Happy Birthday Joseph Smith!

We are still behind on Christmas pictures! Ryan's family has a Joseph Smith birthday party on December 23rd and it's always something I look forward to. The Golden Plates cake is one of the highlights, and this year I enjoyed being behind-the-scenes to see how it's made. 

The most fun part was having Dan and Melinda brainstorm about what cake pan to use that would form clean, straight edges. Then, quite a while into the conversation it was remembered that they already had such a cake pan (that they use every year) and that Dan had also already constructed metal separators so that the large pan would be divided into four equal parts. We made a note for them to ask me about the cake pan next year to avoid this 30 minutes of brainstorming; however, once they remember that they are supposed to ask me - they will probably remember that they already have the cake pan!

The second part that was amusing was observing the rising tension in the home as inquiries were made about how much frosting to use, if someone was using too much frosting, if someone hadn't made enough frosting, etc. 

It's all worth it for the final product! In order to keep the cake away from a curious baby, Dan put it inside a styrofoam ice box down in the basement. It actually added a really nice effect when he unveiled the cake - kind of a stone box effect. I'm hoping that this box is painted a stone color for next year's festivities and the stone box becomes an integral part of the cake unveiling.

Dan unveiling the cake, he must have unselfish motives in order to remove the cake - no selfish thinking about the pleasure this delicious cake will give to alleviate the rumblings in our tummies.

Voila!

Melinda miraculously cuts into the sealed portion! 

I also should add that there was a rousing game of Memory and dollar store gifts passed out. Tamboreh, anyone? (Actually, I tried to look that up online so double-check the spelling and I couldn't find it! I have no evidence of its proof except for this Memory game.)

One of the dollar store items were for some long balloons, which I thought might be fun to twist up and make into shapes. The little pump that came with them was broken, unfortunately, but no worries! Dan just pulled in the air compressor hose from the garage and we had a beautiful ballon in just seconds!

Here are a couple randoms photos from the holidays. Willa is becoming quite the little puppy and loves to beg for food scraps at the table. She's like our little Elvis, only better smelling.