In March of this year our first born (son- Dominic) turned one and it sure blew by fast!  I started planning his birthday party about 3 months ahead of time.  My husband is 25 percent Korean, 50 percent Irish and 25 percent Sicilian and loves that he has such a mixed heritage.  And me, well I am 100 percent German.  To honor our heritage my husband and I threw a party for our son incorporating all of our heritage. 
Dominic was born in the year of the dragon and probably owns everything ever made that is a dragon, including this hard to find awesome Lamaze Dragon Dee Dee the Dragon.  So we knew that we had to incorporate dragons into the theme as well.  After taking Wilton's Course 2 on Cake Decorating, I felt reasonably confident that I could sculpt dragons for his cake.  Of course, in my typical fashion of more is better, bigger is better, I decided to make 13 little dragons.  One for each month of his life so far including an extra one for the day he was born.  To make it more interesting I decided that each dragon should be posed into a position so to speak. (Do you think I am crazy yet!?)  After much headache I finally decided I would match each dragon with his accomplishment from each month.  For example, when Dominic was 7 months old he pulled himself up.
With the help of a good friend Trish, my cousin Mel and my mother-in-law, we pulled it off.  13 little dragons were completed.  I placed 1 on each of 12 cupcakes and then the last one on his special cake. 
A lot of my inspiration came from OnebiteSweet's etsy shop Fondant Dragons, another etsy shop named Fondant Fads, and a website called Cake Central.  Of course we adapted the poses for the dragons to meet the 12 different accomplishments my son had over the last 12 months.  Here are some pictures which I hope bring you some inspiration for your next baking venture!

As far as other parts of our heritage that we included in Dominic's party, his cake had 2 candles for my German heritage, his grandmother made Irish soda bread and I made Italian tricolor cookies for the first time.  Take a look: 

The only adaptation I made with this recipe is that I let the top set up a little longer then it said to and I didn't rake a fork through the top of it because I liked the pristine look it had.  This recipe was courteous of my monthly Food Network subsription and the recipe can be found here Rainbow Cookies.  All of the Italians in the family gave these great praise and I hope you enjoy them too! 

 

Here is a few more pictures from his party that I hope will give you some inspiration for planning your next party.