Do NOT try this at home...EVER!

I wanted to title this post, "Parents of the Year...Uh-Gain!" but I really don't think we've risen to that status this time. You see, there's this insane notion that we should blow a bundle (and just to be clear here, I'm talking about several hundred dollars...$500 give or take) on a child's birthday party. There are all sorts of ways to celebrate and all it takes is some moolah. Over the past couple of weeks I've heard insane stories about kid's parties including a six-year olds bash on an aircraft carrier. I just can't do it. I tried. I tried to bring myself to spend that wad of money and I tried to figure out a way to do it on a shoestring budget. But in the end, it still made me sick. So, Katie's going to slum it this year by having her birthday at her daycare. All 16 of her friends will be there (and not cooped up in my house); we're going to take in a couple of birthday games for them to play so it'll be something a little different for the kids; some pinata and party treat bags for a festive feeling and, of course, there will be cake. Well, to be truthful, there'll be two cakes. I think I've shared how crazy Katie is about Dora AND Diego. (That's what drove us to the Puyallup Fair twice on two consecutive weekends. Insane, I know.) So the party will have a theme (I'm not a total scrooge folks!) of Dora and Deigo: Dora plates, Diego cups, Pin the Tail on Baby Jaguar, two pinata (Dora and Diego - how can you chose?) and yes, both a Dora cake and a Diego cake. So I guess I do buy into the parental-over-the-top bit, just on a smaller, more manageable scale. But the cakes bring me to the title of the post...I can think of no reasonable circumstances that anyone should attempt what Butch and I did last night - baking, decorating and hiding TWO birthday cakes in 4 hours. Okay, I baked them in the afternoon but that was the easy part. I thought we did alright except Diego is a little darker than we'd hoped.