Oh My--They're THREEEEE!

We've had a whirlwind few days---and I have a feeling it's only going to get crazier as the girls get older....oy! Who's idea was it to have triplets two days after Christmas??? Oh yeah...AVERY! Little stink. ;)

I had a day break between our insane Christmas Day and the girl's birthdays to prepare. I asked them several weeks ago what kind of cake they wanted and they said, "Ummmmm......SNOWFLAKE!" (Yeah, I don't know what that means either.) So a snowflake cake it was! It took a lot of thinking and researching as there were several different ways to go about it, but I decided that I wanted to do a genoise cake and roll it (basically a jelly roll---minus the jelly) with white frosting and 3D snowflakes all around. Then a couple of days before the big day, I asked the girls if they wanted the cake to be chocolate or white (I thought that chocolate cake and white frosting would be a pretty contrast, but I wanted them to be involved a little more. I regret that now....) Then Jordyn said "I wan bwu sate!" Translated= "I want BLUE cake". Then she said "Ashy wan rey-ed". Translated="red". So I quickly agreed to blue since red would definitely not look attractive.

Hmm. Blue cake? OK I can do that. Pale blue. Just a *hint* of blue.

So as I made the cake, I notice that because of the eggs and two extra yolks, the cake is a pale yellow. OK elementary kids----what do you get when you mix yellow and blue???? That's right! GREEN!!

And apparently the color intensifies as it's baked. What we ended up with was a great St. Patricks Day cake!!

To make matters worse, it tasted disgusting. Holy heck it was gross. I decide to do a bright white Swiss Meringue frosting. I used, in both the cake and the frosting, the SmartBalance 50/50 butter cubes----50% butter 50% SmartBalance spread (canola I think) instead of 100% butter. I thought it would work. Nope. No, it didn't. Because the cubes were, I'm sure, artificially colored yellow, the frosting ended up sort of cream colored. And because of the non-buttery consistency of the "butter", the frosting became thin and deflated. And did I mention gross??? The cake tasted funny as a result and wasn't as light and airy as a genoise cake should be. Let that be a lesson to all you bakers out there. It's not worth it to try and cut the fat. Just use butter.

But at least the meringue snowflakes turned out OK---until they sat for a while and became soft and limp....I had to keep propping the snowflake points up so I could take pictures.

Oh well. Here are some pictures of the big day! Just be glad you only have to LOOK at the cake....hrumph.

The girls got quiet books from Gramma and Grampa, pj's from Nana and Papa and a set of princess plates, silverware and cups from Mommy and Daddy. We are saving the gifts from Aunts and Uncles for another day. We learned our 'presents' lesson the hard way on Christmas. Sometimes even a little is still too much. But how happy will they be when we whip out more birthday presents in a couple days?? I would be! Thanks to everyone for your generosity. We love our three little miracles!! HAPPY THIRD BIRTHDAY GIRLIES!!!

YES, two of them are not wearing pants...pretty much normal around here.