Birthday's and High Hopes

So today is my mom's birthday (Happy Birthday Mom!) and I had such high hopes for the day.  We went to breakfast which was nice and I made her a cake for after dinner.  This is where I had the highest of hopes.  I wanted to make something similar to the cover of Sugarlicious.

She loves flamingo's and I thought what a cute cake I could make for her and I would just add more flamingos and nix the gnome.  In my mind the cake looks exactly like the one on the cover.  Here is what it looks like in real life.

Not nearly as tall or as grand as the professional one.  But not an epic fail either.  Every time I make something I always feel like those 'Nailed It' pictures on Pinterest.  You know the ones where they show what something is supposed to look like and then a picture of just a hot mess. 

Like this:



I don't know if my aspirations are too high for my skill level, or I don't have the right tools, or I'm not as artistic as I want to be.  Maybe the problem is that I just need more practice.  Maybe the writers of all the cookbooks I covet started out like me.  And maybe their first cakes weren't perfect either. 

Either way I am still going to continue on and subject my family to my trials because most importantly I love at least trying.  And maybe on my one year blog anniversary I will have made something worthy of the pros.