Zoë's birthday cake

As I mentioned, Rachel made Zoë's birthday cake again this year. From scratch, of course, because that's how she rolls. We haven't had cake from a mix in ages! Rachel believes this is her most elegant-looking cake to date. 

Zoë requested a mermaid cake, so Rachel made a lovely blue cake, made a wave of flowers on it, and added some chocolate seashells and mermaid tails (that she molded herself and then dusted with gold using the new foodgrade air brush set Auntie K sent her for her birthday, which isn't technically until July...but Kelli knew Rachel could get a jumpstart in using it if she sent it early). 

Here's Rachel placing the chocolate (they're really candy melts, not chocolate) embellishments:

And here's a view of the finished product:

(Oh, also our new whiteboard came today! We have some downstairs in the basement that got so terribly scratched up when we moved that we didn't want them donning the walls of our dining room (where we do a lot of our school work), so we ordered a new one ages ago and it finally came and I think it's going to be a fun addition to our "classroom" this coming school year).

Isn't this cake gorgeous? It was tasty, too!

And here's Zoë with her cake (perhaps you noticed she's changed into the mermaid dress she got for her birthday):

Here's everyone (else) with her just before we sang to her:

And here she is being sung to, happy to be the center of attention:

While we were cleaning up the enormous mess we'd made with the cake, Alexander asked if he could lick off the candles. I told him that he could and left him to it. 

Evidently he got a little over-ambitious with the first candle he licked because when I came back to the dining room after putting some things away in the kitchen, I found five well-licked candles and one candle with its end bitten clean off!

"Did you bite this candle?" I asked him.

"What?" he asked, with a nervous giggle.

"Did you take a bite out of this candle?" I repeated. 

"I didn't mean to!!" he said. 

Silly boy! He must have chewed it up and swallowed it because I didn't find any spit-out wax bits lying around (that doesn't mean they aren't lying around somewhere I haven't thought to check).

Happy birthday, Zoë! We love you!