A titch more Teensy

Well we've finally scraped up all the dried on frosting from the beating our kitchen took last Friday for Teensy's party. It was a lot of fun having many of our friends and family take the time to join us for the celebration of her first birthday. Levi and Emma both had less than spectacular first birthday's when compared to Titus' first birthday. His first birthday was literally a three ring circus. We had clowns, a ring master, decorated our church fellowship area in Texas to look like a circus, ordered custom made lollipops, and had a pinata (in Texas everyone has a pinata at their birthday, not sure why) the size of a small man (this thing stood about 4 1/2 feet tall for real). We had a lot more time and resources for Mr. T's first birthday, with Levi and Emma we just felt good about having a birthday.

Kendra made her smash cake and cupcakes for the guests, I made chili and green chili cheddar cornbread muffins. We had all the fixings to make Frito pie, too. One of my good friends from Texas, Sharon (who lurks about this blog now and then, HI Sharon!) who hails from Nebraska had never tasted or heard of a Frito pie! I couldn't believe that she had never had a Frito pie! For those of you who are deprived of this fantastic, crave-inducing delight, a Frito pie is simply corn chips, chili, and cheese layered together. Some folks put onion and peppers on, but me I like it just straight up. Corn chips, cheese, chili, more corn chips, chili, cheese. It is just fantastic. For the next several years anytime Sharon had not tried or had anything we would always say, "you've never had a Frito pie!" I'll have to post my recipe for Chili, it's really good an easy to make.

Back to the party. Kendra is amazing to me. She can get an idea or what my Granny would call a wild hair and just pull it off. For Teensy's cake, she wanted to make fondant ribbons for each cupcake and for Teensy's smash cake. Well we've never touched fondant, worked with fondant, other than to peel it off the cake we were about to dive into at weddings. That was not going to stop my sweet wife from tackling the project. We've watched enough Ace of Cakes and Food Network challenges to have visual memories of folks working with fondant. I made the butter cream frosting for the cakes and proceeded to make the ribbons. First she tinted the fondant to the specific colors she wanted, then rolled the fondant dough out to about 1/8th of an inch. She cut the dough into 1/4 inch strips ( it looked like fettuccine noodles) and each strip was cut into 6 inch sections. She would fold each strip into a loop (to look like a tear drop). These loops she arranged on the cupcake in a circle, then placed two or three loops standing up and viola! Ribbon. It was really cool. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the ribbon to post at present.

Here is a close up of the decimated smash cake. Teensy pinched all you see eaten with just two tiny fingers. The above shots of her are how we present all of our children on their first birthday, waist up naked wearing a party hat. She is chewing on a fondant ribbon in each shot. The hat is made of felt, each scallop has a tiny rhinestone on it, and the plate matches the hat, as well as an ice cream bowl which will come out later. It all comes in an heirloom box to keep for years to come. The high chair is the same chair that Titus, Levi, and now Teensy all sat in for their first birthday. It has a permanent place in my sentimental obsession, we can never get rid of that chair. I will also be on a mission to persuade all of my children to have their children sit in the chair for their 1st birthday (it is ridiculous, but my genetic make-up is 80% ridiculous and 20% starch). Those little polka dots were purchased in the cake decorating section and matched the colors Kendra used for the ribbon perfectly.

We have seven Christmas trees in our house at present. We have one in our formal living room, which is decorated with all of our sentimental ornaments. Then there is one in the kitchen ( you can kind of see it in the background) which is decorated in red and white with gingerbread. Kendra can flat decorate a tree! Then we have a snowman tree up stairs in the game room, Levi has a cowboy tree in his room. Titus has a tree that is all blue. Blue ornaments, blue lights, blue ribbon--blue! The tree in our room is kind of a vintage tree with copper bulbs, vintage looking hearts and such. Teensy's tree is awesome. It's a feather boa tree. The tree rests upon a shelf which is right by her changing table. We found a kit with Barbie ornaments and then some brushed metal ornaments. The topper is a tiara, which fell as I see--need to work on the fixing of that. The picture frames on the shelf have her brothers and her Momma holding her. The picture of Momma and her is in a tiara frame. Her room is Mint green and pink. I'll have to post some pictures of her room. Very cool.

Our kids are growing up with a deep love for celebrating and being excited about doing stuff. Kendra and I both want to celebrate that we are a family and we make everything a party. When we go to Target, it's a party! No matter what we do we try to make it a fun and exciting adventure and not a drudgery. Hopefully happy memories are being built as our kids carefully lay the foundation of their lives out in the Spoon house.