Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Just like most other kids, Brie had been counting the days (even months) … waiting OH SO EAGERLY for the day to come!

The day she’d turn FOUR! =D

It’s not the presents or anything that she’s after, I think.

She’s simply so excited about becoming BIGGER, TALLER and … well, older =)

And oh, of course, THE cake.

She had always imagined that she had a PINK HOUSE birthday cake for some reason.

Simply put, anything pink would make her very very happy, hehe.

 
Now the thing is, I really didn’t have much time to prepare for the birthday get-together.

I also believe birthdays need not be extravagant. Simple and sweet would be nice to have.

Plus, I told myself that I MUST bake Brie’s birthday cake this year (as the last time I baked a proper cake for her birthday was 3 years ago when she was ONE!)

…

And so this was what I arranged for her special day.

Keyword of the day : Pink. Lots of pink things =)

Clothes.
Brie celebrated her birthday when she had her weekly get-together with her friends.

These kiddos (and even most of their moms) actually wore pink that day. And, if they didn’t have pink, they wore something red. So nice of them  =)

Goodies.
I got simple pink goodies to share with her friends : Strawberry Pokky sticks, strawberry milk,  strawberry Oreo biscuits and pink pencils.

Decor.
I didn’t decorate the room.

What I did : Got a few colourful balloons (which of course included pink ones! =) and let the balloons be the ‘backdrop’, letting them become ‘bright and happy additions’ to the occasion (plus, kids loved balloons!).

Oh, the balloons made the photos look cheerful and happy too! =)

Cake.

Ah, the cake.

I am SO happy that I managed to bake a cake for Brie this year!

Frankly, I only had a few hours (started baking only at midnight!), and so I went with my fool-proof cake recipe – Butter Cake!

I used a round baking pan for the base, and a rectangular baking pan for the ‘house’.

I used unsalted Anchor butter for the round cake, and I used Blue Band margarine when baking the ‘house’ part.

(To make the house, I halved the rectangular cake, and stacked it on top of each other to make a ‘taller building’).

(Hey, turned out that I COULD use Blue Band Margarine for my cakes too! =)

I then covered it with ready-made fondant.

To keep things simple, I only used 2 food colourings : a little bit of red to create pink coloured fondant, and a tiny drop of yellow food colouring, to create that yellow door! =)

PS: I forgot to slice off the sides of the top cake to create the ‘roof’ of the house. I only realised this AFTER I placed the rolled out fondant over the cake. Great!

Ah well, so I just went with it and created what looked like an ‘egyptian house with a flat roof’, haha.

…

Anyway, it was a nice get-together.

A very ‘pinkish’ gathering, haha.

When asked about how she felt that day, one of the things Brie shared was, she’s very happy with her ‘pink house’!

*YAY*

Mission : accomplished!

(And the absence of sleep was totally worth it =)

And you know what?

I’m glad that we managed to keep this birthday occasion simple, yet sweet and memorable.

I mean, it was done with a hope that our children’s focus was more on the presence of family and friends, loved ones, and on feeling thankful to God for everything that they have and have been given.

Anyway.

We feel blessed.

Very blessed.

(Big thanks to everyone who left warm birthday wishes for Brie on Facebook. Thank you thank you! =)