Jake is three!

My beautiful, blue-eyed, wiry, fiesty Jacob is THREE tomorrow!

Jake knows his sweets. He really does. A neighbor brought over some brownies and when Jake took a bite he spit them out they were so gross to him. Apparently they were vegan brownies? Anyways, he wanted a dark chocolate cake and since our theme was Cheetah Party! I set out to make the tastiest cake I could given the limitations of no dairy or soy that I'm working with right now. I sifted the dry ingredients to make it fluffy and used my butter-like spread.

Big pan. Little pan. I cut the little cake in half, and then one of those halves I cut in two for ears. The other half was the lower part of the mouth.

I trimmed the top of the little cake so it would lay flat and used those trimmings as well as a little piece trimmed from each ear to make the nose bridge, nose, and top of mouth.

Since the frosting was with a nondairy/nonsoy it was pretty melty. So I did a layer and then popped it in the freezer for 10 minutes and the frosting in the fridge. Then took everything out and did another layer quickly. This is the crumb coat, I used the coat to give the cake it's base shape as well.

And here is the finished product!

My goal with desserts is that no matter how cool they look I want them to be even tastier and I think this really worked. It is delicious!

The kids colored cheetah pictures and put them all over the house and they helped me hang up crepe paper. It was just a family party, but half of the fun was getting ready for it! Then for the party, we played pin the tail on the cheetah, sang "Going on a Cheetah Hunt" (to the going on a lion hunt song)...

 and did some karaokee to "Born to Be Wild"

then Michael wanted to sing a song

and Jake busted out a Tim McGraw song for us. My overall impression of my kids doing karaokee is much like in Night at the Mueseum when Ben Stiller is playing with the museum intercom. Spot on. Squealing high and low, beat boxing, the works.

Then it was time for the presents! Since the kids would have opened anything looking remotely like presents way ahead of time, we kept his presents in things they would never think to open :)

Jake got a cheetah stuffed animal! He also got a ton of trucks a friend gave us and the kids were in paradise driving everything around.

Diana loves playing with our stuffed animals. She "wrestles" with them.

All four of the munchkins happy as can be.

Post-party cheetah :) The ears and mouth were pretty popular! It was one of the funnest family parties we've had.