Catching up - Part I

A couple of weekends ago we drove to Houston for Opa's (Claire's GREAT grandpa's) 80th birthday and Oma's (Claire's GREAT grandma's) 79th birthday. I made my great-grandmother's (Claire's GREAT-GREAT grandmother's) Irish Potato Cake for Oma because that is the cake she had every birthday as a little girl. I was sooooo nervous baking that cake. It was typed up on an index card with NO directions, just ingredients. It didn't tell how long to mix the batter or what to mix with what or how long to bake it or at what temperature. Between my mom and my aunt Lynn, we figured out how to make this cake the best we could. After a stressful Saturday morning when I saw that the icing was not going to be enough to frost the entire 3-layer cake, we got on the road anyway with a VERY ugly cake. I had to spread the icing so thin that you could see through it and there were all kinds of crumbs mixed in the icing. :( I almost dropped the cake right before we left and part of me wished I did so we could just go buy a cake and spare me some embarassment at the birthday party.

Well, lo and behold we got to Houston and Oma said that is exactly how the cake was supposed to look..."not pretty"!!! If only that index card had said that from the beginning...it might have saved me some stress Saturday morning! I should re-name the cake, "Ugly Potato Cake". Oma really enjoyed her birthday cake though, so it made all the stress completely worth it! I think I might have to make it again for her next birthday. :)


Here is a pic of me and Claire and Oma and The Cake. (Oh, and Opa is in the background.)

Here are some shots of the birthday boy and girl:

Here are a few shots of Claire playing with her cousins, Max & Henry. (They are technically my 1st cousins...so I guess they are Claire's 2nd cousins. But with the huge age gap, it seems more like I'm their aunt and they are 1st cousins with Claire.)



From the big birthday party, we headed over to my uncle Mike and aunt Terri's house to visit with them and my cousins Shannon and Kyle and Shannon's boyfriend, Axel. Claire got her first baby stroller AND a baby doll (a late 1st birthday gift)!! We didn't open the box until we were back in Austin but boy does she love that thing!! She pushes it EVERYWHERE! We had a great overnight visit with that side of the family and hope to do it again soon!