Lourdes' Birthday Party

Lourdes' birthday has been a 2 week celebration this year. The Friday before her birthday she brought in cupcakes I made for her class. Miss Lakshmi made her a beautiful crown, which she proceeded to wear for the following 2 weeks. Actually she'd still be wearing it if it weren't sitting next to me needing to be taped back together after Fiona got her little mits on it!

On her birthday we had planned to have cake and sing just the four of us, but that's a lot of cake for us to eat. Lourdes had the lovely idea of inviting our neighbors over, they have 9 year old twin boys and the four of these kids play so nicely together, even though they have a huge age difference. I think the boys like 'teaching' the girls things and feeling older and more responsible. It's cute to watch. It was great to have neighbors over in the house, our first time having neighbors over! I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the cake I made, it was RIDICULOUS! It's called a chocolate blackout cake, and I got the recipe after seeing it made on America's Test Kitchen. Lourdes wanted a chocolate cake with raspberry filling, so I adapted the recipe to include the raspberry filling. The best part of the cake is that the flavor is so nice, the frosting is a chocolate pudding and then a layer of cake is crumbled (the girl's job) and then spread around the pudding. Oh my god, it was SOOOO GOOD! So this pic of the girls crumbling is the only picture I have of this lovely cake.

For the actual party, Lourdes went back and forth on what type she'd like. My only requirement was that it was not at our house. We finally made the decision to have a bowling party with friends that we get together with on a regular basis. Unfortunately we couldn't have the party on her actual birthday because the alley was booked, but the following weekend we had the big event. Nahnah and Pahpah came down from NY for it, and brought the girls doll house they had gotten them for Christmas. I'll have to take a picture of it so you can see why it would not fit in our car (even if the car was empty). The cake for this party was the same chocolate black out cake, but without the pudding and crumbled cake frosting...I went store bought this time, but did do the raspberry filling again, it was a great suggestion from my gal (maybe she'll be a baker too!)

The party morning we knew it was supposed to snow about 4-6 inches, and we were hoping it would hold off until at least noon so we could have the party with all of her friends. The snow however, had other plans, it started around 10am and was pretty heavy. But luckily all of our friends were able to make it and we had a great time. There is an album of the party to the left of the blog.