So I’ve been trying to come back here and write again for the past few days, but the best laid plans and all that … we had Madeline’s birthday party on Saturday and ever since then, I’ve been down for the count with the flu.  I think it must have been hovering - luckily it waited until Saturday night, but I haven’t left the house since.  Today is the first day I finally feel human a bit.  I’m just glad whatever it was that hit me didn’t come until after the party was over.

I took a crazy amount of pictures … um, 127 or thereabouts.  It was her first birthday after all!  I’ll spare you sitting through them all and will just give you a few highlights.  Recipes will follow in coming days.

I kept debating back and forth about what I should do about a menu.  Really, what else is new?  My difficulty lies in the fact that there are so many recipes I want to try, entertaining and celebrations are just great opportunities to try a bunch of new ones out at the same time.  In an effort to not kill myself, which was only mildly successful (see flu reference above), I decided to order a sandwich platter and then concentrate on desserts. 

I knew from the beginning I wanted to have a table filled with treats.  I bought a few glass jars and some small paper white sacks.  The kids spent the morning decorating the sacks with stickers for me, and we set them out with the candy-filled jars.  This way, guests could fill a bag with treats as they left.  Along with the assorted pink-hued candies, I made white chocolate covered pretzels, peppermint bark and cinnamon-sugar cookies decorated with pink frosting M’s on the top.

For the main dessert, I’m sure it’s no surprise that I went with cupcakes.  I was closerthanthis to ordering some from one of the cupcake bakeries in the city, but decided to try out a new recipe for both the cupcakes and the frosting.  I think I may have finally found the clone to the cupcakes from Billy’s Bakery that we I love so much.   ‘Bout time!  I had planned on just using the cupcakes when we sang happy birthday, but the recipe made 24 and had enough batter leftover for a small cake, so I put it in a heart-shaped dish I had and her monkey cake was born.

Tomorrow, recipes!  Until then, a few pictures.

I think this might be one of my favorite pictures. Madeline and I were playing in her room after the party, and she was all smiles and giggles:

Fast asleep, tutu and all, after her big first birthday party:

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