Perfect is nice, but imperfect makes better memories...

The other night we had a joint birthday party for my little Eliza and my niece Amelia, who both just turned 3.  This is the first birthday they've really been old enough to "get" what was going on, and I wanted to make it big.  My sister Amy is an awesome cake decorator, and I asked her to please help me make a super fantastic girly cake, and she was with me all the way.

But, as so often happens, our plans got derailed.  With 40,000 other things happening, I didn't get the cakes made early enough to freeze (which would have made them much easier to decorate).  Then I was late getting to my mom's house to do the actual decorating.  Then, as my sister was hurrying over to teach me how to do the decorating, her tire blew out and she was stranded.  My brother went to rescue her, and by the time she got to the house there was almost no time left before the party was meant to start.  I said, "Maybe we should just forget the cake.  There's no way we can do it in time."  I was thinking we could just cover it with canned frosting and call it good, or steal the cupcakes my mom had bought for another occasion.  But Amy was adamant -- the cute girly cake was going to happen!  Moving at lightning speed, she leveled cakes, rolled out fondant, and did a bunch of other stuff that I didn't even see because I was trying to put up balloons and streamers.  I have never seen someone work so hard, so fast.

She was apologetic about the final product -- it was lumpy and bumpy and did not have the perfect finish that her other cakes have had.  But the little girls loved it.  I loved it.  Everyone at the party loved it.  It was really the centerpiece of the whole party!  

Do you think they're excited about the cake?

As I thought about it later, I realized how much more memorable that cake is now.  If everything had gone according to plan and we had come up with a perfect cake, when we looked at the pictures of the party in the future we would have said, "Oh, there's the cute cake Mom and Amy made."  Instead, we have this crazy cake that every time I see it, it will remind me of that crazy day and how much my sister loves me and Eliza and Amelia, and how hard we all worked to make that party a fun one for our little people.  It reminds me that my sister is willing to drop everything and do anything for me and my family.  It reminds me how much I love her.  It might sound silly, but now that cake stands for something.  Kerry Vincent probably wouldn't give it high marks, but that's okay -- it's about so much more than the decoration now.