Birthday party

We celebrated Zari's birthday today, since yesterday was far too crazy. I invited Zari's babysitter (a neighbor girl who plays with Zari at our house a few afternoons a week while I work on my dissertation) and a family we know from church whose youngest is around Zari's age.

We have a tradition of making really cool/outlandish/extravagant/crazy cakes in my family. Or rather, my sisters do. I haven't tried my hand at cake decorating that much, but I decided to do something fun this year. Since Zari loves to play soccer, I made a soccer ball cake. It actually turned out pretty well, and was about the same size as a real soccer ball. I had originally wanted to do a 3-dimensional fish cake, but I am glad I stuck with a simpler shape to carve and frost.