Garr Bear Party!

You're Invited! I usually make my own little invitations from fun clipart. I take a picture and send it via text. SO, Easy and yet fun creating! So flannel up and join our recap!

 Cake disclaimer: I in no way post this to claim to do perfect work, or that moms need to make a crazy cake for each birthday. This is just a hidden passion and crafty outlet that I enjoy to try!

        Happy Bear-thday! We are again in the birthday party season. Our first -or last- is Garrett. He was born on December 27. Since his birthday is so close to Christmas I have the privilege of finding a great time to celebrate. This will take a few years. This year, since he is ONE we did 2 parties. One party was at my family's Christmas celebration since we were there over his birthday day and the other was January 1! For his family birthday, we did a smaller celebration with a smash cake and a fun dinner together. For his Garr Bear party, we had it at our house with family as well and I made a cake. 

                

     For decorations, we did simple woodsy animals, ones we had at home already, trees,  and black and white buffalo check.  Buffalo check is so popular during Christmas this year I got all my supplies on sale and used it as my Christmas theme! SO fun to keep all the Christmas decorations up and add a few bears for a wonderful woodsy feel.

       The cake was a "lumberjack" checked style. I have always wanted to try this style of cake so I challenged myself to try. I was also watching the holiday baking championship right before so I got to learn how to do this cake and see their struggles so I didn't have to struggle so much. I will post a short blog about how I did the checkered cake soon! I did a simple checked cake not to be confused with the more detailed plaid/ buffalo check cake. My cake required 2 colors the second cake you make 3 colors, such as white, gray and black, for more contrast and a buffalo check look. There are so many blogs that have wonderful resources on how to make this cake it was easy to follow. Here is how the inside turned out.  

Things I need to work on... even layers, frosting texture, and lining things up. I love making little notes about how to do better next time! My frosting was hard making it hard to glue the layers together and it flaked apart too easy.. more moisture. so much to learn and try. But it did come out checkered! So there is a win! My buttercreams were chocolate for the outside bark and brown sugar for the layers and top. I also added a textured layer of chocolate chips inside to make a cookie dough frosting layer! This was all for fun.  Now, with all this cake talk I have a confession for about 2 years I have not been eating gluten or sugar so I have not been tasting my creations beforehand. This is tough for quality control but my husband and children sure do help. I also enjoy hearing from family on how I can make it better. 

Here is the big boy on his birthday. I made a quick iron on Bear and One for his shirt! Garrett is so full of energy, life, joy, laugher he wears us out! But, we love it! This action picture is about the only non-action shot I got all day! We love you, Garr!