Third birthday-the cakes

Most of you have probably seen my pictures on Facebook about N2's 3rd birthday party but in case you didn't or in case you want to hear something about it, I thought I would also post here.

I decided to do a music themed party because N2 love music (specifically musical instruments and marching bands).  I also wanted to make 2 cakes so they each had their own and didn't have to share one cake.  I feel this is important so that they can feel like individuals.  Natalie told me several times before her birthday that she didn't want to share her birthday with Noah.  I can't do anything about that but I can try to individualize their birthday as much as I can!  Next year we'll probably have a friend's birthday party (but just one) but I imagine once they are in school (kindergarten and up), I'll have to have 2 different parties for them.  So this year I just started with 2 different cakes and singing to each of them individually.

I knew a drum cake would be simple.  It took me a while to come up with the xylophone cake idea since I didn't want to make 2 of the exact same cakes!  I used cake mix and that was fine for the drum cake but since I cut the pieces for the xylophone so much, I don't think a box cake mix was a good idea-it was really crumbly while I was trying to ice it and icing didn't stick very well.  I did freeze the cakes and then 24 hours I crumb coated them and put them back in the freezer.  Then 24 hours later I iced them "for real."  I still had difficulty with the bars.  So note to self (and to others), a scratch cake is probably a better option if you are doing a lot of cutting even if you are not stacking.

Here are the finished cakes.

We sang to Natalie first since she is 1 minute older.  Noah even sang along a little bit.  I don't know if Natalie knew what to make of people singing to her.  She knew to blow out the candles and Noah leaned over to help her at the end. Then we sang to Noah.  He sang along then too!  He seemed to like being sung to.

Noah wanted a piece of his cake (yellow cake-it's what he wanted me to make) and Natalie wanted a piece of the pink xylophone bar (although at first she told me the blue one so I cut her a blue piece and she was NOT happy!)  Her cake was chocolate because that's what she asked for.  Noah didn't eat too much.  I think he was full by that time and getting a little tired.  Natalie enjoyed her cake!

 Megan enjoyed her cake too!