I pretty much spent the entire day yesterday making a robot cake and blowing up 125 balloons. I consider it a day well spent, even though all of the balloons were popped within ten minutes once the party started, and the cake quickly became a headless, armless little lump of a robot. The party was wild! And noisy! And rambunctious! But Isaac had a wonderful time, slept late this morning, and then announced that he feels so lucky to be part of this family. I went on and on about Isaac yesterday, so I’ll just share a few pictures today. Here’s Isaac, wearing my shirt, blowing out his birthday candles…

Here’s a series of pictures he did for a flipbook. I just love them! I love the way his little brain works! It’s only part way done, and I’m on tenterhooks to see how it ends.

I made the cake with non-cake pans, I used an oven-proof bowl for the head, a souffle dish for the body, a small square baking dish for the feet (cut in half into two rectangles) and three cupcakes each for the arms. I used m&ms to make the control panels, and twizzlers to make the hoses, because Isaac assures me that robots have hoses. My policy is to make an ugly cake look nice with lots of candy, and make a messy house look good with lots of balloons, so that’s what we did!

And Isaac says his favorite song is Brianstorm by the Arctic Monkeys, so here it is!

3 sticks butter, softened
3 cups brown sugar
5 eggs
2 t vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups flour
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 cup (+/-) milk
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350.

Cream the butter till soft and fluffy. Beat in the sugar, the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time. Add all of the dry ingredients. (It will get hard to stir at this point, but keep at it!) Stir in the chocolate chips.

Butter and flour the pans you’re going to use, and fold a small square of foil to fit in bottom of the pans, then butter and flour that. I used a souffle dish, a small squarish (oven-proof) bowl and a small square baking dish, and I made six cup cakes as well for the arms.

Spread the batter into the prepared pans. Bake until golden, and until when you press lightly on the top it springs back. Keep an eye on everything – the cupcakes and shallow dishes will take about twenty minutes, but the deeper bowls could take up to an hour.

For the frosting I combined about 4 cups of icing sugar, half a stick of butter, a bit of vanilla powder and 3 T of milk in the food processor. To make the light grey I combined blue, a touch of green and a touch of red. And then we went crazy with the m&ms and twizzlers!!