Carter's 3rd Birthday

So, we celebrated Carter's 3rd birthday in a chill birthday party on Sunday. It was just us, Graham's family, and my sister. No games, no activities, just opening presents, eating cake, and watching Carter and his cousin play with all of Carter's new toys. Funny thing was.. I planned on making him a construction cake, but nothing else with a construction theme.. and pretty much all of the toys he received were construction-themed (a jackhammer, chainsaw, moving construction toys, etc.). Here are some pictures:

I used the red velvet layer cake recipe from America's Test Kitchen. Here's the recipe:

I used the no-bake Oreo Cheesecake filling and ganache from here (the recipes are made to fill and cover a 9 by 13 sheet cake, so there was lots of extra left over). It ended up working out really well doing this type of cake as it cracked when I was transferring it out of the pan to let it cool. So, I cut the other cake to match, crumbled the leftovers, and put them in the little truck. Carter absolutely loved it and kept asking to see his cake all afternoon.

Carter ate his whole piece! There was nothing left of the cake. Super rich, but totally delicious.

Anyways, that's it for now. We are off to Utah tomorrow for a 4-day vacation to visit family. I'm not super excited to fly with Carter by myself, but I'm excited to have a few well-deserved days off.

Oh, and here's my guy on his actual birthday morning with special birthday waffles.