The day had finally come, my munchkin is one year old as of this past Saturday, October 6.
Since we don’t have family in Provence, we had a small celebration at our house. My father-in-law took an 8 hour train ride to be here and we invited les grandparents (our sweet next door neighbors). We also invited our amazing babysitter, but she had to be at her son’s soccer game that afternoon.
I spent the morning baking her an angel food cake in the shape of a teddy bear. By the way, not using the special round pan for this type of cake totally backfired! The cake never rose as it should so it was very dense, not light and airy. Oh well, at least it was cute! I smothered it with cream cheese frosting, and decorated it with sprinkles and wafer flowers. All my guests tried to stay positive about it as they forced every single bite down their throats, even the yucky wafer flowers (thought they would be sugary, instead they tasted like cardboard). I read stories online about kids never eating much of the birthday cake on their first birthday, it usually gets thrown everywhere… she ate every little bite! Needless to say, she went to bed late this evening.
My mom watched Juliana open her gift via Skype. She got her a pop-up tent with 100 plastic balls, so Juliana was in heaven! The tent has a tunnel she can crawl in… she was scared of it at first, but got the hang of it. Of course, I had to do a demonstration of how it worked (so much fun, by the way!). My husband then placed his computer side-by-side with mine so his mom could also watch on Skype. Gotta love technology!
Juliana got all sorts of goodies, a singing/crawling escargot, beret, clothes, bracelet, mini electric car, and a big car. She may not have realized it was her birthday, but she sure did feel like a princess.
molly says
How wonderful!
I ve been following your blog since i found out i was pregnant & i always thought it was neat that we had things in common – where we are from, falling in love in Marseille, etc & what do you know – my baby just came on October 5th – maybe one year we can have a french american birthday party together!!??!?!
Happy Birthday to your precious girl!
Najla says
I don’t celebrate bdays sowwryy…….., She’s a cutie baby. I would like to know living in france, how did you come to find that cream cheese or ingredients to make your own cream cheese for that beautiful cake?