Emma's Birthday

Today marks the beginning of prep work for Emma's 6th birthday party..to be held tomorrow evening. Out of all of my kids, she's the most dramatic and enthusiastic (well, Anna can hold a candle to her on that one). I went with the famous Strawberry Shortcake theme and was blessed by Angela's mom with the character cake pan so that I could attempt to decorate the cake myself! Holy smokerooos! I've had all of the cake tips for 11 years (I did one Winnie the Pooh cake for Anna's 3rd birthday). Now, I'm remembering why I've only done one in all of these years- that was a LOT of work! The most difficult part was changing colors and tips. If I would have had duplicate tips and plenty of couplers then it would have been a breeze as I could've just
filled all of the bags with various colors and put the tips on and went to town on it. Strawberry Shortcake almost had a sunburned affect until I got smart and lightened up her skin tone :)

If you know John at all, you know he's hard to impress. So, the best part of my entire evening was hearing my honey say "Wow, I'm impressed!" Yahoooo!!! Doesn't it surely say somewhere in the Bible that the Proverbs 31 woman goes to extrenuating efforts on her child's birthday party??? Ok..probably not :)

Another thing to note about a birthday party at the Townsend household, there are a minimum of 23 people that are always invited- this is just family plus anna's BF Cayla. I always have a meal because i feel like it's a way to bless all of my family who have been so supportive of our BIG family and I do love to cook:) Well, I know everyone is eating lots of grill out food this summer, so I decided to go NON traditional for summer and make a good ole down home meal- pure comfort food! (Dont' worry I'm going to almost starve all day tomorrow so that I can enjoy dinner). In preparations, I went crazy and decided to do a time consuming meal- homemade beef and noodles (yes, from scratch!), mashed taters, corn and green beans, deviled eggs and veggie tray. My mom insisted that we use up the 24 Beef House Rolls- so I'll bake those up too! Is your mouth watering?? Mine is! The good news is that I asked my mom to bring the deviled eggs and my dad to do the veggie tray (my kids love to snack on veggies before the meal). I'm going simple with drinks- tea, lemonade and 1 - 2 liter of Coke. Besides the main cake, I made a lowfat angel food cake with crushed pineapple in it- yummmy!

YOu probably already know this recipe but if not:
Take 1 box of angel food cake mix and add a 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, juice and all!
Stir up. Grease ONLY the BOTTOM of a 13x9 pan and bake on 350 for 30 min, or until golden brown and firm, not sticky. Cool. I take a bag of frozen whole strawberries from Aldi's and put a little sugar or splenda on them and let them thaw in fridge overnight. Serve cake with scoop of strawberries on top and a dollop of fat free cool whip- To die for!!!

Emma stayed over night at Auntie's house and will arrive at the party to see everything decorated and adorable...pink, white and light green streamers, pink balloons, strawberry shortcake tablecloth....and of course the cake in the middle of the table. I can't wait to see her eyes light up and the big smile on her face.

My legs now hurt so badly from standing all day in my kitchen that I can barely move..but I need to go clean up the kitchen so I don't wake up to a tornado of strawberry shortcake colored icing leftovers! Ok...off I go to drink some water and try to do some clean up! So, tomorrow, I just have to finalize cleaning my house, set up a couple of tables, decorate, peel 10 lbs. of taters, cook and mash 'em, let the rolls raise and then bake, cook the noodles that are drying on my counter. Ahhh....and this time tomorrow night it'll all be over :) Don't get me wrong...I love having our family over- it'll be a blast!!!
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