Rainbow Brite

Jane's long-awaited birthday party has come and gone.  We were lucky enough to get the party started earlier this week with a last minute visit from some hurricane refugees.  My mom and youngest brother Jacob breezed on in from New Orleans on Thursday and have been making life much merrier since they've been here.  Especially since Scott was out of town for half the week.  

Fortunately I had done most of the prep work for the party over the last week so all I had to do today was make her cake -- a rainbow one {it's been her life theme for the last few months} and put the kids to work on the "decorations."  And even though we've been doling out her birthday presents slowly but surely since Tuesday, there were still a few left to stick in the jumbo gift bag I bought at Target to make it look like a "real" party when we celebrated this afternoon.

Apart from a few meltdowns {mostly from Ethan} the birthday celebration was smooth sailing and the party girl had a fabulous time.  Not so fabulous?  Trying to get them all to sleep at bedtime while they were still surfing on a wave of sugar.  I've come to realize over the last few months that my kids are MAJOR sugar reactors.  I guess that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise considering they're pretty  major in general.  Hahahahaha.  Oh well.  All's well that ends well, and as of right now they are all sweetly asleep.  Join me as I walk you somewhere over the rainbow.

The Cake

For months {literally}, Jane has been telling me she wanted a rainbow cake for her birthday party.  After going through several different ideas in my head for the actual execution of this cake, I finally settled upon one of the easier versions to make this morning.  One box of Devil's Food cake mix + 2 round cake pans = the foundation for a rainbow cake!  

After baking the cakes I cut them both in half, wrapped them all in plastic wrap, and stuck them in the freezer.  I've been told that this helps to keep the crumbs at bay when it comes time to ice it, but i don't know how successful that was this time around for me.  After pulling them out of the freezer, I decided to stack all four layers together and slapped a layer of icing in between each one.  In my efforts to be all cake boss, I put it back in the freezer after this initial "crumb coat" and then pulled it out a little while later to put on the finishing touches.  The freezer DEFINITELY helped after this step and once I pulled it out again, I smoothed on another thin layer of icing and began to mix up the icing for the rainbow colors.  From there it was practically done.  Although, just as a quick tip it's not a good idea to leave a cake unattended when a toddler is afoot.

Jane got a little impatient.  

I put each color in a ziploc bag and cut a little hole in the corner to squeeze it out and then smoothed it with a cake spatula.

Voila!

The Decorations

My mom treated Jane to several outings today and one of their stops was the grocery store where they scored a few extra free balloons because they messed up someone else's order.  Nice.  Ethan artistically arranged them in a rainbow formation and then proceeded to scream at anyone who tried to move them.  Including Alex.

I've been telling the kids for days now that I thought it might be fun to make a big mural with a rainbow on it to hang on the wall for Jane's party.  Ethan finally jumped on top of that this afternoon and while I was finishing up the cake he began coloring in the artwork after spending a good part of the afternoon using masking tape to join enough pieces of computer paper together to make a giant canvas.  The only person he would let near the mural to help him was Jacob.  It caused a couple other kids to cry.

The finished product!

The Birthday Girl

Jane, Jane, Jane.  That adorable little feral animal.  She really is just a crazy little girl.  By the time the afternoon rolled around she was more than ready to get her party started and even let Grace put a clippie in her hair and help her get changed into her "party clothes."  

Jane picked out this party skirt on another one of her outings with my mom earlier this week.  

So happy with her cake!

Blowing out the candles the FIRST time.

Gearing up to blow them out a SECOND time.   

The Party Crew

I was not able to get an awesome shot of all my little party planners, but I'm beginning to realize that I probably never will -- five little kids are too many to catch all looking at the camera at the same time.  And way too many to expect to be looking good while looking in the camera.  Hahahaha.  After the first round of happy birthday singing was over, Jane wanted to go ahead and do it a second and third time as well.  {Much to Ethan's dismay and frustration}.  

Luckily Grace was on the look out here, because Jane came very close to catching herself on fire with the candles during Round 2.

The End

Emotions were running high {mostly Ethan's} by the end of her party, but we managed to open some presents and get the kids to eat an early dinner before cutting the cake and dishing up the ice cream and declaring a moratorium on all things rainbow for a very long time.  In the end, I would say the birthday party was a success, but I'm glad I won't have another one to plan for another few months...

Round 3.

Little People Disney Princesses.  Lots of fun. 

Hot dogs, BBQ chips, and watermelon.  And they say California knows how to party.  

It pained me a little to cut into this cake.  So much time and effort all to be destroyed in just a few short minutes.

How cool does that slice look???

Nom.

The End.  For real.