The balloons fell
The presents weren’t wrapped
The cake was store-bought
But the balloons were pink
But they were gifts she wanted
But we decorated the cake together
Best birthday ever
Family for dinner
No theme
Nothing extravagant
Best birthday ever
This year my daughter reminded me it’s not about the extras – it’s the time spent together. Family coming together to celebrate. Being around cousins to run and play.
I think this, too, was the best birthday ever.
For someone who can’t bake (seriously, not even slice-and-bake), buying a store-bought cake and decorating it myself has been a lovely “hack”.
This past January, my son’s party was dinosaur-themed, so I bought the cake and some plastic dinosaur toys. I made a little hat for one, added some mini presents that were left over from a Christmas project, added the dinos and voila!
This year, my daughter and I went to pick her cake out together, along with the items necessary to decorate. The joy and excitement in her eyes to be part of this made my heart melt. She spent the entire morning talking about what she wanted to put on her cake.
Once we got to the store she carefully chose a cake and pondered over which sprinkles and candy she wanted to use to decorate.
Decorating was a lesson of patience and letting go of the notion that it had to be perfect.
She did it herself, and in her eyes, it was perfect before we even got started.
This year we bought a yellow sheet cake with her favorite colored sprinkles and detail. We used dumdums for the border (cut down the sticks to make them sit flush on the icing). Unicorn sprinkles in the middle and small candy flowers (because why not?).
Here was our “inspo”- thank you Pinterest (momtastic)!
The cake we bought
Final product (the smile and all!)
