Princess birthday cake

It's nearly a week late, but here's a picture of my daughter's birthday cake:

It's gone now, by the way.

Oink. ;)

Klangfarbenmelodie*

Today's 100 words:

Once, I wanted to be a singer. I grew up idolizing Cyndi Lauper and Madonna, and although I could never consistently carry a tune, I still wanted to be just like them. I even gave two of my Barbies their names, something my sister probably wished had been her idea. I'm from a small town, and my much older brother said I could stay with him in Chicago so I could have "proper" voice lessons, but my parents declined. Sometimes I think my brother, dissatisfied with his life, wanted me to be famous so he could live vicariously through me.

*I'd never heard of this word before today, but I chose it for my title because I liked the sound of it. According to Wikipedia, Klangfarbenmelodie is "a musical technique that involves distributing a musical line or melody to several instruments, rather than assigning it to just one instrument, thereby adding color (timbre) and texture to the melodic line."

A special weekend

Sunday is my daughter's second birthday. Even though I knew it was approaching, I feel like it snuck up on me, and now I'm paying the price: last-minute shopping for gifts and baking supplies, last-minute decisions about what a soon-to-be two-year-old would like for her birthday dinner, last-minute everything... Tomorrow is gift-buying day and cake-baking day, and I'm crossing my fingers that my oven, which has been working sporadically of late, will accommodate a tired, stressed-out mom and bake the cake.

Even though I'm not really a baker, every year I try to make special cakes for the kids' birthdays. Last year, I made my daughter a doggy cake, and throughout the years I've made my son a Motherboard cake (a character from PBS's Cyberchase), a Wubbzy cake, and a Pooh cake. My daughter's cake was the subject of my 100-words exercise this morning:

Growing up, I had birthday parties every year, but I had only one "official" party, complete with friends and games and party favors. I can't remember how old I was, but the pictures show that I was probably turning seven or eight. That year my mom asked her friend to make me a Barbie cake, and I remember how excited I was when I saw that cake for the first time--Barbie looked beautiful in her purple cake dress! Tomorrow I'm going to bake a similar birthday cake for my daughter. I hope she'll be as excited as I was.

So that's what will be happening at our house this weekend: lots of stressing out, but lots of celebrating, too! What do you have planned for your weekend?