Shark Attack Birthday Party

My son and his best friend both turned 12 in July an they had a joint Shark themed birthday swimming party to celebrate! Since the party was at his friend's house I was able to spend my time having fun creating the food and snacks for the boys! The big cake was pretty simple: chocolate cake with vanilla icing and a fondant shark cutout. The cupcakes were coconut cake, filled with berry jam and coconut cream cheese frosting. I used the extra fondant from the big shark and made mini shark fins for the cupcakes. For the favors I took rice krispie treats, dipped them in blue candy melts and decorated them with goldfish crackers and sprinkles.

For the snack table there was a drink dispenser with blue gatorade and mini Swedish fish frozen in ice cubes so they would float. Veggie Straws were pool noodles and Goldfish crackers and potato chips were called "Fish & Chips"

I had fun carving the watermelon and cucumber into sharks for the fruit and veggie platters and at the end of the day even the shark cucumber was eaten!

I think the best part of the whole party was the severed hands and feet floating in the pool! The kids got such a kick out of that and never stopped laughing at the "slow swimmers"

It was a great party and the kids had a ton of fun swimming!

Frozen 6th Birthday Party

My baby girl turned 6.

I'm still confused how that happened so quickly.

To celebrate, she requested a Frozen themed birthday party, just like every other little girl in the country. I had fun creating the cake and treats for her special day and on the car ride home she declared it was the best birthday party she ever had.

Every year, as usual, I made her cake while she was sleeping and then waited to "reveal" it to her when it was finished the next morning. I adore seeing my kid's faces when they finally see their cakes. The hours and effort I take creating something just for them is totally worth it when I see their smile. This year, I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed. I was pleased with the way the cake came out and really thought she was going to be thrilled to see it. Once she saw it, she never really said anything. I kept waiting and there was just ......nothing. What a freaking letdown!

Later on, my mom was talking to her upstairs and told her "you really should tell your mom thank you for making such a pretty cake for your party" and B's reply was "she already knows"

My mom was confused and said "how would she know if you never told her?"

B said "my mom reads my mind. She knows I love it, because everything I want, she knows without me saying. Everything I wanted on a cake she already knew because she reads my mind"

Awesome

I wish that her theory was true, but sadly I can't read her mind. I am glad that she's pretty certain that I can though, since all of her wishes were granted as far as the cake was concerned.

I started with a basic chocolate cake with vanilla white icing and did a fine mist of the silver color mist all over the cake. Then I stuck large shards of blue ice looking sugar candy I made (instructions for that are here) Then I took a stencil of swirls and sprayed the swirls on with a blue color mist spray

I took a small blue candy cane, crushed it finely and sprinkled that around the base of the candy shards that were sticking up an then placed some silver sixlet type candies I found at party city around the cake as well. I cheated and used plastic dolls for the cake toppers that I found at Target and the glittery number candle was $1 at Wal-Mart. For the trees I used pointy ice cream cones and piped green icing onto them with a small star tip, then I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of them for the snow. I finished it off with a few edible snow flakes and a little Olaf figurine

 For decorations on the table I had found these wooden snowflake tree toppers and World Market on clearance for $2 a piece and the cardboard snowflakes at Michael's for $1. I sprayed all of them with silver glitter spray paint and used them on the food table

For one of the snacks, we had "Melted Olaf"

vanilla yogurt, chocolate arms, candy eye balls and an orange tic tac

 We also had marshmallow "snowballs", snowflake shaped Ritz crackers and cheese cut out with a snowflake cookie cutter

I had cute little labels printed from here to go on the mini water bottles

and printed these cards to make food signs for "Sven's Snacks"- baby carrots with three cheese Ranch

We had the party at a cute art studio and all the kids got to paint their own canvas picture

 They had a great time and I was really impressed with how well the pictures came out from each of them! They were so proud to show off their work

 As soon as we got home she passed out on the couch!

It's exhausting being a princess

Star Wars 6th Birthday

 Every year I look forward to this moment. The "first glance at the cake" moment. 

The one second that makes all my pre-party stress totally worth it.

I am like almost every other mother I know; we put tremendous pressure on ourselves to make our children's parties "perfect"....whatever that means. 

And as I was decorating his cake this year I was realizing that I'm not going to be able to do my little tradition much longer. Every year I have completely hidden the cake from Marshall until right before his party, had him walk in when it's completely finished and gotten a picture of his face when he first sees it. It is something that I adore, seeing the excitement and joy in his face when getting the first glance at something that I have poured my heart into especially for him. 

 The older he gets the harder it is to pull this off. It takes hours to make his cakes and he needs to be gone or asleep for me to work on it. And keeping him away from the fridge where I am hiding it is a job itself. But I am so grateful for one more year of cake surprises and he was just as enthusiastic as I hoped he would be.

  Marshall is completely and utterly obsessed with Star Wars, so there was really no other choice for the theme of this party. For the cake I did a Millennium Falcon out of chocolate cake and vanilla icing.

 The party was at the Austin Children's Museum and I think everyone had a great time! I got the idea for the lightsaber utensil/napkins on pintrest and filled Yoda cups with bounce balls, candy, glow sticks, stickers and chalk for the favors

 The cake was chocolate and the cupcakes were vanilla

I got the idea for the chocolate covered lightsaber pretzel rods here

 I went a lot simpler this year with the food than I have in previous years. Han Solo Roll Ups for the adults (whole wheat wraps with ham, havarti cheese, spring mix greens and a spread I made out of sun dried tomatoes, mayo, garlic and a Pampered Chef Parmesan Garlic seasoning) and Jar Jar Links (crescent wrapped turkey little smokies) for the kids

 PB&J bombers that I cut out with these sandwich cutters and the cupcake decorating set from here. Luckily for me I live very close to a Williams-Sonoma outlet and was able to get all of these items on clearance!

 Droid Dip and Vader Veggies

Yoda Melon, Trooper Scoopers and Jawa Juice

 The birthday Jedi ready for some cake and Princess Brianna with her Leia buns

 Make a wish!!

 

 I love random pictures when you see all of your guests having fun!

 As we were cleaning up Brianna had to put herself at the head of the table and pretend it was her day, even if ti was only for 5 minutes

Once we got home Marshall got to open his gifts and I got to relax with a glass of wine. We were both happy!
I have always found it stressful to open gifts in front of people. You never know what potentially embarrassing things kids will say, like "I didn't want this" or "that's it?" or when you receive three of the same item.  Do you open gifts at parties or do you wait till you get home?


" Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is"
-Yoda

Magical Birthdays

Hi there! 

It's been a while hasn't it?!

The last time I was here I was sharing how sad I was about how sick my baby girl was on her birthday and I wasn't able to throw her a mermaid Ariel themed birthday party.

Well, luckily for us, we already had plans for something far better than what I could pull off at home and I think it may have been the best birthday a little girl could ever wish for

Yeah, that's Ariel making a little kid's dream come true in about 2.7 seconds

And there she is again, being treated like royalty in Cinderella's Castle for her birthday breakfast

 The breakfast was awesome by the way! I really didn't have too high of hopes for the food I was going to find in Disney World, but I'm happy to say I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. For breakfast at Cinderella's Castle we had sausage, bacon, marinated berries and a french toast souffle stuffed with marscapone cheese.....YUM!

The kids loved every second of it! 

Brianna's wasn't the only birthday we were celebrating while we were there

 Louis turned another year older while we were there and I pre-arranged for them to surprise him with this mountain of sugary goodness for his special day. This three layer double chocolate cake was topped with a whole chocolate bar, cupcake, a huge wedge of a brownie, m&m's and mickey shaped sprinkles. 

The people at Disney don't mess around!

Marshall had his fair share of fun too, even if it wasn't his birthday

 His special time of the trip was spent fighting evil and restoring peace to the galaxy

He's a real Jedi now and he's got the papers to prove it!

And no one can go to Disney and not eat one of these, right?!

Under the Sea.....to Under the Weather

Before we left for our 10 day trip back home I packed everything I needed to decorate a beautiful mermaid themed birthday cake.

(at least the design in my head was beautiful) 

Sprinkles, homemade fondant, cutters, icing gel colors, streamers, pink plates and forks, a cake board and MUCH MUCH MORE. 

While packing all of my baking gear I came across a cupcake liner and topper set I bought a while ago and I threw it in the box. I really didn't know why but in the back of my mind I said "just in case"

well guess what?
I ended up needing that back up box and I was so glad for my over planning!
During our trip both the kids and Louis ended up with terrible colds and one ear infection which led to antibiotics, cough medicine, humidifiers and many nights of being up at all hours trying to console one of them.
The day before we had scheduled all of our family to come over and share a piece of that beautiful cake I had in my mind we had to cancel the party. My little mermaid princess was just too sick to invite people over. I was so sad for her but I still wanted to do something fun, so out came the fairy themed cupcake box.
Pink cake, purple icing and fairy toppers

She got to eat her girly cake in her footed pj's, princess crown and Ariel nightgown, Vick's vapo-rub and all!

(please excuse the hideous face I am making, apparently I eat cake like an animal)

Today is her birthday

She is 3 and very proud of it!

We are so blessed to have her and I couldn't imagine life without her

 so sweet

and so sassy

 

Thanks to Al Gawlik Photography for the amazing pictures! If you live in Austin you must check her out!

How Time Flies

Well the holidays just swept me away and I can't believe it's already January!

Today I was busy packing Christmas decorations to put away (among all of the other chores that go along with a 10 day trip back home) and the kids were a little upset with me.

They didn't really know why I had to put away all the decorations, why I was taking ornaments off of the Christmas tree and why Santa was no longer "comin' to town"

I tried to put it the best way I knew how:  "now we get to start all over again"

Trying to further make this transition a little more exciting than disappointing I reminded them both that after Christmas we also get to celebrate B's birthday

My baby girl is going to be 3 tomorrow

and I thought I'd share with you a cake I make recently for another princess that turned 2

This little beauty had a Dr Seuss themed birthday party so a bright, colorful two tiered cake was requested

I made a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and covered it with fondant and fondant accents

I hope she enjoyed her special day!