2011 in (a lot of) Pictures

January

 

 

February

 

March

 

 

April

 

 

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June

 

 

July

 

 

August

 

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 October

 

 

 November

 

December

 

 

Bennett's Dinosaur Attack Cake

Bennett's 4th birthday was a couple weeks ago, and I knew I was going to incorporate dinosaurs into his cake this year.  I saw a cute idea online and thought I'd try my hand at it.  So first, I made this cute little birthday cake:

I love doing cakes like this.  They're so fun and colorful and neat.  I could do these all day long.  :)

But for Bennett's "Dino-Mite Birthday Party," this wouldn't cut it.  There needed to be a dinosaur attacking that cute little cake.  So, I made my first batch of modeling chocolate.  Actually, we first tried making a T-Rex out of rice krispie treats, but that was a terrible failure.  So the next day, I made green modeling chocolate.  Josh was given the task of forming our dinosaur, since I knew he would do a much better job than I would.  He was able to do it, but it wasn't easy.  The modeling chocolate softens so fast, just from the heat of your hands, that it makes it difficult to work with.  I'm sure we just need more practice with it. 

Anyway, we formed him and stuck him in the freezer to harden.  And then we left him there overnight.  Mistake.  In the fridge would have been fine, but the freezer was a bad, bad idea.  The result was a wet, slimy dinosaur the next day, because he was trying desperately to thaw.  Had we done the fridge, he would have hardened but wouldn't have had that excess moisture trying to come out.  Oh well.  We'll know next time.

So while we wanted him to be standing upright with a big chunk of cake and icing in his mouth and a gouge out of the cake, we instead had to just lean him up against the cake just so he'd stay there.  He was sliding and would have fallen right down if we had tried to stand him up on his own.  He also didn't have any teeth.  He was supposed to, but that was another failure and I didn't have time to make it right.  So, he's gumming the cake.  And in this picture, his arm had fallen off and had been reattached directly to his side in a pinch.

 

So really, the dinosaur was a complete mess, but do you think Bennett noticed or cared?  No way.  He loved his dinosaur cake.  And that's all in the world that matters.