Mrs. Nell's Birthday Party

Last Monday, Labor Day, was Mrs. Nell's birthday! However, with them arriving Sunday afternoon and Monday being our first full day together, everyone was still in an adjustment period. I had hoped that we could have a mini birthday party for her but we just lost the time on Monday. We got out of the house late that morning and drove over to Chick-fil-a. Stephen and I wore our LSU t-shirts because Chick-fil-a was having a special that if you wore your favorite sports team apparel you got a free order of their new chicken strips. After lunch we drove over to the trail at Percy Priest - by the dam - and took a stroll for about a mile and a half but it was so hot...we headed back home and hung out the rest of the night.

Tuesday, while I was at work - back in my normal routine and thinking straight - I was able to get back on track and was able to plan and execute Mrs. Nell's birthday party - although a day late! On my way home from work I stopped and bought a German Chocolate cake mix (because that's what she said she liked). I bought a can of the German choc icing but knew that me and Mrs. Nell would be the only ones that would eat that (I think Anelise ate some of it because she'll eat just about anything). I knew that the "cake" of a German Choc cake and a regular choc cake weren't terribly different so I also bought a can of chocolate icing. I picked a set of those sugar candy decorations - the set that spells out "Happy Birthday" and has balloons and streamers - I've always loved eating those - but I thought they would be easy for Tristan to decorate with. I also bought some beautiful flowers that Tristan and I could arrange in a vase for her.

When I got home, I set up two tv trays side by side to make a working table that would be the right height for Tristan as the bar and our table is too tall for him. I let him help wisk some of the lumps out of the dry cake mix, then I let him pour in the water and the oil...I added the eggs (which he and I left out of the cake we made her last year) and I used the mixer for the most part. Afterwards I gave him a spoon to finish "mixing" the batter. And of course he made sure that there was plenty of batter left on the spoon for him to lick off once we got the cakes in the oven.

I decided to split the batter into two 8" round cake pans - instead of one big pan - so that we could put German Chocolate icing on one and regular Chocolate icing on the other - basically have two small cakes. I VERY CAREFULLY let Tristan help me put the cake batter in the oven.
After dinner, and after the cakes had cooled for a while, I put them on large plates and Tristan came to help me spread the icing. The German choc icing was sort of thick and hard to spread so I let Tristan spread the choco icing - so that cake became his cake to decorate. I remembered I had some red, blue, yellow and green decorating tubes of icing from a previous cake so I got those out and let Tristan have at it on the chocolate icing cake. Of course by this time Anelise wanted to be in on the project so I decided to let her put all the candy decorations on the German choc one. So each one got to do a cake for Grammy. We put candles on both and she blew candles out and we sang Happy Birthday to her for each cake!

As you will see in the pictures, Tristan's cake has a face on it. Green icing for hair, yellow for the eyes, red for the nose and lips (Uncle Stephen helped him with the lips). Then Tristan spelled out at the bottom of the face "G-R-A-M" (short for Grammy). And for the final touch, he added blue poka dots to her face! Anelise's cake had all the letters that spell "Happy Birthday" but I let her put them wherever she wanted - so you have to hunt for the letters...some even got pushed into the cake when she decided to see how far down she could press them into the cake!

Then, we all enjoyed yummy cake with beautiful flowers decorating the atmosphere!