Good Times with the Ryans: Ryley's Birthday Party Weekend

As I'm sure you know by now, decorating the kid's cakes is the highlight of the birthday parties for Amy and me. (If not, you can see some of our previous creations here, here, and here, and how we improvised here.) So for us, the party got started at around 8 Saturday night. Ryley wanted a Barbie party. However, we made a Cinderella (doll) cake for her a few years ago, so Amy wanted something different for the Barbie theme. She decided on a purse! When I looked at some of the purse cakes online, I was amazed that most of them were for grown women. Louis Vuitton, Tory Burch...you get the idea. Well, this one was for a fabulous 7 year old, so what we needed was snazzy and pink. Fun, right!? Earlier in the week, we had discussed the design and decided to go with 3 loaf pans, carved into the shape of the purse. Here's what we were working with once the leveling and stacking was complete...

Now time for the carving! Amy wielded the knife and got to carving. Since it was a really dense cake that was also partially frozen, it seemed to be fairly easy to work with. See, we have learned a little something over the years! :-)

While Amy was busy carving, I worked on the marshmallow fondant. If you ever consider trying fondant, I would absolutely recommend going with MM fondant. It's so easy to make and to say it tastes better than store bought fondant is a serious understatement. Ryley came into the kitchen to check on our progress and asked if she could help. I had the perfect job for her -- kneading the fondant! It is seriously like playing with Play-Doh, only you can actually eat it!

Check us out -- hard at work!

So, apparently Amy and I were too busy decorating and Sean fell down on his picture-taking duties, so I have no more shots of the work in progress. It's straight to the finished product! How fun is this!? We both loved how it turned out! And most importantly, so did the birthday girl!

Finally, it was time for what Ryley had been waiting all day for.... PRESENTS!!!

Since this was her family party (she had a pool party w/ her friends last weekend), most of the gifts were on the more practical side. You know, clothes...

Books...

Silly Bandz... Okay, so they aren't necessarily practical, but I think most school aged kids consider them a necessity right now. We had slap bracelets, they have silly bands. What next marketing geniuses??

But then. Coincidentally, last but certainly not least. It was the gift she had been talking about all week. A pillow pet! YAYYYY! And who instantly became the best aunt EVER? ME!!

Okay, okay, I have to give a little back story on this one. So at Jackson's birthday, Don and Jen gave him a monkey bean bag. When he opened it up, Ryley got all excited thinking he had gotten a pillow pet. Well, I knew right then that I had to get her one for her birthday. I had been meaning to talk to Amy about it, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. We were at the beach earlier this summer and Amy mentioned getting Ryley a pillow pet. And I was all, oh let me, let me! So we pulled them up online and asked Ryley which one she could get if she had her choice. She picked the unicorn with no hesitation. I did a little searching around and discovered that there are actually counterfeit pillow pets on the market. (Um, really?) So I decided to order the beloved unicorn straight from the website advertised over and over on all the kid's channels. Take that counterfeit pillow pet makers! /I digress. So, as you can see, she was pretty stoked about the unicorn!

Mom Mom & Pop Pop had planned to be here this week, but at the last minute, had to change their plans. They always bring ‘treats’ for the kids when they come, so she sent them all with Joan. After Ryley finished opening her gifts, ‘Miss Joan’ gave the other kids a little treat to open. Jackson had been pacing the whole time Ryley was opening, b/c he knew he was going to get something once she was done. A new train!