Happy Baby Shower to Phong and Chi!!

Congratulations to Phong and Cristie for their baby shower for their soon to be son Austin!!  I had the privilege and honor of making their desserts for their celebration!  I decorated a mixed berry cake with fondant white clouds, and used some light blue Swiss Meringue and scraped the outside here and there add a light blue sky to the sides of the cake.  I then made a fondant cute little cloud for the cake topper!  I made French Vanilla cupcakes with Swiss Meringue frosting and Cristie made the cute little cloud toppers!  I also made some vanilla French Macarons as well to complete the dessert table!  I can't wait to meet precious baby Austin, he is already so loved by his parents and sweet big sister Kaylie!!  Congratulations again Phong and Chi!  I'm so excited for your guys' newest addition to your beautiful family!

Rustic Baby Shower Cake

I had the honor of making a rustic naked cake for a baby shower this past weekend! The mommy to be loves chocolate so I made a naked chocolate cake with swiss meringue frosting. I decorated the cake with pink roses, variety of succulents and baby's breathe foliage.  Congratulations Natalie on your little bundle of joy, I'm sure you guys will be amazing parents and your sweet little baby girl will be so amazingly loved!!  Thank you for letting me be a part of your wonderful celebration!!

Happy Baby Shower BenjAlina!

Congratulations to the wonderful parents to be Alina and Ben!  I got the honor and privilege of making BenjAlina's baby shower cake!  Their baby shower theme is Disney's Peter Pan Neverland theme that is gender neutral since they won't be revealing the gender of baby LeeSan until after birth!  So I made a simple silloutte Peter Pan gold with gold fairy dust and added some greenery for the woodsy theme!  I'm so excited for Alina and Ben and I can't wait to meet baby LeeSan!  I know they will be amazing parents, the love they have poured into their child's arrival preparations already shows you that!  They are so kind, generous, smart, and fun loving people, I know they will raise an amazing child and will definitely make this world a better place!  I love you guys, congratulations!!!

Siv & Carney's Baby Shower!

Congratulations to my good friends and the parents to be Sivhour and Carney!  I got the honor and privilege of making their baby shower cake!  The theme is "You Are My Sunshine", so I decorated a two-tiered cake with bright yellow and white flowers with fondant daisy designs around the cake.  I'm so excited to meet little baby Chan and I know he will be super duper cute!!  I'm very excited for Siv and Carney to welcome their little baby boy soon, he will bring lots of joy, love, and happiness to their lives!  I know that he will be so loved and cared for by Siv and Carney, and he will be lucky to have such a sweet and kind mother like Siv, and such a smart and funny caring dad like Carney!  Can't wait to meet you baby Chan!!  Congratulations Siv and Carney!!

Happy Baby Shower Kat!

Happy Baby Shower to the beautiful mommy-to-be Katherine!!  I had the wonderful honor in throwing my amazing friend a baby shower for her sweet baby boy that we are all so eagerly waiting to meet!  Her favorite color is purple and so I got some purple flowers along with some pretty white, soft pink and colorful succulents (from my garden!) for her dessert table.  I made her a rustic naked carrot cake with whipped cream cheese frosting.  Whipped cream cheese frosting is my favorite for this type of cake because carrot cakes are already rich in flavor but this frosting makes it very light to balance it out!  I also had help with my awesome friends in putting together this relaxing and sweet baby shower for our Kat!  I chose a bohemian dream catcher theme for her baby shower because I feel like her baby, along with all babies, are a dream come true!  They truly are miracles and we are all so excited and happy for Kat and Dennis to have their own special blessing arriving soon!  I hope you feel all our love and well wishes for you, Dennis, and your sweet little son!  Happy baby shower Kat, you will be such a wonderful mommy!!!

Happy Baby Shower Alvina!

Congratulations to my dearest friend Alvina and her husband Will on their coming arrival of their sweet baby girl Chloe!  This shower took place out of state, so it was a bit challenging trying to plan the party but I think I pulled it off pretty well, if I do say so myself.  I made green tea and vanilla macarons, and got all the other desserts from catering from Buca de Beppo.  I also bought a cake and did a makeover, a "cakeover" and removed the piping and added a gold trim and fresh beautiful flowers to fit the theme of the baby shower!  I created all the decorations and even recycled Leo's Prince diaper cake castle and transformed it into a Princess castle!  I was going to shop for some pretty flowers at a local flower shop but decided to check out the inventory at the supermarket since I was there to buy other supplies too, and luckily they had a nice variety, and best part is that it's much more affordable too!!  Overall, Alvina had an amazing time and felt very loved and pampered, mission accomplished!!  I'm so excited for you Alvina to embark on this new amazing journey as a mom, I know you will love Chloe with all your heart and show her the world!  Congratulations to Alvina and Will, I can't wait to meet Chloe!!

Kaylie's Baby Shower

Congratulations to soon to be parents Phong and Cristie! We celebrated their baby girl's baby shower this past weekend and I got the pleasure and honor of making their cake!  Since I'm also pregnant myself and suppose to be taking it easy, I ordered a mixed berry cake from our favorite bakery, Givral, and decorated it.  I used gold ribbon for the base and edible white pearls for the sides of the cake.  I just got some beautiful white hydrangeas and mini pink roses and placed them on top of the cake.  The beautiful dessert table display was made by the mom to be, Cristie, and her family.  What a wonderful job they did!  The shower was very nice and we are so excited to meet little baby Kaylie end of June!  Congratulations to the happy couple Phong and Cristie!

Happy Baby Shower!

 Happy Baby Shower Katie!!  I got the pleasure of making a My Neighbor Totoro themed baby shower cake for Katie, who's awaiting her precious baby boy Kyle!  The cake is a mixed berry cake from Givral and I covered the cake with white fondant and made all the decorations from fondant as well.  The flag is made from a toothpick and cardstock and the spikes on the little black character are brown sprinkles!  The cake was a nice centerpiece at their super cute dessert table, and I'm so glad I got to help make Katie and her husband's day special!!!  We know your baby will bring so much joy to all, happy baby shower Katie, congratulations!!

Happy 1 Month Nathan!

Happy 1 month birthday celebration Nathan!!  This is the baby boy version of my dragon cake I made earlier this year for our baby shower! This is a mixed berry cake from Givral, with yellow piping, and I used gold luster dust to paint the piping to make it look like gold.  There's real ivory and mini yellow roses on the cake and a light blue ribbon border as well.  The dragon is egg shell is made out of fondant!  I painted a little bit of gold luster dust on the egg shell and dragon to make it look more magical!  A baby's 1 month celebration in the Vietnamese culture is so special and important, and I'm glad I was able to help make the celebration that much more special!  Happy 1 month birthday Nathan!

Lily's Baptism & 1 Month Celebration!

  

Our precious baby Lily is 5 weeks and 1 day old and she just got baptized today!  As a Vietnamese tradition, we usually celebrate the baby's 1 month old milestone, called a Ngày Đầy Tháng.  We only celebrate the baby's first month and 1 year birthday, but luckily for Lily, we will adopt the Western tradition and celebrate every year of her life as well. =).  Since I am still a new mom and in recovery, I ordered a mixed berry cake from one of my favorite bakeries, Givral Bakery.  I asked them to make a texture on the cake with a ruffle border near the bottom, it didn't quite turn out how I wanted, for instance the texture is inverted and it's fondant covered instead of buttercream, and they didn't do the ruffle border, but it's ok.  I made the peonies flowers and letter blocks spelling out Lily's name in fondant and dotted the little flowers with black food coloring.  Overall, I'm am still quite pleased with her first cake and even though I didn't bake it, I'm glad I was still about add my love to it with the decorations I made for her!

 

  

These cupcakes are French Vanilla cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  I actually had time to make these and the decorations as well, also made out of fondant.  I wanted to make cupcake decorations that were cute but also baby related.  So I made love birds to represent the love of her parents that create our precious angel Lily, I made a bassinet to and pacifier for the cute baby items, and the hearts that says Love and baby Lily to show her that our hearts are filled with her love and our love for her, and the pink flowers represents the pretty girl she's already growing to be!

A couple months ago near the end of my pregnancy, Khoa bought me this cool book that has a bunch of recipes and imaged of cake Push Pops, and I've been waiting for an occasion (where I have time and energy) to make these!  Although right now I don't have as much free time and energy as I use to, I still decided to try to make these.  Luckily, I was successful and made Strawberry Shortcake cake push pops!  I was going to tie a pink ribbon and add a pink rhinestone in the middle of the bow for decoration around the push pops, but I decided this was enough work!  I'll go all out for her 1 year old birthday! =P  I'm so happy to have such a cute, healthy, and strong baby, I cannot be more happy and in love with our Lily.  I hope she looks back and enjoys these sweet treats I made for her special day!

Our Baby Shower!

We had a great baby shower this weekend to celebrate the upcoming arrival of our first child, our baby dragon Lily!  One of my favorite parts of the shower was the dessert station!  The color theme was pink, light green and white, and so we made the desserts to match!

Our beautiful dessert tower set up by Chi Tu and Alvina!

I made green tea and rose macarons, and my cousin (also the host of the shower) made vanilla mini cupcakes with green tea buttercream.  I made the little fondant flower decorations to go on top of the cupcakes, and Chi Hai's cutie patootie daughter, my niece, helped place the flowers on the cupcakes, she's a natural!  Chi Hai also baked vanilla cake pops with the remaining batter from the cupcakes, and then my friend Alvina and I dipping them in pink chocolate candy melts.  Then we all added the white chocolate stripes to them. 

Our dragon lily's cake! We ordered a mixed berry cake from Givral Bakery in Westminster, CA.  I love that bakery, it's my favorite also because we used them for our wedding, and any other special occasion!  They did the light green piping along the side of the cake and added the green ribbon and bow for the border.  I made the little baby dragon and the broken green egg shell to place on top of the cake.  Khoa bought spray light pink roses that I cut up to place on the cake as well.  I am 3 weeks away from my due date, so this was one last baking and decorating gig for a very long time!  I would have made sugar flowers, but why do more work than I have to, plus, nothing looks better than the real thing!

 

 

I would like to also give special thanks to Khoa, without him, I would not have all these wonderful things in life to look forward too!  I love you baby cakes!!  We had so much and it was great to see everyone before our precious baby gets here.  We felt so much love from everyone and we are extremely blessed and lucky to have such a wonderful family.  We are so excited for what’s to come, we can’t wait to meet her!!!!!  I will now go on my official maternity leave for at least a couple months!  I'll be back in no time to make more lovely creations for all of you to enjoy!  Until then, I have a great day!!!

Oh Boy! Baby Shower!

Congratulations to Catherine and Han on their arriving baby boy, Kolin!! This baby shower's theme is Sea Critters! The octopus, blow fish, crab, sting ray, turtle and "It's a boy!" decorations are all made out of fondant. Half the cupcakes are carrot cake cupcakes with whipped cream cheese frosting and the other half are vanilla cupcakes with basic buttercream frosting! These decorations were especially fun (but also challenging) to make because this was the first time I use my new razor blade to free hand the shapes! It makes such a difference when you have a super sharp blade compared to a normal knife! There's something about the free flowing movement of the knife through the fondant that's exhilarating and scary at the same time, because if you mess up, you pretty much have to start over. However, just like with anything I do, it's all about practice! Exploring new techniques and being able to be creative keeps me going. Anyways, once again, congrats to Catherine and Han, we eagerly await the arrival of Kolin!!

To be a child is to
know the gift of living
To have a child is to
know the gift of life.
-Unknown