We had tons of fun yesterday for the boys’ birthday party! We ended up with 18 of us getting together, including Don’s Aunt and Uncle who happened to be in town this weekend. Great timing! From the locals we were missing three of our usual number, and we missed those family members living out of state (another ten). We often opt to just include family for the birthday celebrations because we enjoy being together, and it’s always more fun when we can get everyone together. Don comes from a family of eight children. Three have moved out of state, along with their spouses and families, and are always missed when those of us still here gather for family events. We are elated that one of Don’s brothers will be returning to California later this month, and can’t wait for our sibling slumber party that we’ll host at our home once he’s back! Anyway, I digress!

The boys have been enjoying bowling on the Wii, so we decided to have a bowling party for them this year. It was perfect, as it fit the theme of the solar system cake Owen wanted since we were there during Cosmic Bowling time. They turn off the house lights and have fun black lights that make the bowling balls glow, along with colorful “disco ball” type lights. After counting up those of us who would be participating in the bowling, we ended up with only two lanes.

We left the bumpers on one of them for the kids, and I must confess, it was fun to watch the bowling ball bounce off the bumpers like a pinball on it’s way to hit the pins. All the kids ended up with success in the form of either strikes or spares. However, no matter how many pins they got down each turn, they always came back with smiles on their faces, ready to see how their other family members would do.

We had fun heckling each other on the “grown up” lane. Haha! Many years ago (10+), I was on a bowling league thru my work. While I was never an outstanding bowler, I sure did a heck of a lot better than I did yesterday! Oh my! The horror of the gutter ball! My Father-in-Law won on our lane, beating out one of the Brothers-in-Law by about five points. And while he wasn’t the top scorer, my brother threw the fastest ball at 27.6 MPH. Once our hour of bowling was over, we headed back to our home for cake, ice cream and presents. The boys got many awesome presents and have been entertained ever since.

Here are a couple of pictures of their cake:

I made the planets out of fondant. Super easy since they are just balls. Jupiter had a hard time staying round because it is so big and didn’t set up as quickly as the smaller planets. If I had budgeted my time better, I also would have been able to color the skewers holding the planets up.

The rays of the sun are made from chocolate. I got this awesome book, The Whimsical Bakehouse, that has so many tips on making some very creative cakes. You basically create the sun’s rays by working in reverse order. Start by piping the milk chocolate, let it set up, then the orange, let it set up, then the yellow. When you peel it off of the wax paper, you reveal the finished creation.

The color for “outer space” is a combo of blue and black to get the hue I wanted. I then added some purple that I darkened with more blue and blended that to the outer space coloring. Again, the tips on how to do the color blending are from The Whimsical Bakehouse. I added purple because I always notice shades and swirls of purples when I see pictures of outer space. I then added some silver balls (edible) for the stars.

This is the first time I’ve completely designed a cake on my own, so it was very fun for me to work on. It turned out just as I had planned, and I learned what I would do differently to make it better, if I ever do a solar system cake again.

I think my favorite part was seeing everyone talking with blue lips. Hahahahahahahaha!