And the birthday celebration continued

Golly gee, I wish there were more hours in the day to get done what needs to get done these days.  Since that's not the case, I have gotten a bit behind in my blogging.  Anyway, to pick up where I left off last time...

Michele, John, and Lydia came down for a quick visit after Thanksgiving.  As such, we knew we would wait until the week after Havi's actual birthday to throw her a little party.  We spent the first few days of their stay just relaxing and enjoying the warm weather.  One afternoon, we headed over to our favorite park by the river.

Sunday afternoon was when we had her little party, just family.  My sister came with hers and her in-laws.  It was so cute to watch Caleb show Havi how to open a present.  Once she figured it out, she went to town. lol

For her birthday cake, I knew I wanted to make dark chocolate with a whipped vanilla buttercream and decorate it with a watercolor swirl effect.

The cake had sat out at room temp for a while.  So that's why the cutout slice in the photo above looks a little rough.  Although I love my swiss meringue buttercream to pieces, I knew that some people at the party prefer the sweeter traditional buttercream.  And since I only like to use that one sparingly when decorating (because it's so sweet), I chose to frost it using this simple watercolor swirl effect technique.  It was a winner.

Well, we did end up visiting the Mouse like I had said.  But those photos will have to wait because we have another busy weekend planned.  We had such a great visit with Michele, John, and Lydia.  I only wish it wasn't so short.  We love you guys!