Party

We ended up doing two birthday parties for K, somewhat by accident. I wanted to do something special for her actual birthday and was going to do a small smash cake and her presents from us, but my mom also wanted to make her a pavlova. So we had my parents and brother over on her real birthday and did a few gifts. I made her a kitty, a teepee, and felt flowers for the top (but didn’t quite finish so I swapped them out for a headband for the party so they wouldn’t fall down as kids crashed into the tent.

On Saturday we had her main party and filled our home and deck with friends from two decades ago up to three months ago.  It was loud and chaotic and lovely.

I made four kinds of buttercream (if you are currently planning a first birthday party – do not do this. Or do. Because then you can be proud that you totally pulled it off 10 minutes before guests were supposed to arrive, with no makeup and your soaked but finally clean hair dripping down your back. But seriously, don’t do this.).

 

The blackberry buttercream was my favorite. I made three cupcakes – blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, all with vanilla cake and lemon curd filling, and an almond cake with peach frosting. All the cake was gluten free box cake, because you have to cut some corners, at least when you have a one year old and think it’s clever to make four kinds of cake. Lemon curd is pretty easy to make, but again, corners. I used the Trader Joes premade – one jar covered 3 dozen small cupcakes.

I used the rough instructions for this blackberry buttercream and applied them to the other flavors as well. For the fruit reduction, I used fresh blackberries from our neighborhood, picked a few days ago while K napped in the stroller, frozen raspberries, Trader Joes frozen wild blueberries and fresh chopped peach. I say rough because I didn’t measure at all, but that may be why I had to reblend all the buttercream before frosting the cupcakes this morning even though I premade it to save time. I’m just not one for following patterns/recipes exactly.

Her peach cake was decorated with my mom’s roses from my parent’s garden and a beeswax candle that my mom gave her for Christmas.

In all, it went very well. It was so lovely to have our friends and family from different factions of our lives all under our roof for the day. We put in the invite that gifts were not needed and requested only the company of our friends, but were blown away by the generosity shared with us and Keira – toys, books, puzzles, clothes, balloons, a felt sewing kit for me to make a little fox for K, flowers and chocolates from one knowing friend for me to commemorate the day of birth.