American Flag Cake

I love a great theme for a party, but there has to be a good cake option!  I've been a cupcake fan until now.  I saw a pretty awesome cake on Pinterest, and I decided to tackle it!  You put a cake together in a certain way so that each slice looks like a little American flag!!!

Here is Jackson's cake after I finished frosting and decorating it.  Looks great, right?

Here is Jackson's cake about two hours before the party was supposed to start :(  The back just started to sink!  This was in addition to a huge chunk that kept falling off of the front no matter how much frosting I added.

More collapse :(

To make the cake, you bake four different cakes: two red ones, one blue one and one white one.  You slice them in halves and then assemble them in such a way that each slice looks like a flag.  This site gives the step-by-step instructions: http://ww.duncanhines.com/recipes/cakes/gunawanfamily/the-hidden-american-flag-cake/

I kept adding frosting to keep things in place, and to make the outside look neat, so the cake was super heavy!

I am SOOO lucky to have Hallie living down the street.  I called her pretty upset, and she came right over to perform emergency cake surgery!  She worked a miracle!  She fixed it up a bit, then we stuck it in the freezer until the party.  Right at the start of the party, she got it looking amazing with, that's right, more frosting!  ;)

American flag cake complete with tiny American flag decorations and "JACKSON" candles

It did work beautifully!  Each slice looked just like this!

Each slice was larger than my hand!  I ended up touching each piece while plating it so it didn't fall apart! We all got a good laugh out of the whole thing.  It definitely wasn't funny while it was happening, though!

Jackson LOVED the cake, and that really IS all that matters!

Jackson's American Flag Birthday Party!

MONTHS ago, Jackson and I started brainstorming birthday party themes.  He had all kinds of concoctions, but he kept mentioning a flag party.  I kept trying to steer him in a different direction, until I realized that that would be a really fun party to plan!

Dad and me.  We all managed some sort of red, white and blue combination for clothing :)

Happy baby!

Front of the house.  There were red, white and blue balloons, a flag garden flag, patriotic bunting, and a clothesline full of t-shirts for the kids to decorate with their handprint and stripes to make American flags!

Hallie lent me all of her Fourth of July decorations, and they were all perfect for the party!  I especially loved showcasing her amazing rag wreath she made this summer.  

Nan sent these cute Jackson confetti pieces as well as the cake decorations and special candles for the cake :)  Some of my favorite decorations are these two little patriotic ducks that I randomly found on clearance at Walmart just a couple of weeks ago--they were just meant to be for our party!

I made this clothespin wreath, and I can't wait to pull it out again next summer :)  It was a SUPER easy craft--here is one of the tutorials I used!

Along with the t-shirts each guest made, there were also these flag-themed pinwheels!  Also super easy to make :)

Mimi did a great job of decorating the door with these flags!

On our last run to Dollar Tree, Jackson and I were ecstatic to discover a whole endcap full of American flag themed decorations!  We picked up some cute baskets and a couple flag hangings that you can see hanging in the corner of the picture above on the deck.  I also went old school and made some red, white and blue paper chains.

Some of our first guests: Hallie and Violet and Susie and Ben

Love these guys!

Bampa took Graham to check out the balloons

After the kids all made their shirts, we played a couple of games.  First there was the ping pong ball on a spoon race.  

Then it was the dress-up relay.  This was a perfect time to raid the Halloween costume sections for some new dress-up accessories.  There were two teams, and each person on each team took a turn hurrying into the pile of costumes and then tagging the next teammate.  They all loved it!

Josh cooked an amazing selection of hotdogs and hamburgers in addition to other yummy food.  I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of the adorable red, white and blue Jello cups my mom made!  They were so cute and so yummy!  Then it was time for cake!  Oh, this cake...  There is a separate post coming about it...

LOVED celebrating our sweet boy!!!

Making a wish and blowing out the candles!

The inside of the cake!  Each slice looked like an American flag!

All of the finished high five American flag shirts!

Matching shirts :)

An impromptu game of football broke out after we cut the cake!  Josh had a blast too ;)

After-party: 2-9 year-old style :)

Jackson LOVED how his party turned out!  We all had such a wonderful time celebrating Jackson's birthday with a great group of friends AND FAMILY!  We were ecstatic that Mimi and Bampa were here to celebrate :)

Mimi and Bampa are Here!!!

We have anxiously been awaiting Mimi and Bampa's arrival!!!  They have been anxiously awaiting Dad's retirement so they could take a driving trip through the northeastern states to see the beautiful fall colors.  Lucky for us all, their trip coincided with Jackson's birthday party :)

We made a banner to welcome them!  When you are excited for something to happen, preparing for that thing helps pass the time :)

Mr. Graham was so excited for visitors that he didn't sleep much during his afternoon nap.  Our plan of an early dinner out seemed to be in jeopardy, but I lucked out and our babysitter, Lindsay, was able to come over at the last minute to sit with Graham while he slept.  Jackson thought it was pretty neat to get to come out to dinner with us grown-ups while Graham stayed home :) 

We went down the street to The All American Steakhouse, and we really were able to relax, eat, and catch up :)

We waited a looong time for our entrees, especially Jackson's, but we were compensated with a HUGE ice cream sundae!  Luckily, there were many helpers...

Sharing

Just missing Uncle Larry to make this quite a perfect picture!  I just noticed that all three boys are wearing blue!  Totally un-planned!

After dinner, Mom and I dove into food preparations for the party!  She took charge of individual layered Jello cups with red, white, and blue Jello.  I worked on baking FOUR BOXES of cake!  Around 10pm, we realized we needed more Jello, so I went to the grocery store up the road in my pajamas and purchased more Jello and several rolls of sausage that I realized I forgot for the delicious dip for the party.  I wonder if anyone else has ever had a sausage and Jello emergency...?

Blessed By Our Neighbors

(Jackson, Izzy, Avery, Reagan, Graham, Mary, Landen and Sage)

I say it A LOT, but we could not have been happier with where we ended up in our fabulous house!  Our life is SO different from when Jackson was Graham's age.  I took Jackson out each afternoon to go for a walk in the woods with Pax, and we spent many weekends doing the same as a family. But, now BOTH boys are outside playing with their friends for HOURS in the afternoons!  I LOVE IT!  Graham is experimenting with all of the outdoor toys, testing the boundary of the street, and getting a taste of sharing.  Jackson and the "older" kids spend most of their time racing up and down the sidewalk on scooters and bikes or playing any variety of make-believe games on the playhouse in our yard.  

They do a pretty good job of humoring the Little Sibling Squadron that is quickly showing interest in playing whatever the big sisters and brothers are playing!

Chalk body tracing!

Violet is such a good sport!

I wish we could have traced Paxton, but I do love that he's in this picture!  Sage, Mary, Jackson, Izzy, Violet and Graham with their chalk versions of themselves :)

We have loved doing Date Night Swaps with Rachel and Jake (we need to make the most of these before they move this summer...), and we had the pleasure of having Reagan, Avery and Levi over to our house a few weeks ago.  They played outside, had a yummy dinner, watched a movie, and made grilled banana ice cream sundaes!

 Reagan's sundae

 Levi went right to town!

 Jackson's sundae (covered in blue sprinkles)

 Avery's sundae

Grahammers was long ago in bed--maybe a different time he can take part...

Train Heaven

One day we plan to finish our basement, but that day is still quite far away.  I did start to wonder if we could use more of the basement.  It sure would be nice to have an area down there to send kids down to to keep the chaos to a minimum on the main level...  I rearranged some furniture we were storing along with cleaning up lots of clutter to create a whole train area.

Brandi had found a fantastic train table put out for free, so we had that sitting in the basement.  Jackson also had many train sets that he wasn't using very often.  I decided to move all of the trains downstairs and to keep Graham out of the basement, so the trains could just get set up and stay put!  I set up his Chuggington train tracks on the train table, and then there are two HUGE tubs of GeoTrax we have inherited/borrowed from Jackson's cousins and neighbors.  I showed Jackson the finished product right before his buddy, Isaiah, came over, and they ran right down there to play.  I think it's a hit!

Neither the playroom nor the boys' rooms are decorated with characters, so I thought it would be an extra surprise to put up some posters of some of Jackson's favorite characters.  He was really excited when he saw them :)

Firefighter Graham!

The Fire Truck has reappeared!  Jackson got this truck for his first birthday, and he LOVED it for a very long time.  We thought it was time for Graham to try it out!

There was a lot of pushing going on, but after a few days of exploring, Graham figured out how to climb on the truck and use his feet to ride :)

He just looks sneaky...

SO proud of himself!