to see him in all his new outfits and to NOT change diapers. Here's some photos. Get ready to be jealous:

bake your cake and eat it too.

Triple layer chocolate birthday cake. some people think baking a cake is just opening the box and adding water, oil and eggs. those people are wise. unfortunately i am not one of those people. i have this notion stuck in my head that i can do it better than a box. Box cake mix has scientists and world class bakers and preservatives on its side. i, on the other hand, have Watson. The only thing she adds to my baking is cat hair.

The fact that the cake was a birthday cake meant a whole birthday could be ruined if this cake didn't turn out. with that weight on my shoulders I began to research. I found the best chocolate cake recipe and accompanying icing. i looked up techniques for cake trimming, layering and splitting. I learned that applying a simple syrup (reduced sugar water basically) keeps the cake moist. I learned to take stock of my tools before beginning such an important task as you can't bake a round layered cake in a square dish- duh. Over the course of my two bake days i also re-learned as i seem to do time and time again to read the recipe in its entirety before starting anything and that not doing this means you are an idiot. It also means you will have to mix twice as long and hard if you add all the dry ingredients instead of alternate between dry and wet. It wouldn't be such a big deal if i had a hand mixer, but unfortunately that was ruined by a baking incident months ago. Manda's sweater and the hand mixer got in a fight and her sweater won. The cake layering process was as annoying as i knew it would be. the cake crumbling as i was trying to ice it. WHY?! i shouted at my cake. so annoying. i finally got it all slathered with a few rough spots. I decided to not decorate it as we were going to go candle crazy instead. We threw a cute little 25 on there and this little singing flashing happy birthday sign. Saturday night we turned off the lights and seven of us (all musically un-inclined) belted out the happy birthday song to Sam. we ate cake (that tasted as good as box cake) with strawberries while drinking boxed wine. LML.