Choo Choo, James & Patrick turned TWO!!!

Disclaimer: this is more of a whole party post, rather than just a cake post, so it's rather long...hope you enjoy! :)

My sweet baby boys (who are no longer babies!) turned TWO this past weekend! I cannot believe 2 years has past since they were born - time flies too quickly.  Here is a picture of our little munchkins on a Costco trip, taken by dad, shopping for birthday party beverages last Friday:


Patrick on the left, James on the right.

You guys make us proud with every new word you say and everything you do...we love you!

Their birthday party this year was a Thomas the Train theme. A little background on why...a few months ago, my Aunt Maureen and sweet cousins Jay and Caroline delivered a car-load of Thomas toys, including a handmade train table by Uncle Greg, while the boys were napping one day. When they woke up from their nap and came downstairs to the train table and all the trains, that was it - they fell in love with Thomas and Friends!

They've somehow managed to learn all of the trains names (meanwhile, a lot of them look alike, so my husband and I are still confused with some of them!), they sleep with the trains at night and take them to the doctors office and to daycare...they LOVE these guys! Hence, the birthday theme!

The Invitation


Invitation by my sister Kate at Pretty It Up

Originally, the party was to take place at a nearby farm, but had to be changed at the last minute, so it was relocated to Grandma Susan (of the Daily Suse) and Grandpa Patrick's house only a few minutes away. We were going to do hayrides and pumpkin picking at the farm, so as not to disappoint our littlest guests who may have been looking forward to those activities, we made a little pumpkin patch in the yard and a section for hayrides in a little red wagon on the driveway.

Decorations and Party Activities


Welcome sign on front walkway by Kate at Pretty it Up



Front Door fall decor by Susan of The Daily Suse, Balloons from Party City, Thomas "Choo choo, we're TWO!" sign made by me :)

The back deck, all ready for the party! Scarecrows from Home Depot!

Our hayride! Bales of hay from Michaels and the twins own Radio Flyer Wagon.

Gorgeously orange little pumpkins waiting for little guests to take them home!

Patrick pointing to the "punkin's" on the Pumpkin Patch sign by Kate at Pretty it Up!

Party Fun!
The party kicked off with snacks & juice boxes for the kiddos and some grown-up appetizers as well - then came the hayrides, pumpkin picking, playing house, drawing on the driveway in chalk...and a visit from Thomas the Train himself!
 

Snacks, Hayrides, Fun!

Thomas the Train comes for a visit - tent madness ensues!

The Cakes!
You know I had to make 2 cakes! When we brought the boys home from the hospital after they were born, we named a color for each of the boys so that everyone would have an easier time telling them apart until we were sure we could do without confusing them. Now we can definitely tell them apart, but the colors have stuck with them - from their clothes, down to their pacifiers (uh-oh have to get rid of those soon), their drinks cups, their backpacks! Patrick is green (for St. Patrick) and James is blue.  So I made a Percy train cake because he's green and of course a Thomas train cake for the blue!

Percy Train



Thomas Train

One of my favorite pics...James reaching out to touch his train cake to see if it was real! He and Patrick both kept trying to pick up the trains to play with them!!


James touching Thomas's nose!



We sang a LOUD chorus of Happy Birthday to the boys after which they clapped and cheered like crazy! Their cousins helped blow out their candles and then everyone chowed down on cake! Thomas was vanilla cake with chocolate frosting/filling and Percy was chocolate cake with vanilla frosting/filling. 

 

After cake, we handed out goodie bags filled with train related treats - each little guest got a conductor hat, a train whistle, a Thomas sticker, Thomas bubbles and a rice krispy treat shaped like a train! We also gave out Oreo cookie pops drizzled with green & blue chocolate.

It was such a fun party - Patrick and James had such a great time! We're so lucky to have such wonderful family and friends to celebrate with! Can't wait till next year!

Here are my two favorite pictures of the boys from the party.

Pure joy and pure sweetness...

Icing Smiles - Baking a Difference

I just read about this amazing non-profit organization, Icing Smiles, who is in the running to win a 25K grant from Pepsi - their idea is to provide custom cakes & treats to families impacted by a critical illness of a child to bring a little joy into their lives! The smiles on the faces of the children on their website as they're receiving their cakes are priceless and brought tears to my eyes!!

Icing Smiles Mission:
"Icing Smiles is a non profit organization that provides custom celebration cakes and other treats to families impacted by critical illness of a child. We understand that the simple things, like a birthday cake, are luxuries to a family battling illness. Our goal is to create a custom cake for the ill child or their sibling that will provide a temporary escape from worry and create a positive memory during a difficult time."



Find on Facebook

I plan to volunteer myself as a baker if they'll have me! Please vote for this worthy cause (it'll only take a click or two!) - it'll help bring a smile to the faces of families around the country who are facing heartache on a daily basis.

Thank you so much for taking the time...

Tara

ps - Thank you to Amy Atlas for twittering/blogging to get the word out about this amazing organization!

My Babies Turn ONE!!

A few weeks ago my identical twin boys, Patrick and James, had their 1st birthday - what a proud day for all of us! They've grown so much (26 lbs each!) and have already learned and done so many things (walking, a trip to Disney, appearing as Baby Henry on Guiding Light, going to their 1st Yankee game!) - we're so proud to be parents to such sweet kids! Here are some pics of their first year:

For the birthday party, we had an Elmo theme so I made cupcakes with fondant Elmo faces on top, as well as a few others with a "p", "J" and the "#1" on top in blue and green (the colors we've used to help identify the boys over the last year)!

Digging In! :)The boys annihilated their cupcakes and even managed to take a few bites of the leftover crumbs! We finished up the party with a ride on the nearby carousel for everyone at the party - so much fun!!

Kids Stuff!

The past 2 weeks have been a lot of fun - I had two orders for kids cakes/cupcakes where I really got to experiment with making fondant and gumpaste animals. It was really fun!

Can you tell me how to get....to Sesame Street?

First up was a Sesame Street themed 1st birthday cake for my best friend's son Matthew. I was so psyched to do this cake for them, 1) because Matthew is a little cutiepie and 2) because I can't believe my best friend from high school and I are now at the point in our lives where we're going to our CHILDREN's birthday parties!!

The 3 tier cake was all yellow cake with vanilla filling and frosting. It was decorated all in primary colors with beading around the base of each tier and there was a Sesame Street character on each level - Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Elmo and Oscar. We also made a smash cake for Matthew in the form of a giant cupcake!

The Smash Cake

Jungle Boogie, Jungle Boogie...

Next up was my nephew's 4th birthday! He had a jungle themed party in a park in Hoboken - the perfect location and a beautiful day! We made vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and vanilla frosting. For the kids at the party, each had a choice of a cupcake with a fondant jungle animal face - there were lions, tigers, elephants & monkeys to choose from. For the adults, there was a giant swirl of frosting on top. A little melty in the August heat, but it's my opinion that everyone should be licking their fingers at the tail end of eating a cupcake anyway! :)

Cakes in July

The last few weeks have been so busy with work, cakes and vacation, so this is the first chance I'm getting to post!

Wine Theme Bridal Shower Cake

A few weeks ago, I was asked to do a bridal shower cake for a wine themed party. The bottom tier was 3 layers of chocolate cake with raspberry filling between one layer and white chocolate filling between the other layers and frosted with white chocolate frosting. The top tier was red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.


The cakes were covered with ivory fondant and I used champagne colored pearl dust to achieve a marbelized look. The grapes bunches were made of fondant as were the beads around the base of each tier.

Beach Ball 2nd Birthday Cake

This past weekend, I had a beach ball cake due for a 2nd birthday party. This was a really fun cake to make, especially because it was a sculpted cake and I got to get creative with the sea creatures that lived in the ocean at the base of the cake!

The base cake and one of the ball cakes were made with vanilla cake with vanilla pudding filling. The base cake had white chocolate frosting and the ball cake had dark chocolate frosting. The second ball cake was devils food cake with chocolate pudding and white chocolate frosting.

This was the first cake I've ever painted on and I have to say, I loved it! I was nervous as I started, because I felt if I messed up, I'd have to pull off the fondant and recover the cakes...but it turned out to be great to work with the food coloring paint and create an ocean-like quality on the base cake. Painting the beach balls was awesome too.

I hand sculpted the sea creatures and added the delicious graham cracker sand and after 15 hours of work, was SO excited with how this came out!

Yankee Stadium Cake

A few weeks ago I was commissioned to make a Yankee stadium cake for a 1st birthday party - I was pretty excited to try it! I'm including pictures of the progress...it was a yellow cake with raspberry filling, vanilla frosting, and covered with fondant. After baking the cakes, filling and stacking them, I carved the cakes into the shape of the new Yankee Stadium. Next, I carved out the center of the stadium - to be honest, I couldn't believe how easy it went!

I then frosted the cake, rolled out the fondant, and (expecting a big struggle to get the fondant over the cake without cracking) got the fondant on and smoothed down in ONE attempt! I was really excited. :) My twin boys and husband were napping, so unfortunately I had no one to share my excitement with - haha - so I waited until my husband woke up and came in to check on the progress...by then I felt like I could be cool and professional about it, so when he opened the fridge and was like "Wow! It looks great!" I was able to say "Aww, thanks!" But inside I was beaming with cake dork pride ;)

I had made all the signs for the stadium the night before, so I was able to start attaching those to the outfield fence right away. I laid out the field in green fondant, the bases and baselines in white, and finally a black fondant base for the stands. I used confetti sprinkles for people - that was really time consuming getting all those on there! But I loved how it looked when it was finished.

I finished off by adding the "YANKEE STADIUM" sign out front and adding the tall archways that appear on the new stadium as well...and couldn't believe I was finished! Hope you like how it turned out!