Cupcake Cake

One month after my daughter’s birthday, my husband and I hosted a belated birthday party for her at our house with just the three of us. Our initial plan was to host a big party with family, close friends, and her friends at school. For those of you that do not know, I typically spend several weeks getting my daughter’s party organized every year. I always plan in advance since I am a full-time working mom that often works too many hours. We created custom decorations, gift bags for the kids, and had fun games all with an Elsa theme. Everything was ready to go, and then we had to cancel. Since my daughter is four, she was not too upset about her party being canceled. I was probably the most upset since I always enjoy making my daughter’s birthday party extra special.

One day while at home, I looked around the house at all the decorations and decided that today was going to be my daughter’s party. We already had the decorations ready, fun games, and gifts from us. My daughter and I spent the entire afternoon getting the house ready for her party. We set-up the dining room table finished putting up decorations and string lights around the house. It was so much fun!

In the evening, we started dinner and began to bake the birthday cupcakes. I cook a lot now, so I did not pay close attention to the recipe. Instead of adding water to the baking mix, I accidentally added milk. Once I realized my mistake, it was too late to start over. Besides, what difference would milk really make compared to water? It makes a BIG difference. Six minutes into baking, the cupcake batter started to overflow out of each muffin holder and around the entire pan. I was left with a decision, scrap the whole cupcake plan or improvise. The solution was a cupcake cake. The cupcakes baked with a flat top covering the entire pan. So we decided to decorate it like a cake. The funny thing is that what started as a mess ended up tasting really good.

There are some excellent lessons that I learned from hosting my daughter’s party this year.

1. Life or a specific event often never goes as planned. Enjoy the messiness, and find joy and happiness in the randomness of it all.
2. Embrace change and adapt to what happens in life. 
3. Figure out what truly makes you happy and embrace that happiness every day.
4. When baking muffins from a mix, make sure you add water instead of milk, unless you want to create cupcake cake.