Happy Birthdays & giant cakes

We celebrated Kurtis 3rd birthday today. It was low-key and casual. Mostly family in attendance.

He has such a joyous spirit, he greeted each guest as if they were his most favorite person in the world!!! I loved it.

When it was time to open gifts, he smiled so big and made you believe he was waiting for every individual gift his entire life! It was SO cute.

I did have a bit of a Safari theme....mostly played out in the giant 4 layer cake I made. I also made some folded paper medallions. I like them.

The weather was gorgeous except mid-day, during the party, it was VERY hot.

The cake was supposed to be three layers but I had an extra layer so figured, Why not? Right?

The recipe calls for a boxed cake mix but instead of water, you add buttermilk. It's supposed to make it more moist. I think it worked.

The creamy filling is basically peanut butter, cream cheese and whipping cream with a bit of cinnamon and vanilla. Uh, yah, TOTALLY delish!!!

Here's a tip: if you have to crush nuts--use a can of food, not a knife to crush them. It's much easier AND faster. Not to mention, safer!!

The crushed nuts go along the sides of the cake.

Impressive, right? This cake was SO good. Seriously.

I was also so afraid it was going to fall over but it didn't.

I made peanut butter sandwich cookies, from scratch, as party favors. The rest of our menu consisted of chicken and rice with sweet peppers, salad and apples with peanut butter dip. (the left over cake filling)

We made a pitcher of lemon-cucumber water to drink EXCEPT I did not realize I didn't have cucumbers....oldest son sliced zucchini, thinking it was cucumbers, into the water. NO one noticed though. haha!

I don't have a camera so I got very few pictures and even less *good* ones. I have to use my phone camera and it isn't that good. Later that night, we went to the drive-in, over indulged on popcorn and watched The Hunger Games.

It was a nice party. I'm glad all my family came, even if I couldn't get any pix of them. The memories are all in my heart.