Invitation and Cake {Rory’s First Birthday}

Oh my gosh. I have SO many things to tell y’all about.

So much has happened over the past week, lots of it related to Rory’s first birthday. I will tell you that I probably won’t get around to recapping his actual party until next week, and I apologize for that. However, if you want someone to blame, point your finger at Lizzie: she took almost 400 pictures for me to sift through!

I chose a sock monkey theme for Rory’s first birthday party, and I am so glad I did. Everything turned out really cute.

It all stemmed from the invitation I designed, with some help from PicMonkey and Etsy. I went with a red, light blue, and brown color palette and had an Etsy shop custom design digital scrapbook papers for me, which were the basis for many of the decorations. But the invitation was the first thing I did.

Cute, huh? I also did a photo banner for Rory, just like I did for Riley’s first, as well as a Happy Birthday banner. Both used the digital papers, but you’ll have to wait until next week to see them.

Instead, let’s turn to the birthday cake. Kenny is a huge fan of making a cake instead of buying one, so that’s what we did, with lots of help from Grandma. And they decided to go big this year, constructing a 3D cake of a sitting sock monkey.

Little by little, the cake started to take shape. I baked four 13x9 cakes, which Kenny cut into four 7-inch circles for the body and a little over two 5-inch circles for the head. Meanwhile, Grandma turned plain, storebought white icing into brown, red, and blue. (Which, by the way, we will never do again. Homemade icing from here on out.)

 

Kenny iced the body layers and the head layers together and then shaped them to look more monkey-like. We had planned for the head to be Rory’s smash cake, complete with chocolate covered espresso beans for eyes, mini M&Ms for nostrils, and a red hat with a Twizzler pom pom on top.

The arms, legs, and tail were a bit harder, but we decided to make them out of rice krispie treats. That worked well for the most part, except for the arms. We ended up having to wrap the arms in foil and support them with toothpicks on account of them refusing to hold their shape on their own, but it ultimately worked.

 

But then disaster almost struck. The internal supports started to tilt, so the cake started to do the same thing. The monkey’s belly took the brunt of the damage. Kenny was not happy and almost threw the whole mess into the garbage can.

 

However, he and Grandma persevered and saved it. We did have to prop the cake up on the table at an angle to prevent further sliding, and we really weren’t sure it would survive the night, but it did.

 

I think the cake turned out really great, and I am so impressed with what Kenny was able to do. I admit I had my reservations about him attempting this, but I should never have doubted his ability. I am, however, a little scared of what he may decide to do for Riley’s next cake in August…..

Recaps of Rory’s actual birthday and the 2nd annual Touch-a-Truck event coming up next!