Birthdays!

The season of birthdays begins this week at our house! Starting with Will's, which was on the 10th, Jacob's which was on the 11th and then me and my family in June. After much deliberation Will has decided that for his 3rd birthday he would like a cake with a spider on it. Red velvet to be specific.

So, while we planned to have a homemade cake today I wanted to make some cupcakes so that Will would have something on his actual birthday. I ended up buying a boxed cake mix and we set to making cupcakes. Will helped put the cupcake liners in the pan.

But alas, I was reminded quickly why our family does most of our baking from scratch. The boxed mix cupcakes tasted terrible! The chickens ended up having dessert that night. The laying hens are not particular about their meals and gobbled them down. Then meat chickens were not so sure and they were still there the next morning when I went to do the chicken chores. Note to self: No more boxed mixes. 

Thankfully I was able to redeem myself in the baking department today with Will's spider cake. While I am a pretty good cook and baker, I am not a cake decorator so I did the best I could do and all in all I think it turned out okay. It sure tasted a whole lot better than the cupcake disaster!

I had high hopes of also making a Happy Birthday bunting and name stars that we can keep up for a while to celebrate everyone's birthdays. We are having our cake and family celebration today, but it's still not done. Maybe it will end up being my birthday bunting!

I finally finished the doll that I've been working on for him since before Christmas. I really love this pattern and Will already seems to be fond of him. This wonderful and easy pattern can be found at Wee Folk Art Knitted in the Round 12" Doll Pattern.

Here he is with just a body and arm and some wool for stuffing. 

And now the finished product.

I really love the way he turned out. He's made of all natural materials including  Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool yarn which is a staple of my knitting. It's natural and inexpensive and it takes dye well. In fact the doll's hair was dyed from the same skein of yarn as the body using tansy from last year's garden. It came out the perfect color to represent Will's hair. I also used some of the wool I washed and carded a couple years ago as stuffing. I may make another soon so Will has a whole family to play with.

So, Happy Birthday to both of my boys! Hooray for summer and our family birthday season!