Girl's Birthday Bash

We only have two girls, but they were both born in August! Roz was in WI for her birthday on the 19th so we celebrated both the girl's birthdays last Saturday while she was here visiting. One might think it would be hard to find a theme for a shared 1st and 21st birthday party. Not so. Everyone likes "ice cream" so I thought that would be a fun theme. Thanks to Pinterest I found a couple fun ideas for cupcakes and decorations. And since the party was for our girls we used a lot of pink too!

We decorated with balloons made into ice cream cones and pink streamers. I also made a few ice cream cones out of paper to hang on the walls. The cupcakes worked double as decorations too. There were "ice cream sundae" cupcakes and "ice cream cone" cupcakes.

 

The sundaes were chocolate cupcakes with extra firm frosting that looked like ice cream topped with melted chocolate, sprinkles, and a gum ball. I had a hard time finding paper ice cream cups for the sundaes so I just ended up using some fancy pink muffin liners.

The cones were funfetti cake topped with butter cream frosting that looked like soft serve ice cream and sprinkles. I used some pink scrapbook paper to make little paper sleeves for the cones.

For food we had all appetizers. We invited all our AZ family and asked them to bring a favorite appetizer as well. We had a TON of food! Veggies & dip, fruit & dip, taco dip & chips, hot mustard dip & pretzels, chocolate chip hummus & pita chips, bacon wrapped pretzels, potato salad, hot swiss cheese/bacon dip, olive bread, and, of course, cupcakes & ice cream. Everyone seemed to enjoy tasting all the different foods, and even though there was no main dish I don't think anyone went away hungry!

Here are the birthday girls!

After Roz helped her blow out her candle, Annabeth enjoyed her cupcake.

Then it was on to presents...

Then we visited a bit (and played with new toys) before we wrapped things up.

Thanks to all who came! Hugs to those who were too far away to come!

Four For H

Today is Hayden's fourth birthday! He woke up to balloons and signs in the kitchen and then had an otherwise normal day. While he napped I got out his gifts and set out his cake. Which the brothers all declared "very cool". Hayden liked it as well.

I have to admit that I kind of steered him in the direction of this cake when it was time to choose his birthday cake this year. I had seen the cake on BettyCrocker.com (if you need cute cake ideas they have lots!) and I just thought it was so cute. So when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he said a car cake again I told him, "You had that last year. How about a barn cake this year?". Thankfully he agreed. It was definitely one of the easier cakes I have made. Thanks to a fellow mom of twins who sells cake decorating stuff I was finally able to find truly red food coloring! And I got a great frosting recipe as well! Tastes just like a bakery... YUM!

We had homemade pizza for dinner (stuffed crust for the grown-ups and half cheese/half pepperoni for the kids) before moving on to the cake. This was the first birthday Roz has been away from home so we opened up the old video chat.

Not only did Roz (and Jeff) join us, but the Showns and my parents did as well. We had a few technical difficulties but it really is amazing that we had four computers so many miles apart all connected to sing "Happy Birthday" to a sweet little boy!

After the chat and a piece of cake Hayden opened a few presents. Hayden was very pleased with his gifts and so were his brothers. Community property laws, you know.

This will be the last birth story of the year... so if you are interested in reading it here's Hayden's! It's a good one! Right, Mom?! Full of adventure and another ambulance ride! Hayden's labor ended up being longer than any of the other boys but only because they tried to stop it.

Happy Birthday Hayden!!

Easter Tradition

A few years ago we started a new tradition: an Easter Lamb cake. I am not sure, really, the history of the lamb cake. I don't think it is a Wisconsin thing...I think it is a Polish (Catholic?) thing. Just another, albeit strange way, to remind us Jesus was the Lamb of God. Also popular around here are butter molds in the shape of a lamb. My family (and a lot of others here) always have lamb, not ham, on Easter...with mint jelly. Yum!

For us though, it started when Wesley was born. The neighbor, Millie, across the street at the old house brought us over a lamb cake as a little gift when he was born. I think Easter was the next Sunday after he was born that year. Anyway, Jerry LOVED that cake and I asked Millie for the recipe. She was embarrassed to admit that the cake was actually a Betty Crocker mix (!) but she did share her frosting recipe with me. It's delicious and everyone's favorite! Millie has had her lamb cake pan for MANY years (like 50!). She made my Uncle Mark a lamb cake when he broke his leg at age 8 or so. [Funny side note: She asked me if I remembered that!?! Ummm...no, Millie, I wasn't even born yet!]

Lamb cake isn't really a new tradition. Here you can see proof that this same pan has been around a long time.Actually, it's not that new of a tradition, even for our family. Here is a picture of my great grandma with a lamb cake she made. They were so excited when the photographer was in town they made a cake to celebrate and snapped this photo.Just kidding. I have absolutely no idea who this lady is, but I thought this was great picture and it's sure to be somebody's great grandma!

Back to the story....a few Easters ago, Jerry asked if I could make a lamb cake. He thought it would be a good Easter tradition to make memories for the boys. So I borrowed the pan from Millie. Guess I would rather have a lamb cake than a "Welcome Back Jesus" cake. [My mom always had a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake at Christmas. Jerry always thought that was funny, so one year he got my mom an Easter "Welcome Back Jesus" cake. I wonder what the lady working in the bakery at Basha's thought about that!]

Welcome Back Cake (1997?)

After some internet searching (what did people do before Google?), I was surprised to see that the same company* still makes Millie's pan! I was joking when I told Jerry I'd put it on his Christmas list, but he thought that was a good idea. So for Christmas 2007, Jerry got (among other things, thankfully) a lamb cake pan. We didn't use it last year because we were moving in the midst of Easter celebrations and our pan was in a box somewhere.

Easter Lamb Cake 2009

This year we're all settled in and I knew right where the pan was so I pulled it out and made a lamb cake for Easter dinner dessert. Cute as it was, it was not as tasty as I had hoped. I have found the cake mix cake to be a little too weak to support the weight of the little lamb's head so I thought I'd make a cake from scratch to give it a little more substance. It was a little too much substance, it was basically a brick with frosting, only Jerry liked it. If anyone has a recipe for a fluffy (but not too fluffy) white cake let me know. Because unless I come up with something else, next year we'll be back to lamb cake a la Betty Crocker.

*You can get your very own lamb cake pan here (or search Nordicware lamb cake pan on Google).

Wesley's Birthday Fun

Wesley requested a "world" cake for his birthday. I couldn't just hand him the whole world on a platter, so here's what he got:
Half the world! I baked a chocolate cake (from scratch so it was a bit more dense) in a Pyrex bowl. Then I just frosted it with blue and green frosting trying to make it look like the western hemisphere. I'm not sure what happened to Canada and don't even ask what that is off to the west! South America and Africa looked pretty good though.

I didn't think that little ol' cake would be enough for everyone so I made a batch of cupcakes as well. I thought about decorating the top of each one as a little globe too but then decided it would be much easier to decorate them with flags. I printed some flags of the internet and glued them to toothpicks. Jerry wanted me to be sure and let you all know we are not in any way advocates for a one world government! It was supposed to more of a Geography cake than a Government cake.

Early in the week Wesley made what he called "a birthday menu". I think he really meant schedule. He included the following: 1) Chat 2) Games-Pin the Tail on the Donkey 3) Open presents 4) Eat and 5) Have cake

So we did our best to follow his "menu". Here is the birthday boy pinning the tail on the donkey. Every one of the kids cheated (peeked) and got the tail right where it was supposed to go! Where's the fun in that?!
Here's the birthday boy just after blowing out his candles:One last shot for the road. JD's new trick is pulling the chairs (or benches) away from the table and climbing up to see what interesting stuff might be up on the table. At least twenty times a day this is how I find him:

Holy Twisters Batman!

The twins turn 5 tomorrow so we had a little party for them today. Did you know there is an unwritten rule that twins each need their own cake? Well, there is! I'm not making this up. But I do think a baker made up the rule. So I follow the rule but beat them at their own game by making cakes myself! I take cake requests and try my best. This year Justus asked for a Batman cake. Easy enough. Eli asked for a tornado cake. Ummm, okay.

So here they are in all their sugar-y, dyed glory!!!

Justus' Batman Cake

A chocolate cake with yellow and black frosting. The bat is a giant sugar cookie with black glaze on it. [I need to work on my frosting penmanship.] After the design was already in the works, I discovered Justus really wanted a cake in the shape of Batman's head. That wasn't going to happen, so I added the little Batman figure as an extra bonus.

Eli's Tornado Cake

Nothing says "Happy Birthday" like a dead cow on your cake! That's Eli for you...my future storm chaser loved it! A white cake with green frosting. The actual tornado is made of circle shaped sugar cookies in decreasing size. I put a hole in the middle of each circle and put a tiny dowel through the holes for support and used frosting as the glue to hold it all together. [It was a bit too heavy so there are two additional dowel pieces in the back for support.] The little house is a sugar cookie too. The destroyed road is Oreo cookie crumbs and the other decor was borrowed from the toy box and my Christmas village. I did have to add the little satellite dish to the storm chasing vehicle...it's just a piece of paper "glued" on with a dab of frosting.

Since tomorrow is their real birthday I'll share the rest of the photos in tomorrow's birthday post!

Birthday Fun!

Here are a few photos of Hayden's birthday.......

Here is the birthday boy:

Here is the cake I made for him. Hayden loves cars so I thought I would try and make a cake shaped like a car. They actually make a pan that is shaped like a car you can buy, but I'm too cheap for that! So I just made two cake mixes...one 9x13 and the other an 8x 8 with 6 cupcakes.
I put the 8x8 on top of the 9x13 and cut the tops off the cupcake tops to use as wheels. I dug through the cupboard to find some candies to use for the head/tail lights. Wesley asked why I made the tires flat. Jerry mentioned something about the "Big Three" and "Let them eat cake!".
See the little license plate? I just made it out of paper covered with tape.

Hayden liked it though and that's all that matters. See the gift bag Wesley made for him? It had a paper house in it for one of his cars. Wesley worked hard on it along with a card. I should take a picture of the card and post that as well. It was a Lightning McQueen pop up card. He did a great job on it!
...Happy Birthday, Dear Hayden....at least he blew out his candle this year. Last year he put it out with his finger and screamed!
Of course, he enjoyed his gifts! When he could get them away from his brothers that is! Justus was heard to exclaim several times, "Look what WE got!" See what I mean...Grandma Joddy sent a gift bag that lit up and played the birthday song. It was a BIG hit!
While the cake didn't win any awards for appearance, it was pretty tasty. Just ask J.D.