The Birthday Blog.

Today my sweet boy is three. THREE~! How did that happen? Yesterday we had a party with cake and crafty things. It was a good day. All of Doddle's favourite people were here and the there were presents aplenty! Since our youngest boy is totally train crazy! We of course had a choo choo themed party. The kids painted t-shirts using paint and train cars ( messy......but fun) and each guest left with a CD of Doodle's favourite train songs. Oh, and we had cake too. Did I mention the cake? The cake that litterally took two weeks of prep? The cake that I will never, ever attempt again. And word to Duff, rice crispie treats? not nearly as "forgiving" as they appear on TV! Ace of Cakes my butt. Any way here is a little progression from start to consumed of the cake that will hear after be known as THE CAKE.

Two weeks ago I used my handy Nordic Ware train car pan to bake three sets of train cars. Double wrapped in plastic, foil and ziplocked. They kept very nicely in the freezer. Then I made two batches of cream cheese frosting for glue, the previously mentioned gum paste and green coconut grass. Later that week the graham crackers and chocolate cookies ( from peanut free DARE foods) hit the food processor to be come crumbs. Then I strung 30 or so black licorice vines on pipe cleaners. ( More about that later...) Finally, the early prep concluded with the much anticipated map and tunnel.

and the poured sugar lake ( with dolphin, natch,)

Then last week I started working on the animals, more structure for the mountain and tunnel and bridge plans. Saturday the bridge and mountain went up, and the tracks were layed. This was the hardest part of the whole thing, that bridge nearly did me in. As it is, you can barely see the gap, but it does go over the flowing water. It's pretty low though, I think the dolphin may be land locked. Think of it like SeaWorld, only in sugar.



The train cars came out of the freezer early Sunday morning to be decorated.

I had help.

And then as if by magic. ( HA!) It was THE CAKE!




Happy Doodle for scale!



The idea for THE CAKE came from a Tibor Gergely illustration for The Little Red Caboose. It is one of Doodle's favourites and I love the illustrations. Even the ones that are not PC. I love all of his books. I think the cake came pretty close, I wanted to put the caboose in the tunnel but I wold have needed on more engine, and I just wasn't up for more cake!


Dh and Crusty built a real working RR Crossing signal to welcome people. It lights up!

They had a great time building it out of coffee cans, light fixtures and old waterbed parts from our attic ( why are there waterbed parts in the attic?).

I think everyone had a good time, THE CAKE was consumed. First on nice clean plates and then bit by bit as passers by picked out there favourite morsel. Grass? Tunnel? Train car? Mountain? Lake bite anyone?



Doodle was a very happy but tired boy. He did have time for a quick drive with his buddy Kadin before he fell over in a sleepy, dirty heap.



Happy Third Birthday Sweet Boy!