40 Cake

An earlier email alerted you to the fact that Dave turned 40!! Well since it was posted early in the day it didn't also say we had a SURPRISE PARTY for him. And..........he was TOTALLY suprised!!

When we discussed his birthday cake he said "No Fondant".....hmmmm....makes the cake a little less exciting....."very little icing"........hmmm....that makes it hard to decorate anything elaborate.....and he wanted a Chocolate Chocolate Chip cake...........hmmm....that makes it hard to cut things into shapes that we could put just a little icing on - dang he tied my hands up a lot.

Still - we started with a cake shaped like a rectangle.

And eventually made it to a Zero.........half of the number.........

Forty!! We (Andersen and the boys were helping on this one - I spend all my time saying "No you can't help this is for a special occassion that someone has trusted me to help create" that it was nice to say "Daddy would love you to be part of this creation". And so the number 40 was decided upon.

I "Dirty Iced" the cake as Ben likes to say - others know this as "Crumb Coating". I also put the basic layer of icing on as chosen by the kids - Red on one side and White on the other - for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Then the boys disappeared. Honestly it was never a great idea to have given Dawson an icing bag - more would have gone in his mouth then on the cake. Ben seemed to be overwhelmed by the thought of having to come up with his own idea - he is apparently a very good director (everyone has their strengths right?). Andersen stayed to the end though. She did all the decorating.

She did all the lettering and it was she who came up with the ideas for the pictures that represented Dave. She also executed them. There were tears. It was kinda like what I imagine it was like when I first started. Dave calming me down - me getting tense - scraping off icing - frustrated that it was so hard to hold the dang icing bag. All the same things Andersen complaind about.

Yet she did FABULOUS!! The cake was Super Cute!!

She represented Dave's love for the Cardinals - Baseball and playing Softball - a Grill for his master Grilling Skills - a Hammer for his Woodworking - and a Computer for his wonderful IT abilities...........she got him!!

The cake was Chcocolate Chocolate Chip and Banana with a Vanilla Buttercream icing.