A birthday celebration preparation

Tomorrow Little Sis will be one (I can't believe it!) and so I"ve been scrambling to get a few things done today. Why am I always waiting until the last minute?!

Our 1st birthday celebrations are never anything spectacular, just a quiet, small celebration here at the house with Mommy, Daddy and siblings in attendance. I still try to do some special things for the birthday baby just for memoies sake but no fancy party...it's easier on all of us that way and the birthday baby won't remember it anyway. (Actually Biggest Sis did have a party but she was the first baby. We haven't done one since then. And now that I think about it she is the only one that has had a "party with friends". This year will be Big Sis's first! She wants a ballerina themed party that I am working on as well!)

One of the things that I accomplished today was completing the onesie to go with a tutu that I made for her last week. I thought this would be an easy task...and it was for the most part. I just traced a number 1 onto the fabric, cut it out, ironed some "sticky stuff" on the back of it -the name escapes me right now- and ironed that onto the onesie. After that all I had to do was sew...but this is when I ran into problems. You see, I've never-in all of my sewing ventures-I've never appliqued anything...and it showed today! That thing was such a pain! I know it's cause I'd never done it before but ugh! I was frustrated! So, when you look at the picture have mercy on me! Hopefully Littlest won't mind too much...


I was very glad when it was finally done, although very disappointed too but I tried my best! And I think that the number 1 turned out too fat! :( I'm sure that she will look adorable in this little outfit though!

The next thing I did was bake her cake. I have tried very hard to be very picky about how much sugar this baby consumes. And I'm pleased to say that except for some unknowing friends Littlest has had very little refined sugar! YAY!

I only wish that I'd have done as well with the others...although they did eat their stir fry quite well last night...anyway...

I went on a search for a "healthy" first birthday cake and realized that a lot of Moms out there feel the same as I do. It was so easy finding recipies! The hard part was choosing one! I finally settled on one called Pumpkin Apple Harvest Cake by Cait Johnson.

Here's the recipe:

• 1 c. cooked or canned pumpkin puree
• 2 lg. eggs, beaten
• 3/4 c. organic sugar (I used 1/2 c.)
• 3/4 unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. organic cinnamon
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. chopped apple
• 1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare an 8-inch round pan by greasing and flouring it.

2. Combine first 3 ingredients in large mixing bowl. Add next 5 ingredients, stirring to combine. Add last two ingredients and stir again. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

3. Bake 20-25 minutes, until cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

4. Cool the cake, still in the pan, on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack, remove pan and cool cake completely.

**Before putting cake in oven make sure to smooth it out as the pumpkin makes it bake in whatever shape it goes in there with.

For frosting I beat 1 c. of whipping cream until stiff peaks formed then added some cream cheese and a little sugar.

This cake smelled WONDERFUL while baking! The kids were so tempted to dig in just because of the smell!!

Unfortunately I didn't have any nuts so I'm bummed about that as I can just imagine how much those things would add to this cake.

I'm excited to taste this cake tomorrow! I'll post pictures and let you know how it all goes tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by!!
Krissy