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!

Today is Clara's 3rd birthday, and we celebrated with a little party this past weekend.  Since she's not yet in preschool and her daycare days are long past, she borrows most of her friends from her older sister.  So we had just a few kids over for her backyard party, but we still did it up in style!

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is the latest, hippest version of Mickey out there these days, very popular with the toddler and preschool set.  It's Clara's current favorite because there are no scary parts.   At present, she's terrified of all the Disney movies... dogs... the dark... etc... but Mickey Mouse Clubhouse has passed the Clara Scariness Test, so that's what she landed on for her birthday party.

A quick cake search on Pinterest revealed lots of re-creations of the clubhouse itself, which is essentially an enormous black ball with ears.  I'm impressed at all the bakers who managed to balance a great big ball of cake on top of a skinny little pole!  But to be honest, I don't find it very aesthetically pleasing, as far as cakes go.

Plus, I wanted to keep things simple for Clara's party since it's just her 3rd and I wasn't looking to set the cake bar too high so early on!

So here is what she got.  Clean, bright primary colors, and Mickey's face smiling at her, which I cut out of layers of fondant with a sharp knife using the pushpin trick and a page from one of her coloring books.

I also liked the idea of creating a cake for Clara that lay in a similar spot along the complexity scale as Stacey's Abby Cadabby cake from her 3rd birthday party two years ago.

I was going for "whimsical" with the puffy, fluffy clouds, but Clara wanted to know why there were big white flowers in the sky!  Ah well, so she's literal.

As I mentioned before, I remember Stacey's 3rd birthday being the one where I no longer saw a baby, but a little girl.  Now that Clara's 3rd is here, I guess this means our baby days are over!  (Can I get an AMEN?!)

Here are a few more shots from the sunny summer party.

Happy 3rd birthday, Clara!