We had a little party the Saturday after Prim’s birthday — half to celebrate Prim and half to say goodbye to our friends here in Amsterdam. Our move date is fast-approaching, so it was nice to take some time to hang out with the friends we’ve made during our two years in the city.

We got really lucky with the weather, as it was warm and sunny. The weather here in spring and summer is about as unpredictable as it gets. This week it’s vacillating between sunny 80 degree days and gray, rainy ones — literally changing between the two over the span of just a few hours.Prim was quite excited to be the guest of honor at her birthday party. Prim is incredibly extroverted, so being the center of attention for the day is pretty much an ideal scenario for her. And a day where you get cake, presents, and people singing to you? I mean, forget it. Nothing compares. Prim had trouble nailing down exactly what kind of cake she wanted. She initially wanted a “brown cake,” then a “black cake,” and finally a “yellow cake.” I decided to incorporate all the colors and made her a rainbow confetti cake (or as it’s known in its box form — funfetti). I doubled this recipe to make a two-tier cake, which turned out to be quite delicious (and I don’t even like cake). If I ever make it again, I think I will make a three-tier cake, as the layers aren’t particularly tall, and dang if we didn’t go through almost the entire cake at the party. But I only have one cake pan here in Amsterdam, so I was already making and baking this in two shifts, so two tiers was what I managed during my afternoon baking frenzy. I did manage to incorporate Prim’s wishes for a black or brown cake by making black and brown cookies — these chocolate peanut butter stuffed ones. Like all combinations of chocolate and peanut butter, they were delicious. I mean, Deb would never steer us wrong, would she?I spent about three hours cooking and baking the day before the party, prepping the food. I made both tiers of the cake, a double-batch of frosting, cookies, a batch of homemade salsa (the jarred stuff here is about as bad as the local Mexican cuisine), green goddess dip, a whole mess of grilled peppers and onions (for the sausages we would be barbecuing on the day-of) and two pizzas for dinner that night.This meant that the day of the party all I had to do was assemble the food and put it on the table. I put together a big cheese and meat board, a bunch of veggies for a crudite platter, and frosted and decorated the cake. Word to the wise on this one — frost your cake the day you make the frosting. I made the frosting the day before and stored it in the fridge overnight, not realizing that it would harden (hello, Chelsea, buttercream..? Come on.) I had to do some last-minute damage control to get it to a spreadable state again, but it all worked out fine in the end.I’m so glad that girl had such a good time at her party. We had the best time celebrating her, and I can’t wait to see what year four is going to bring.