Bus! Bus!

If there's one thing Benjamin loves it's a good bus. He rushes to the window whenever he hears a bus come down our street, which is fairly often since school buses frequent our street between the hours of 6 and 8 AM and 2 and 5 PM.

We do a lot of bus watching over here. And it's always terribly, terribly exciting.

Benjamin always squeals with joy at the sight (or sound) of an approaching bus. "Bus! Bus!" he'll call out. "Bus! Bus!"

What better "theme" for his birthday than a big yellow school bus?

I use the word theme lightly, but I did make a bus cake for him. And I didn't even make a mess.



Oh, wait. I did. I made a terrific mess.


I think it turned out alright given my hands were somewhat full of a sick child. I baked the cake in a loaf pan to give it more of a bus shape but my kids were still unimpressed by its height and asked why I made a "short bus." The answer is because I refuse to use more than one box of cake mix per birthday (I'm not a bake-from-scratch kind of girl when it comes to birthday cakes). As it is we still have half a school bus sitting on our kitchen table, so a short bus it was.



The wheels, on the other hand were made of cupcakes. Our bus is so short that they look gigantic—like monster truck wheels. I should have just used icing or maybe a cookie of sorts. Live and learn.

I also just noticed that I forgot to put a stop sign on the side of the bus. It would have been the perfect finishing touch but we already ate that part of the cake so I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

I bought a tube of black icing from the store because making your own black icing is nearly impossible. The last time I used black frosting from the store it was incredibly difficult to work with but I only remembered that after I started using it this time.

Benjamin was thrilled with his cake despite the imperfections. He was also thrilled with the bus I made for him. I wasn't too sure it was going to come together when it was all in pieces but once I had it assembled it ended up looking just fine, which was a relief because I was kind of winging it on my own.

And that just about sums up the bus theme for Benjamin's birthday "party." We put up the traditional birthday banner (our only decoration) and then spent the day being as quiet as possible for poor, sick Rachel.