Have you ever loved someone so much it just about oozed from your pores? That’s how I feel about my daughter and this past weekend she reached that birthday that when she was a tiny baby, everyone talked about, “Wait till she turns 16!” Well - My one and only baby girl is 16 years old and I love her 16 times more today than I did when she was born – and I was totally nuts about her then! 
I wanted to decorate her cake to celebrate her life and the person she’s become. So, after ordering a plain, white frosted ½ sheet cake from Costco (hellooooo…? $16.99 for a cake that will serve not only 22 party guests but leave a few servings of leftovers? Perfect!). I knew I wanted to get her pictures on the cake and assumed I’d have to make the wire curly-cues myself but found these too-perfect Sweet 16 photo holders at Party City where we’d bought a few other ‘16’ party items. Aren’t they just so cute!?
The fun – and hard part – was choosing the 5 pics to put into each holder. We only have about a million photos of her!
She’s always wanted one of those big, chunky ‘number’ candles too…only had to wait 16 years to get one ;-)
And – look what else I made for this super fun party….Ice Cream Cups! Don’t these just scream ‘Birthday Party’?!
They are totally edible, made of semi-sweet chocolate, then the edges were sipped into white chocolate then immediately dipped into hot pink sugar or tiny, colored balls.
I used my littlest scooper to form the ice cream balls, then set each on wax paper in a 9x13 pan and let them harden in the freezer overnight so all I had to do the day of the party was drop a ball in each cup…..
...and top each with a cherry! Now – I will admit…I took this picture in advance because I knew if I waited until party time, I’d totally forget to snap a photo. But what I ended up forgetting at they aprty – was putting on the cherries! :-( Oh well – they were still super cute and really yummy :-)
They tasted like an ice cream bar, ‘cept with more chocolate…never a bad thing! They, along with her very personalized cake helped make my babydoll’s very special birthday a little sweeter.The ‘sweet’ for me was when she told me it was the best birthday she’d ever had. I love you Min! I'm so gald you had such a Happy Sweet 16!!!
