IT'S BIRTHDAY TIME!

We begin with Mommy having a silly idea first of all to start Sam collecting turtles and then to make a birthday cake with some sort of turtle.  Where do I get these crazy ideas and someone, please stop me!  Turtles are not as popular and easy to find as I thought.  Why turtles?  Well, Taylor collects frogs and there are tons to choose from in all varieties, especially stuffed ones.  The bedroom that Sam will be in with Taylor is also green, so I thought turtles would be a great idea and Sam has one stuffed turtle that is cute as heck. 

So I began searching for a cute turtle cake.  I did lots of research online as well as in stores.  All I came up with was a few ideas and no skills to go on.  You'd think I'd just abandon the idea then, but no, bought all kinds of stuff to try copying a cute turtle I'd found onto a cake.  Before doing it right on a birthday cake, I decided to try it on something else first, so I whipped up a quick giant chocolate chip cookie and frosted part of it white, then drew this turtle on with icing. 

So while I think he's pretty darn cute, it just wasn't turning out the way I'd wanted.  I want professional quality but I am totally NOT a professional.  I'd say I'm not even an amateur cake decorator (although someday I'd really like to take a couple classes!)

I then decided to try and make a turtle shaped cake using cupcakes.  And again, this idea was not coming together the way I'd imagined.  For some reason, I continued, even though I was not having fun and really just wanted to dump it all.  So here's the little turtle I made for Sam using some cupcakes.  Again, nowhere near professional quality.  What do I expect?  And furthermore, do you think Sam even cares?!  : )  While the turtle turned out fairly cute, I wasn't about to try to do this for his real big cake that we'll be having for a little party/family home evening for him tomorrow with company, but this worked well for our little celebration this evening with just the boys and they enjoyed frosting their own cupcakes with gobs of frosting while Sam devoured this turtle.

Sam started grabbing the plate from me before we could even really get a picture of just him and the cake without his fingers in it.  It was cute. He just sat there with his finger in it for a minute or so as if he was really enjoying the feel of it.

Then he just took that one little lick and sucked on his fingers for a couple minutes.

It didn't take long until he was fully enjoying the whole experience!

"Do I have anything on my lip?"

 

There are just too many cute ones to decide, so I'm posted a bunch of them!  How cute is this?!! I'm telling you, that smile will just melt your heart!

"Now I think I'll taste the plate!  Yum, it's pretty tasty, too!"

Could he be enjoying this more?  While Kevin cut off a bit of his head on in this picture, I just can't resist the exhilaration on his face.  THIS is living!

"Green--YUM!"  Gotta love the hunk of cake on the forehead.

"Look, I ate the whole thing!"  I really didn't clean up all that much cake, which means I think he really ate a lot of it.

After that he quickly just wanted to be done with it and get down.  Here he is after some major wiping down and a quick bath.  I was going to say I'm sorry, but I'm NOT sorry--I just might have the cutest baby-ever!

I'm feeling a little sad (just a little) that my baby is growing up, especially knowing this is my last and thinking about the different stages he's going through that we won't go through again in our home.  On a bright note, we won't have to buy formula anymore!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAMMIE!  We love you!  (Note, we did take some pictures of the other boys enjoying decorating and eating their cupcakes, but this blog is already SO long that I will forego those pictures for now.)