My friend Megan referred me to a fellow mom in her twins association to bake for her twin 8-month-old girls' christening. She was hosting 40 people so she wanted a simple pink buttercream cake complemented by 40 cupcakes. I later found out that the twin girls have an older (3 year old) sister and a fair number of cousins, so I'm guessing the cake was there for all the littles to tuck into while the grown-ups nibbled daintily on cupcakes.

I suggested decorating the cake with a a few scattered small, white fondant flowers. However, once I got started cutting out the flowers, I kind of couldn't stop. So the cake ended up with a blanket rather than a smattering.

The adorable little 6-inch round was made of chocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream and surrounded with even more buttercream, this time in precious pink.

Each cupcake got its own flower to match the cake.

And to top off all this pink, flowery sweetness, my favorite detail was this S on one of the cupcakes, which I made out of pink and white layers of modeling chocolate (hey, there it is again!). The baptism day also happened to be the twins' aunt's birthday, so they surprised her with her own little celebration. So cute!

Congratulations to Erin and Laura and your family on your christening!

June is the kickoff of the summer party season in our home, with Stacey's birthday, Andrew's birthday and Father's Day charging at us in quick succession over five short days.  But once those parties were over this year, I got to make two more cakes for two more celebrations this past weekend, both of them for kids turning three, but for two different families living on opposite sides of the city:  one for a boy, the other for a girl.

As I've mentioned before, while all birthdays are magical in their own ways, I feel like third birthdays are a huge developmental milestone.  That was the birthday where I remember looking at Stacey and seeing, for the first time, a little kid instead of a baby.

So to make two 3rd birthday cakes in one weekend was lots of fun for me.  I knew each of these kids had had very real input into their cakes' themes, for the first time in their little lives.  They each chose their very favorite thing (at the moment), and they couldn't have been more different from each other! 

So, without further ado...

In this corner, weighing in at 3 years old and an entire bag of crushed Oreos is Cohen's monster truck birthday cake! 

His parents gave me free reign to hit up Toys R Us for monster truck cake toppers and "victim" Matchbox cars.  This cake and its bright, bold colors made me so happy every time I opened the fridge and saw it.  Well, its colors and the tire tracks running up and down and all around.  Not to mention all that Oreo crumb dirt*.

And in this corner, weighing in at 3 years old and four pounds of fluffy, pink buttercream frosting is Tula's Barbie doll dress cake!

I love how these two cakes could not be more clearly for a BOY and a GIRL.

But I also happen to know that while little boys and girls might lead us to believe differently, there is still some sugar and spice and everything nice in each little boy, and there are some frogs and snails and puppy dog tails in every single little girl.

Happy 3rd birthday Cohen! 

Happy 3rd birthday Tula!


* If you ever need to make Oreo crumbs, it could not be easier.  Throw the entire cookies (cream filling and all) into your food processor and zap away.  The cream filling somehow disappears into the crumbs and you can't even see it!