(Arbor Day)

But seriously folks…Today is Boy’s birthday. (Hooray, Boy!) And for his birthday, he’s asked for a Bugaboo cake. Bugaboo being a creature from Jill Thompson’s Scary Godmother books (and movies).

Here is Bugaboo:

So…right now, the strawberry cakes are in the oven, I’m about to go start making blue buttercream icing, and at the risk of being accused of trying to take over Martha’s empire, I’ve got painted marshmallows drying in the kitchen. Because I couldn’t think of any other way to make the eyes…so, painted marshmallows it is. But, each color has to be dry before I can do the next one…so there’s a bit of a slowdown on that part.

I think I’m going to do the mouth with licorice and candy corn. I haven’t decided if I want to back a second set of cakes to make the arms, legs and horns. If I do, then I’m not sure I have a plate big enough to hold the cake. I guess I could decorate a half tray, and put it there….or I could just deal with the fact that he’s 5 and probably won’t notice. Heh.

I could do the horns with ice cream cones…but I still have a plating issue. My cake platter is about 11″ diameter, and I’m using 10″ cake pans…so I don’t really have a lot of extra room.

I think maybe I’ll just go with what I can do with a round cake. Assuming it doesn’t turn into an amorphous blue blob that tries to eat my kitchen, I’ll try to get a shot of the cake before it gets eaten.

I also need to wrap presents, and get everything ready for the pizza party. (Thankfully, at a pizza parlor and not here.) But, everyone is coming back here for dessert and presents, because I wasn’t willing to try and transport the cake once it’s finished.

Mothra took the boy out yesterday to a shopping mecca, so of course today he was telling me about presents he wanted today, for things he saw yesterday. One of these days my mother is going to disappear, and I’ll be over in the corner whistling and looking innocent. Swear to god.

So, back to making cakes, wrapping presents and clearing the house enough to handle a mob of 5 year olds, gods help me. Hope all of y’all are doing well, and are not attempting to paint eyeballs before your second cup of coffee.