Party Pictures!

For those who haven't seen them yet, I posted photos of previous birthday party decorations (including Kelvin's 4th birthday from last year) here, and of birthday cakes here. This year, the decorations weren't that great because I didn't put too much effort into them. I've been pretty laid back with most things lately, which actually feels great to the incorrigible perfectionist that I happen to be!My dad helped me tape the balloons to the wall and hang the (dollar store) caution sign and hats on the wall, but I did the rest on my own. I reused the name from last year (scroll to the very last photo), I just removed the red crepe paper and used other colors -- which made for a too colorful and visually "messy" decoration (particularly so in comparison to last year's) -- the large happy birthday sign didn't help, I should have removed the golden fringes, at least... oh well...

My sister-in-law, the party decorator whose talent is highlighted in the post linked above twice, was busy with her 7 month old and, as I had already done the wall, she helped me put the "skirt" on the table and arrange the Bob the*Builder characters on the cake:
Oh, the cake. That was a different story... I didn't care too much about how it looked because this year, for the very first time in my life I made a delicious real layer cake. In previous years, I cheated by simply baking two plain cakes on pans of the same size and putting lots of filling in between them. This year I let Kelvin decide what kind of cake he wanted: chocolate (I used my tried and true recipe) with strawberries in the filling. I used sweetened condensed milk (the main dessert ingredient for Brazilians) for each of the three fillings (I made two layers from each cake). For the bottom layer I used frozen strawberries which I thawed and chopped, mixed with condensed milk and boiled for a few minutes. For the middle layer, I used fresh sliced strawberries over plain condensed milk that I spread on each cake side of the layers. For the top layer I used chocolate flavored condensed milk (Cobertura de chocolate do Moça Fiesta - for those Brazilians out there) with fresh slices of strawberries as well. I forgot to take photos of it as I cut through it yesterday, so I only have this lame photo from this morning (of course I had to have cake for breakfast, why not?), but I'll try to substitute it for a better one later (we still have leftover cake -- want some?).

Anyway... last year Kelvin's birthday was on a very cold day and... guess what, ALL the children we invited came, around 17 kids, plus their parents, so we were all cramped inside the house. Luckily we had already planned games for them to play in the basement and other activities, but when time came for the party favor bags, I didn't have them for everyone. This year, the weather was great (in the 60s) and I planned party favors (a bag and the yellow hats that I found at a dollar store as well) for 20 children, but then only 11 came, so there was enough room in the basement for them to play (we were afraid of the mess with the muddy ground if they went out) and all the adults got to enjoy talking and eating in the living room. I generally don't like to post photos of people and children other than myself and my kids here, but this is a fun one:
My only regret? I didn't take enough pictures. If there's one thing I can't allow myself to be laid back on is photo taking -- there can never be enough photos for me! ;)

Food notes: in the first photo (click on it to see it really big), the food to the left, is what we call canudinhos in Brazil -- it's a cone shaped fried dough which is generally filled with potato salad (my mom brought from Brazil). We provided the salad and each person could fill their own, so they didn't get soggy. As in his first birthday, I used Brigadeiros ("brigadiers" a delicious Brazilian confection made of -- what else? -- sweetened condensed milk and chocolate to "write" Kelvin's name on the table. On the left of the cake there are the coconut versions of the sweets, named Beijinhos (little kisses). We also had my famous homemade salsa and chips and tiny, made from scratch, pães de queijo ("cheese rolls" -- gluten free manioc starch based little rolls -- you can order a pre-made mix at the Chebe Bread site).