Topsy Turvy First Birthday Cake

Here is a topsy turvy first birthday cake I did for my daughter, Kenzie, when she was turning one. I also am showing you a few little ideas I did for her second birthday, which was a cupcake birthday party. I’m putting the two parties together because they both have a little cupcake theme going on. I every once in a while pull into the archives to show you things I did before I was a blogger. If you want to see more of my cakes, please visit my cakes tab.

It has been an interesting ride entering into the blogging world. I was obviously doing some stuff before I started blogging, but a huge motivation for starting the blog was to challenge myself to live out the moments I always had planned in my mind but wasn’t executing as I was trying to navigate life with three kids. I pictured parenting one way, but I was tired, discouraged, struggling and unmotivated. I needed something. I didn’t know one thing about blogging. I really didn’t. I didn’t follow one blog. I didn’t know anything about link parties, making a Facebook page, tweeting, sponsorship, Google+ – nada. I had no idea how many people were doing it. I had no idea the talent already out there and have been intimidated since I have discovered that. A few days before I launched Meaningful Mama, I asked friends on Facebook their favorite mom blogs. I explored those sites to get some ideas and then launched Meaningful Mama in January of 2012 – having no idea what I was getting into or the passion I would have for it. It has, at times, really inspired my parenting. It has, at times, distracted from my parenting. It has, mostly, been a great addition to our family life and my personal life as I’m exploring my own creativity and interests while sharing it with my kids. OK – Didn’t know this post was going to be all about my leap into blogging, but it is where my fingers took me as I began typing. The real point I was imagining coming out of this conversation, is that I’ve seen growth. I got into this no knowing what I’m doing. I look at this cupcake party and the pictures I was taking before I began training a bloggers’ eye, and I see change. I see growth. Parties are a bit more extravagant now, although the passion for entertaining has always been there. With that extravagance comes good and bad things. On the one hand, it takes more time. I try to not let it away too much from my family and get my kids involved in helping, but inevitably the week before the party is a little crazier than usual. However, it’s a lot of fun. It helps me have a creative outlet and automatically provides activities to do with my kids. They love the parties. Kenzie talks about what her next party is going to be almost daily. Right now, she’s thinking an owl party, which would be really cute. Her birthday isn’t until April, so we’ll see how that changes. Another thing to navigate, however, is the expense of the party. I hand-make a lot of the stuff and am not paying for a venue, which really cuts down the cost. I also love the Dollar Tree and try to promote things to do inexpensively. The advantage now, as a blogger, is that I have a lot of the parties sponsored, so the costs are minimal to me. That said, I don’t know that I want to encourage the over the top parties that make people spend too much money. I do try to show shortcuts for making things and doing things on the cheap. I am a firm believer of living within your means. Further, I’m been a lot more convicted that I should be living well below my means so I can be more generous in caring for others. I would hate to be the kind of blog that pressures moms to spend more so they could live up to some expectation for a party. I want to encourage creativity and fun, but I don’t want to come at the cost of extravagance or making moms feel bad about things that, quite frankly, aren’t eternal so really don’t matter. It’s those things I struggle with as I navigate this blogging world that can be superficial at times with a Bible that is telling me to really care for the needy, sick and hurting around me. Wow – this light hearted topsy-turvy cake post has really taken a turn in direction as my fingers keep typing. I’m letting you explore my mental journey in this blogging world. I hope you don’t mind. I guess I’m looking at this party and thinking it was much more elementary and reflecting where I came from while also considering where I am going. In doing that, I want to open up my heart about this journey and the struggles within me. I want to be faithful with the platform I’ve been provided with, and I want to make sure not to de-rail as I am going along. I want to inspire moms to be more intentional in their parenting and don’t want things to distract from that. That said, I want to give creative inspiration where I can that provoke the imagination. Hopefully, you see this and are enjoying this journey with me.  OK – I am going to move forward from my side tangent and talk to you about some of the elements of this party. About the cake, it is the only topsy turvy cake I have ever done, and I was really excited how it turned out. I watched a YouTube video about how to do it. I will try and do a tutorial for you too on a future cake. Like I said, I wasn’t blogging at the time so I don’t have a myriad of pictures.

Here’s Kenzie at age 1. You can see we use a plastic table cloth to cover the floor so our kids can go at it to attack the cake (in this case a cupcake…kind of – it was a giant cupcake and the “wrapper” and cherry were made of fondant.

Do you know we plant a tree at our babies first birthday. Then, we take a picture every year to watch the growth of the tree and the child. If you want to know about that, read here.

Here is Kenzie’s 2nd birthday party. I bought white bags at the dollar tree and then cut out fun paper that I glued on to make it look like a cupcake. That was really easy, inexpensive and cute. Again, if I had been blogging, I’d show you the contents of the bag. However, I’ll just tell you that I bought a bunch of kitchen stuff at the Dollar tree that came in multi-packs and then each child had their own kitchen tools to pretend play with at home.

I bought all the kids a little apron from the Dollar tree, and I wrote their names on them. Each child had their own container of frosting and cupcake to decorate. The table had all kinds of sprinkles to add too.

This is a center piece I made with things we had on hand. I wanted to make it look topsy turvy like the cake. I wish I had a better picture.

Here’s Kenzie with her tree at her second birthday.

Well there you go. You get a journey into my blogging, my parties and my mind. I hope you found the ride interesting.