Hello Kitty Birthday Party

Thanksgiving weekend was so busy for me. Two years ago, I took a cake decorating class as I wanted my girls to have amazing cakes without having to pay the price. This has worked great for my daughters but has added stress to myself as now everyone wants a homemade cake. These cakes take hours to make.

This year, Gabbie decided she wanted a Hello Kitty cake. I was actually kind of relieved as I didn't have to plan a design for a cake because I could just buy a Hello Kitty cake pan.

So Saturday, I set out to bake her cake. I guess this was not my weekend for baking as the first cake broke when I took it out of the pan. Huge fail! Two hours later, I pulled the second cake out of the pan and it looked great. I did a little more shopping and returned to my cake that evening to decorate. It took about 2 1/2 hours to decorate but I was pretty happy with the results.

Sunday morning, I went on my long run before we celebrated her birthday. Do you ever plan longer runs around events so you don't feel as guilty when indulging? My run went amazing. I did 18 miles with 12 @ marathon pace. This was my hardest pace workout of the training cycle and I hit all my marathon pace (8:08/mile) miles without a problem. I ran the last 7 miles of my run with Steph which made it that much easier. She did a great write up of our run, so I highly recommend reading it, here. I love running with friends as the miles seem to fly by. I already have someone lined up for next week's 21 miler, woohoo!

After our run, I headed home to get ready for lunch. Gabbie chose to go to Texas Roadhouse, not because she loves steak, but she loves how she gets to sit on a saddle when they sing happy birthday to her.

After lunch we went home for cake and presents. We let Gabbie choose between a birthday party with friends from school or an American Girl doll as her gift. Because of this we had a small get together and it seemed perfect. My parents were in town, my sister and her family were there, and my mother-in-law came over. There were more than enough presents and cake and my little peanut had a blast.

Happy 5th Birthday to my Baby!