Arabelle's 3rd Birthday!

So here are several pics of the Minnie Mouse cake that I made for Arabelle's birthday (of which I am inordinately proud)

 I was planning to just make a silhouette of Minnie, using one round cake for the face and then making the ears out of the other round cake.  I would frost it with the white icing and have a nice smooth Minnie Mouse.  However, though I may be artistic, I have a hard time with many things that need to be done neatly and precisely, so of course when I tried to get the cakes out of the pans, they fell apart. 

 I cobbled together the face and the ears, but as I was trying to frost it, the cake continued to fall apart and pink crumbs were spoiling the effect of the icing.

 So I decided to embrace the crumbs, and the sloppiness with which I tend to create, and I made this Minnie face and bow. The exterior of the cake was more of a brown color and smoothish, while the interior was pink and crumbly.  With two colors and textures, I was able to create different effects.

 The final remainders of the second cake were used to make this bow.

We had planned a family birthday dinner for Arabelle, but Jeffrey invited Claire at school, so she got to come too!  Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Phillip were also in attendance.

In honor of Arabelle we had her favorite dinner:  tortellini.  (She was also allowed to wear whatever she wanted, since it was afterall, her birthday).

Arabelle enjoyed passing out plates with cake to everyone.  She wanted the "bow piece" for herself.

Arabelle put the candles in herself.

I did not get any photos of present-opening (although we did videotape this).  Arabelle got a cool interactive set from Grandma and Grandpa Bailey where you upload a picture of yourself onto a website where it then puts your picture into a story.  You get to print out the story and color it.  Jeffrey even got one too :)

She got a Curious George DVD and ceramic animal mugs set from Memaw and Papa.

Claire brought her a tea set and purse.

Mom and Dad gave her a bright yellow cuckoo clock and a kid karaoke machine.