Planning for this big day started about a month prior. I really wanted her to have an amazing first birthday so I decided that I was going to learn how to make a fancy two layered cake using fondant. I did research and visited a cake decorating store a few times and then started my tester cakes!! Todd and my friends didn't mind this process at all. I ended up learning how to make marshmallow fondant from scratch. It really wasn't that difficult but pretty messy and very tasty!!
We also had to buy my sister and my moms plane tickets and map out their activities for the weekend. I really wanted my mom to see a bit more of LA since the last time she was here Taylor was only a week old and we were stuck in the house the entire time.
Her very first bite of cake!
The day my mom and sister arrived we really didn't have much time and headed straight to Beverly Hills where we met up with Stephanie and all got our brows done at Anastasia's Salon. Unfortunately, my mother received absolutely horrible service and a bad brow job. I called them later that week and had very strong words for the manager and they ended up sending her an apology letter and some free product! :o)
The clean up crew in the Woodly sink!
Then we headed to LA Ink so my sister could get her husband a T-Shirt. We ended up getting Taylor the coolest black onsie with a skull on it!! With her red hair and green eyes it looks so cute!!
That night I spent over 6 hours trying to get Taylor's slideshow to burn to a disk. I had been working on her slideshow using a Mac program for over a month and for some reason it just would not burn. I was up until 4am working on it. They were all in order with witty captions and music to match. In the meantime, I was also baking four cakes so they could cool and be decorated the next day.
Aunt Wendy with the chocolate princess!
The next day we headed to the tattoo parlor where I got a giant dragon above my left shoulder. I thought it would be great for my modeling career! Oooo, gotcha! I'm just kidding. Actually, we went to a beauty tattoo artist and my mom had her brows tattooed on. They look absolutely amazing and she was very happy with them.
Back! 
Front! After that we headed to Woodley to decorate the party room. That really didn't take long which was good because I had a very long night ahead of me. I still had to get the slideshow to burn and decorate the cake!! I worked on the cake first. It took a little over four hours and I was done around midnight. After that we discovered that the picture size was the problem with the slideshow. So I was up until 4am again, resizing and recreating the entire show. It finally burned and I was almost in tears from shear exhaustion!!
Cruising around on her own mingling with guests!
The next day was the big party! Things ran pretty smooth! I was very disappointed with the turnout and the lame excuses I got from friends but other then that it was great! The people that did show up were so very sweet and generous!! They really did make the day special. Taylor was actually really sick but you would have never known!! She was in and out of the car on Friday and we had a ton of fires down here. So between the smoke and going from cold to warm to cold over and over again I think it was just too much for the little birthday girl.
Uncle Frank taking the birthday girl for a walk!
She was so excited to be the center of attention though and you would have never guessed that she had been sick and up almost all night for the past two nights. Especially after she got her cake! I made her her own little chocolate cake to devour and did she! It was the first time that she has had chocolate or any real refined sugar so it was a real treat for her.
The best family picture we could get! Chocolate overload!
Her very own cake!
