A Rainbow First Birthday Party

I was very excited at the prospect of organising Dylan's first birthday.  I had seen pictures of rainbow cake and despite never having made a cake by myself before, I decided to base the party around this theme.

Armed with rainbow bunting, multicoloured plates and bowls and plenty of balloons, I set about decorating for our rainbow extravaganza.  I made some birthday bunting using 13 pieces of coloured card and sticking a photo of Dylan from each month on them.  I pegged them to a piece of string and made my very own memory bunting following Dylan from a tiny newborn to a mischievous one year old.

We had all the usual party food and for desert I decided on plenty of fruit as well as cakes so the little people could have a healthy lunch.  As well as plates of watermelon and assorted fruit I made a fruit rainbow using strawberries, slices of orange, melon, green and purple grapes.

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You make me Smile - Week 8!

We are now into week 8 of You make me Smile and I am loving reading your entries every week.  This week has been particularly exciting as it was Dylan's first birthday so I have plenty of smiles to share!

I may have mentioned (several times) on twitter that I have made a rainbow cake but I am still so impressed wit myself so here is the umpteenth photo of my Rainbow cake.

After what seems like months of worrying about Dylan's movements he spent most of his birthday pulling himself up on the furniture and confidently walking round, making me realise I have a lot of things to move higher!  He keeps letting go for a few seconds and his balance is great so he is finally taking some steps in the right direction!

And finally (as we seem to be on a birthday theme) it was lovely to have so many of our friends and family together and we had 50 guests as Dylan's garden party!  It was very busy but the babies loved playing together and it was nice to spend this special day with all the important people in our lives.

So why have you been smiling this week?  Post three photos with as many or as few words as you like, add the badge and link up!  Please share the loved and go and comment on as many of the other posts as you can. 

insert code</<a href="http://themummyadventure.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1152.photobucket.com/albums/p482/mummyadventure/th_smilelinky.jpg" border="0" alt="You make me smile" /></a>>

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How to make a Rainbow Cake

Rainbow cake is perfect for a baby or child's birthday, is fun to make and eat and not even too difficult! Six/seven layers of sponge in every colour of the rainbow and a great suprise once you cut into it!  A rainbow theme makes a perfect first birthday idea for a little boy or girl.

For Dylan's first birthday I had some very ambitious plans.  Having never made a cake before by myself, I set the goal of a six layer rainbow cake to go with the rainbow theme I was planning.  Here are a few things I learnt:

-Always make a practice layer.   It helps make sure the mix is right and that the colour comes out how you want it.

-Liquid food colouring will not cut it.  The paste is fantastic though and goes a long long way (I would recommend Sugarflair).

-Icing a 6 layer cake is not the easiest part!

-Don't be afraid to ask for help.  I tweeted and had so much advice and recipes and found this one particularly helpful 

So here is my recipe for rainbow cake.

16oz/450g butter

28oz/800g

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Silent Sunday

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