12th Birthday Party

This weekend we held our daughter's 12th birthday party on Saturday, this was her final Texas party. We were a bit nervous, because in past years the turn out has been very small. This was partially due to the fact that so many of her classmates were Hispanic, and her parties always fell on the same weekend as the Cinco de Mayo celebrations. The move to junior high alleviated much of this issue with the end of the Dual-Language program. Luckily, though not everyone showed up, we had plenty of people come. The original plan was the zoo, but I realized that I had scheduled in on Mother's Day. Oops! So the date was changed and the venue altered. Who doesn't love a pool party?

 The Girl requested a Gir cake, this is a character from an older cartoon called Invader Zim. It's a show with a lot of dark comedy, created by Jhonen Vasquez (@JhonenV). The merchandise has become very popular with the pre-teen and teen set recently, though sadly many have never seen an episode or even heard of the show. Gir is Zim's defective robot sidekick, and most people's favorite character from the series. To the left is the model I used for the cake.

Creating this cake was an experiment for me. I made two cakes, and carved on of them to make the character. This was very nerve racking, as I had never done it before. I used store bought tubes for the black icing, because it's so hard to mix black and have it turn out to be really black. The Husband and The Girl both complemented me on the appearance of the cake. It was also a huge hit at the party.

The mini-hamburgers seasoned and grilled by The Husband were declared by several guests to be "the best hamburgers ever". Many chips were consumed, as well as two whole bowls of popcorn. All guests went home full, tired, and happy. I'm glad The Girl has made some good friends this year, and I hope that she can stay in touch with them after the move.