Not one pirate treasure cake, but two

Please welcome my college friend Sarah, mother of about-to-be-four twin boys. She’s here with her gorgeous photos for Best Shot Monday and for a little party-planning therapy.

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Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m a kids’ birthday party planning addict. Honestly, I don’t plan to throw a crazy complicated and over-the-top party each year. In fact, I usually announce in the wake of my twin boys’ birthday party that I am DONE. That, next year, the kids are going to have to be happy with cake and a pizza at home with family and that’s IT. But I always give in and I always get in way over my head.

Case in point: this year, I’m wanting to try to make their birthday cake myself. Worse still, it’s a pirate-themed party and I keep lingering over photos of a treasure chest birthday cake, thinking “it really would be so fabulous to make that” even while the remaining sane part of my brain is shrieking, “what is WRONG with you? Just call the bakery like you always do!”

Let’s look back for a moment.

First birthday party: we had a shrimp boil. The boys both got a little scared when we sang happy birthday to them, and just as they got their cake, it started pouring down rain, making it even more unbearably humid (we live in Mississippi, so really, we know unbearable humidity here).

Second birthday party: Meant to be “just family” but it, um, got out of hand. Plus one of the boys had a massive allergic reaction to a bugbite on or near an eyelid, causing him to look just like Rocky and I do not exaggerate one single bit about this. So those are some charming photos.
Third birthday party: actually quite fun, we had a luau at a candy shop, but we overlooked the sugar high thing and as a result, I am pretty sure we are the reason the candy shop instituted new rules for having birthday parties on-site.

So now we’re gearing up for their fourth birthday party. And, like a fool, I’m back in the saddle. I’ve mailed out the invitations, ordered up a mess of stuff from Oriental Trading Company, and spent an entire weekend downloading Pirate-ish fonts just for the thank you notes. Oh, plus the aforementioned treasure chest birthday cake thing (seriously, y’all, I have been test baking layer cakes for a few weeks to see if I might could actually manage it.).

In my defense, I would like to point out that a book I recently read about the emotional development and well-being of twins strongly recommends giving twins individual birthday parties, and I literally put the book down and laughed for an hour straight. I’m SO not falling for that. Though, perhaps I will make each of the boys a birthday cake. Which, if you’re keeping count, would mean now I may be making two treasure chest birthday cakes.

When Sarah isn’t busy chasing twin boys and planning parties, she is busy dreaming up creative new designs for her Etsy.com shop, Miniblisscakes.

For more Best Shot Monday, head over to Slurping Life, where Melody is guest hosting Best Shot Monday while Tracey is on vacation. I know, so complicated, all this guest stuff. Work with me here.