Baden's 1st Birthday

 We decided to do an Elmo cake for Baden's 1st Birthday.  Elmo is one of his favorites on Sesame Street and I thought it would be pretty easy to create a cake with Elmo.  I just used regular butter cream icing for the red furry parts. Making the face outline with a star tip.  The great thing about this cake is that it doesn't need to be really neat.  I just kind of went to town with it.  I used white and black butter cream for the eyes and then thinned out the black to make the mouth.  I searched the candy isles for something I could use for the nose.  I knew if I tried to use icing it would look kind of weird.  I ended up using several yellow, pink and orange star burst candies.  I melted them in the microwave and used my hands to knead the colors together.  Then just shaped the nose before it got too hard. 

 Here we are singing Happy Birthday.  I don't think B knew quite what we were doing.  Next year I'm sure it will be a lot more fun for him.

 I just made a small 6 inch smash cake for Baden and used the rest of the cake batter to make Elmo cupcakes.  I found some candy eyes at Wal-Mart and used orange jelly beans for the nose.  I then took an Oreo cookie, scraped the frosting out and broke the cookie in half for the mouth.  They were super easy and turned out really cute!  I forgot to take pictures of them until the last one was just sitting there with his sad looking broken mouth.  The photos really don't do them justice. 

 Here's a video of Baden diving into his cake.  It took him a minute to figure out it was OK to do this, but once he knew we were OK with it, he went all out.  Forget about using the hands.  He just went in face first!

All in all Baden had a great 1st Birthday!  We had a yummy Birthday/Christmas Eve dinner and had a good time opening up great presents from the family.  Aunt Maggie and Uncle Robb and family got him a great little Quiet Book for church.  Grandma and Grandpa Anderson got him a couple of fun toys.  One fire engine he can ride on and another interactive toy he can push around.  Grandma and Grandpa Eggleston got him some Little People bath toys and a Little People Bus.  He has loved all of his new toys!  We are so happy to have this little munchkin in our family.  His brothers adore him and shower him with love. And we could not be more happy to have him in our home.