Gracie's 3rd Birthday Cake

Wow! It has been almost a year since my last post. Life just got too busy :/ Last month was my daughter's 3rd birthday. We had a very small family party. I had decided not to have a big party for her, but of course I still had to have something! And I really wanted to make this cake. She loves Ariel right now so I googled "Ariel birthday cakes" and most were way too hard. I found the perfect tutorial for this. Even though the cake is small, it was so time consuming. I have a new respect for cake makers and decorators. The cake was a doctored box mix (gasp!). The cupcakes were lemon with lemon frosting and vanilla with vanilla frosting. I didn't want to cut the cake (we didn't cut it at the party) because I just wanted to stare at my hard work! Finally that evening my daughter said, "Mama, aren't we going to have my cake?" Me: "(Sigh) Well, I suppose so." Finally we cut into it!