Fourteen!

Somehow -- and I don't really understand it -- but somehow my little girl turned 14 today. I shouldn't be surprised by this, considering the fact that she towers over me at this point, but yet here I sit amazed that she is really growing up so quickly.

I took a few shots today, though I'm not totally pleased with them and think I'll try again tomorrow.

Her cake was a major undertaking for me this year. She wanted fondant and came up with the idea for a giraffe print cake (inspired by one of my favorite bakery blogs). I decided to take a stab at a tiered cake for this, which was really not that hard. Overall, I'm very pleased with the cake!

It wasn't perfect, but that is okay -- I only do these a couple of times a year, so I really shouldn't expect perfection. I tried a few new recipes -- chocolate fondant (for the black) and meringue buttercream (which goes under the fondant). I LOVE the meringue buttercream and doubt I'll ever make a powdered sugar based buttercream again. The stuff was just HEAVENLY!!!! The bottom cake was chocolate and the top was lemon (mmmm....my favorite).

I also tried something new with the fondant. In the past I've kneaded the color into the fondant after making it (as is usually recommended). This time, I added the color to the melted marshmallows before mixing in the sugar. It was much easier this way, though admittedly limits you to a single color per batch.

We had a small get together this evening and had a pretty low-key celebration, which was really nice. Hopefully the next birthday party for Hannah won't creep up again so fast...