It's ALMOST Christmas!
It has become a tradition, somewhat - within my house between Shailah (my youngest daughter) and myself to see if I am able to come up with a perfect birthday cake for her. One to top the previous years sweet celebration.
I can't say that I always win at this game but you know me, I will take the challenge and well, okay - WIN!
We started off simple - I am sure there were others before this but having 5 kids and 14 grandkids, it isn't easy to go through 100,000 photographs to find just what I am looking for so we will just start with this one.
Tai has always been well, kind of full of herself. Not saying that statement to lightly either. So I figured what a better way then to let her know - I will put HER face on a cake.
I did it as a joke but she really liked it and I honestly believe this is where the whole "better then last years cake dare started." I used a picture of her from when she was younger adding a recent (at the time of the well wishes) one as well. Even though I thought she would be embarrassed with the first one chosen - she loved the whole idea and so - Momma on a mission was born.
I found myself trying to think of a cake that would top that one just as she was cutting into it. I knew I still had just about a year but in order for it to be epic - I needed to start and start then.
Favorite movie? Yup!
The Breakfast Club & of course Bam! The next cake won the trophy AGAIN.
I couldn't just write the boring old Happy Birthday so I picked one of her favorite sayings from a well rehearsed scene - the whole Sushi and tongue in your mouth one.
Claire: Can I have a piece of Princess Shailah's b-day Cake?
Bender: I don't know you can give it a try.
Score! Somehow I out did the one that was presented the year before and of course that made the trophy shine a little brighter but wait! Next year was coming and coming fast.
Pulling my thinking cap on - well not really, I don't do hats. They mess up my hair. Lets just say - I shifted my brain into gear.
If you know Shailah then you know she loves Big Foot. Ha! That would be easy. A Cake with Big Foot on it. Nope! Copy written. No bakery could do Big Foot without "getting into trouble." So Cool Mom took over ordering a cake and decorating it myself. Not hard. Seattle trip to get a Big Foot then a stop at a craft store for some trees to look like a forest and patting myself on the back ...
I was so proud of it that I almost started to cry when I presented it to her.
The question was - how though? How was I going to make the next year better then this years or the year before or before that?
Okay. Do you even know me?
Shailah is always going on and on about some crazy cake she had when she was younger. She always gets upset with me when I say I really don't remember it. It was a Rum-Chata Cake. Whatever that is? Or was. She said she knew it wasn't for kids because Pick always kept it hid out in the kitchen and never let any of the young ones have any but she added that she would always sneak some. It was a tan color with brown specks.
Oh hell - that would be easy enough. Right? So, wanting to beat last years entry off I went to every bakery within 100 miles trying to get this cake to surprise her. I finally found someone at Safeway that had worked there for years and said she remembered it but they stopped making it forever ago.
That wasn't going to do. The big day was well, days away and I needed something and needed it fast. Super Mom to the rescue.
I bought a very decedent chocolate layer cake with chocolate upon chocolate. Stopped at the liquor store - grabbed a few mini size bottles of Rum Chata and there you go. The cake she has been wanting forever. Not the exacted one but it was a Rum Chata so - onto next years planning.
Most kids growing up have a nickname. Shailah's was always Chucky (after the doll) since one Easter when a beautiful family's portrait came back looking like this:
The very moment Chu-Key-Lah was "born." Ever since that faithful day this has been my daughters nickname so it has only been fitting to "help her" collect Chucky things.
Now seriously? How could we have gone so long without a Chucky cake? We couldn't so yours truly strikes again.
As for the "It's Almost Christmas" along with the birthday tag - everyone who worked with us at the time of this being Shailah's favorite outburst will tell you the same thing. I win again!
Next!
I still don't get the greatness of this but she wanted it and was pretty sure there was NO WAY that I could get it. I did a little syke for her with 2 packages of cupcakes (pre-made) sticking a SpongeBob toy on one side, a large cupcake in the center with 25 on it and then the other set of cupcakes to the right with Patrick. She was pretty disappointed until ...
Even though I rose to the challenge once again - I still don't get the whole sponge living under water thing. It is just weird and I don't like it.
I was proud of myself that I exceeded the challenge but quickly lost my balloon high when I figured out that it was just a day less then a year and I needed to come up with something even better then Bobby. Better then Bobby? For me that would be easy, just about anything was but for me to present to her? Much harder.
I searched and searched. I thought and thought.
One night Lucee' wanted to watch Lucy. That being 50 First Dates. Drew Barrymore playing Lucy - the person whom Lucee' was named after. So, we all sat down to enjoy the show. Shailah of course loves the movie - it being one of her favorites she can recite it word for word. It seems as though after the credits roll though - the next week or so we are still listening to the dialog just in a different voice.
That was it! I can not stand how cleaver I am at times. This one was well ... a piece of cake *insert winky face - One of her favorite saying is when Tattoo face asks Henry “You want for me to put peanut butter cups in your eggs?” so we hear that on repeat for days on end.
Round of applause for me. Order the cake. Get some mini Reece's - a plastic Easter egg and the masterpiece is finished.
*Note: hate the writing on it but she loved the concept.
This year - after way to much YouTube, TiKTok and the rest of the internet garbage peddled ... This one came real easy. (changing a few words and making it personal)
I, in all honesty didn't think I could pull this one off though. Those damn little Glinda's are like a hundred bucks for a tiny toy on eBay or through private seller. I ended up finding something on Etsy but was not happy with it and a Cool Mom like me doesn't settle - so even though the writing on the cake still looks like a 2 year old did it - the cost came out to be $65.00 for the whole thing yet the smile was priceless.
Success is My B*TCH!
Ha! Now onto 2023's and any suggestions would be helpful.
I do have one idea and if nothing comes forward within the next 11 months - I think I might have this one beat.
Kazz 💋
*I do need to throw in another cake though - no! Not the Aerosmith one I got for Rusty that he ate around Steven's face and made us keep it in the freezer next to my snow collection for years. Who does that? And next to my snow. *scratching my head.
This one below.
My kids are quite the drama queens - Sharrah included so her perfect cake turned out to be:
This is one will still talk about. Laugh about and is real close to weighing me down with the gold medal I received for Nailing it!
May All Your Slices Be SWEET!
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