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easter 2011.

Traditionally you know how it goes, Easter Bunny hides eggs, children seek, copious amounts of chocolate are consumed, and you don’t really get to see a lot, just the back of their heads as they run away searching for more.

Grey wouldn’t even let us take off his other shoe, he was too excited about finding eggs.

Snacking while you work is permitted.

Finn was wondering where his candy was? (You see he was discarded by the front door, still buckled into his car seat while everyone else was having fun)

I was there too!

After the excitement wore down, I found Hunter lying at the top of the stairs devouring his new book the Easter Bunny brought him.

Ava with her bunny, Mrs. Cotton Tail.

Lily with her bunny, Sparkles.

For dinner I cooked my very first ham on the bone, and other than the thermometer crapping out halfway through, I think it was cooked. (nobody died, so I assume all is well) For the table I found these adorable egg shaped dinner plates and I made carrot utensil holders to go with.

See the knife and fork are the carrot leaves. Cute hey!

And for dessert, since I knew everybody would be full of Easter candy, I made mini birds nest cupcakes that fit perfectly into my egg holder. (thanks for the idea Nic)

And that was Easter. I love seeing my family together and it makes me so happy that I can share my pictures with the rest of my family that is so far away. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. ♥

megamind. {movie night}

I loved this one. Darren and I watched it before the kids, so I had the chance to really prepare some fun stuff for them.

The movie is basically about two babies sent from space and one grows up to be bad and the other grows up to be good.

I started by making little spaceship cupcakes, like the ones they came to earth in.

I used little plastic cups from a party store (I think they might be shot cups?? They have little plastic snap lids that go with them. I use them for veggie dip for the kids school lunches) Anyways, frosting and Smarties (Canadian Smarties… LOL!) for the lights on the sides.

Some superhero juice. Using Titan’s mask as decoration.

Some Megamind super watches.

And for decorations I strung some colored papers from the ceiling using fishing line. It’s mostly recycled paper and Darren’s old school exams. I’m sure it makes no sense to you, but if you’ve seen the movie, you’d understand. ;)

And last but not least, I found a link on the HP website to make some Megamind masks for the kids. I printed the minion masks and used elastic around the back. (Titan’s mask from the juice is from the HP website as well)

And that’s our super simple movie night. Sorry to be so quick, but Finn is really sick and crying this super wimpy little cry that’s breaking my heart.

Have a great weekend!

valentines dinner 2011

I have a love/hate relationship with Valentines day. I love it because it’s pink and frilly and full of hearts and love and gooey, gushy things. But in the same breath, I could really care less about the whole standard “holiday” greeting card, flowers, chocolate thing. I would much rather move onto more important things like my birthday and Mother’s Day. ♥

But with that being said, I love planning me a party! And so, instantly the gooey, gushy holiday becomes my friend. I’m not so into the decorating part, but I love the food part. Raspberries, chocolate, whipping cream and strawberries. Romantic fizzy drinks and heart shaped anything.

I’m not going to go into as much detail as I usually would, since V-day is over and I’m sure nobody cares that much, but if you’ve got a question please feel free to leave a comment. ♥

Our yummy dinner, pizza bread with heart shaped peperonis.

The cupcakes were a vanilla cake with pink buttercream frosting, topped with chocolate whipped cream and a fresh strawberry, drizzled with milk chocolate. (okay, not drizzled, but globbed with chocolate)

My huge pile of Valentines from the children. I am so loved! ♥

I wrote each of the kids love letters this year. Something that I hope they will treasure and really take to heart, because I meant every word.

And that was our dinner. And Darren, even though I told him not to get me anything, had gone out to get something and when he got back I was upset that I forgot to tell him to get me a disposable icing bag for my cupcakes. Well, how’s this for coincidence… guess what he got me for Valentines day? A re-useable fancy icing bag and coupler. Such a smart hubby I have.

Hope your day was mushy, gushy and full of love. ♥ ♥ ♥

beverly hills chihuahua 2 {movie night}

I had so much fun doing this movie night, and I actually like how it ended up being simple and sweet. A cupcake treat and fizzy pop… my kids were in heaven.

A homemade chocolate cupcake base with white buttercream frosting. I wanted each of the cupcakes to have something different that was dog related. I ended up keeping 3 of my original ideas (time issues, as usual LOL)

So we ended up with; doggy collars, made from marshmallow fondant and studded with silver eatable beads (we are in Beverly Hills after all)

And dog food cupcakes. (corn pops cereal. Reese Pieces cereal looks eerily like dog food, but we’re all out)

And last, puppy hair cupcakes. (chocolate jimmies) Those darn dogs shedding all over the place. Gross huh. But guess what… kids love disgusting things like that. ;)

Since our movie takes place in Beverly Hills, I decided to reconstruct the Hollywood sign, on a much, much smaller scale.

I used white letter stickers, backed them on black cardstock and cut them out. My “hillside” is a box covered in ruffled green grass fabric.

To stick the letters into the hill, I hot glued a pin to the back of each letter. Poked it into the box and done.

The kids are laughing hysterically downstairs, and Grey keeps jumping up at the TV screen saying, Puppy, Puppy? So I’m pretty sure this one is a keeper.

(Scratch above statement, movie is over and the kids are HYPER!! Running, jumping and going crazy, thank goodness I’m upstairs on the computer and Darren’s down there, with the crazies.)

Have a great weekend! Don’t forget to check out my 365 Blog. ♥

halloween dinner.

I really wanted to have a special Halloween dinner for my kids, but I knew that this week was already going to be really hectic with school parties and Cub activities, plus the Church Halloween party on Saturday, and we have Stake Conference on Sunday, so basically the best day to do it was yesterday. And to add more excitement/work to my day I decided to invite the Missionary’s as well.

The bad part about that… well they white washed our area (which means they brought in 2 brand new Missionary’s) So I didn’t know either of them, and they didn’t know us, at all. I really didn’t want them to think I was some crazy person having them over for dinner to some elaborate spooky dinner party on a random Wednesday night, so I decided to scale back my ideas a bit, but still do some fun food and table decor.

For drinks I wanted a unique beverage, so we had Mountain Dew, and to make it extra fun I added a yellow glow stick to make it eerie and glow like toxic waste.

(A fun idea would be to put a toxic waste sticker to go on the front of the your glass beaker)

The other beverage was this awesome Goblin Juice I found at the grocery store… but it tasted awful. So we didn’t drink it. But it sure looked cute!

Black and white dishes with silver charger plates, black dinner napkins and vampire teeth for each guest.

Blood red Jell-O with gummy spiders and worms.

 

My favorite part of the whole table…

My skeleton salad servers. I just about DIED when I saw these in the store. So, so adorable!!

For dessert we had vampire cupcakes, complete with bloody teeth marks.

The inside was filled with raspberry jam for a oozy surprise.

I hung some skeleton grim reapers in the back window.

And that’s about it. Nothing too fancy, but still fun for the kids and Mommy.

While all of this was going on, we had locked Grey into the living room to avoid any messes or destruction to the table… when I walked in and saw this…

He got to three of them before anyone noticed.

 

Then it was back to baby prison…

He was very excited about that as you can see.

lily’s 5th. {party decor}

I figured I’d better get these pictures posted before the mass amounts of new baby pictures you’ll flooded with soon. ♥

I was so excited to do her birthday this year. I had some cute mermaid ideas swirling around in my head and asked her if she wanted that as her party theme. She was very excited and wanted to make it a pool party too! Well, that worked fine for me too. (The only problem was how chilly it was on her actual birthday, so the pool was out.)

I got right to work a couple weeks before (shocked aren’t you!) I made her this super simple little outfit to wear on her special day.

I cut some pink seashells out of sparkly fabric and glued them onto a plain white t-shirt. The skirt was just a tube with 5-7 layers of tulle sewed around the bottom. Add an elastic waist band and done! She looked adorable! (but when doesn’t she)

As for decor, I wasn’t sure where to begin setting up an underwater themed party… but after doing a little brainstorming, I started with seaweed!

I bought 3 yards of a sheer green chiffon like fabric and folded it over and over again. I began cutting wavy lines up the the length of the fabric, not the width. (You want your strips as long as possible)

Once you’ve cut all of your fabric into strips, (and trust me this does not have to be perfect, in fact the less perfect the better) Make your way over to your sewing machine.

I started stitching down the center of the fabric using a long stitch length (4). Eventually my straight seams got sloppy, and I found out that it works better when you kind of wave the line anyways. Backstitch one end only!

The best part was that my machine was starting to gather the fabric for me. (Thank you!) I had planned on pulling the threads to gather it after I was done stitching anyways.

(Now I must apologize, this picture is awful. As it turns out, it’s the ONLY one I took of the seaweed hanging… can you believe it!!) I tried to keep it dark, so you can see it better… the trees in the background were competing with all that green.

So anyways, I loosely tied the green strips to my curtain rod and a funky underwater scene was set.

The little black dots you see in the picture are sparkly sequins that I hand strung onto thread and mixed them in between all the seaweed, they needed to have their picture taken at night time, so you could see them, but when you have 4 kids the inevitable is bound to happen, and Ava ripped them all down. :(

I had lofty ideas of making felt fish and stringing them up with the seaweed, but sometimes you just have to cut things from your task list, not enough hours in the day. ♥

Alright, onto the fun stuff… the TABLE!!!

We sipped fancy pink drinks with pink umbrellas and pink straws.

 

Along with our yummy drinks we had gold fish crackers, served in a tiny fish bowl…

 

And blue starfish brownie pops.

Much like Bakerella’s cake balls, but all I did was make a pan of brownies instead. I then used a cookie cutter to make the star fish shape; push on a lollypop stick and dip in blue chocolate melting wafers. Yummy!!!

I made the little white stands that the fish bowls were sitting on, out of a wooden circle disks and a candle stick holders.

Painted white and glued together. Topped with another tiny fish bowl (from the dollar store) and filled with colorful glass beads. The pink coral was an accidental score on my part. It fit perfectly. (Don’t discount the fish section of your local Wal-Mart people… treasures are waiting to be found. ☺)

Some other simple table decor was our place settings. Silver charger plates, with green, blue and white bowls. Pink napkins a sparkly blue table runner and a “puddle” of shiny blue fabric.

Draped from our light fixture was pink tulle netting that had some felt starfish “caught” in it.

I wish I could have spent more time on this, but my belly was too big to reach the center of the table, so I had Darren do it. The starfish were hand cut out of felt, stitched with pink embroidery floss and beads. I stuffed them with batting and glued them together.

Now onto the coolest part of her birthday table… the cake!!

Chocolate cupcakes frosted with (what else) butter cream frosting.

Each cake had it’s own ocean themed gum paste shape.

A starfish…

An oyster complete with shiny pearl…

 

A tiny little pink shell…

And a little blue fish blowing bubbles…

The top of the cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and topped with a special birthday cupcake (although Hunter ate that one…)

 

I love how it turned out.

After all was said and done, her party kind of didn’t end up really having anything to do with mermaids. LOL! But I think the whole concept was there, and this little Miss didn’t seem to mind at all.

Her presents and cutting of the cake will have to wait for another post. So, check back soon! xoxo!

PS. 1 more week until BABY DAY!!!

don’t be so koi.

When Hunter’s teacher asked some parents to bring treats for his year end party at school, I knew some adorable cupcakes were just the thing. Since it was a beach themed party, we flipped through our cupcake books and decided to make some fun koi fish cupcakes.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find orange circus peanuts, (his body and fins) which would have matched his orange eyes and mouth so much better.

I love a challenge when it comes to creating anything, but yesterday when I made these (hours before his party was to start) I was grateful for the simplicity of an easy cupcake design.

Here they are all ready to go to school.

Hahaha… a school of fish…

Can I tell you again, how much i LOVE my cupcake caddy.

And while we’re talking about cupcakes, I decided that Lily’s class needed some cupcakes for her last day of school too. So I quickly whipped up these little grad cap cupcakes.

Mini vanilla cupcakes, with a peanut butter cup base, After Eight mint tops, mini m&m button and red pull n’ peel licorice tassels.

Sorry for the quick pictures, but I was literally running out the door as I took these. And also in case you’re wondering, Ava’s class was not allowed treats, hence her lack of cupcakes. BUT I am making up for it today… it’s her 7th birthday and I’m making her own special rock star birthday cupcakes. Wish me luck!

29, cupcakes.

Last Saturday was my 29th birthday, and I got to celebrate it the best way I know how…

shopping without any children.

What a great present. Darren graciously stayed home and watched all 4 children, gasp, by himself. (people make that stupid comment to me all the time, “WHAT, your husband is watching ALL those children, by himself?”… ummm last time I checked, he is their father.)

Anyways, me and my parents headed over to the States to do some serious damage to our pocketbooks and spent the day hopping from store to store, spending all our money, (or lack there of). Darren had already given me my birthday present earlier in the week (an sleek new iPod touch, which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!! Best gift EVAH!!) But when I saw the newest book in the Hello Cupcake Series, ‘What’s New Cupcake’, well I had to have it.

And that is what leads me to my newest cupcake creation.

These cupcakes look so beautiful once they are done and couldn’t be any simpler if they tried. My girls helped me make them, and probably could have done them on their own without my help, they are that easy.

Start off by taking colored (or white) mini marshmallows. Using scissors cut the marshmallow on the diagonal.

Plop the cut pieces into a bowl of colored sugar.

Stir, shake or use your fingers to coat the sticky, cut side of the marshmallow with sugar.

(I did about 8-10 marshmallows at a time, and another thing I learned, if your scissors aren’t clean, you won’t get a good crisp cut on the marshmallow. I washed mine every 4 cupcakes or so to make sure they weren’t sticky)

Take a cupcake and frost it with whatever you choose. The book says canned frosting, but I refuse to eat that stuff, yuck. So I whipped up a batch of my butter cream frosting and just added more milk to make it a bit more runny. (Usually, I make it really stiff to use for piping work)

Then working your way around the edge of the cupcake, start sticking on the sugared marshmallows.

This is where I got lazy and stopped taking pictures. So just do the next level of marshmallows on top of that one until you work your way to the middle.

You can use all sorts of different things for the center of the flower. In the book they used Goodie licorice candies, but you could also use sprinkles, chocolate chips, dots, jimmy’s or whatever else your creative mind can conjure.

There you have it, so easy, so simple, and SO adorable!!

Happy cupcaking!

cherry cupcakes.

I whipped these cupcakes up for Lily’s class Valentines party, and when I say whipped, I mean it. It was about 10 or 11 at night and I was frosting and decorating cupcakes with whatever I had in the house.

I started by using a white cake mix and tweaked the recipe to include a package of cherry flavored Kool-Aid powder. They turned out really yummy and full of cherry flavor. (you could use any flavor you want, I’m excited to try orange with dark chocolate ganache… yummy!)

Next up some butter cream frosting topped with sprinkles and a cherry flavored 3 Musketeers. (remember the raspberry ones last year? They came out with cherry this year)

Anyways, they were a hit and I was pretty proud that I used things I had hanging around my house to create them.

 

I used my new cupcake caddy to transport them, which I LOVE! (thanks mom!) It has little cups to hold them secure.

And that’s all for today, both my babies are sleeping at the same time (a miracle for sure!!) So a quick update and maybe a load of laundry? So many possibilities! Ta!

pink cupcakes.

Before you know it, Valentines day will be here, and I'll take any excuse to bake, decorate, and breathe the color pink. So this year I'm getting started early, and trying some new recipes. And let me tell you, these are not just any ordinary pink cupcakes...

they are pink lemonade cupcakes.

The perfect balance between sweet and tart. (and they are pretty darn delicious if you ask me)

PINK LEMONADE CUPCAKES

• 1 pkg white cake mix without pudding in the mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup thawed frozen pink lemonade concentrate; thawed
• 2 TBSP oil
• pink food coloring (optional)

frosting

• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup pink lemonade concentrate

1. Beat cake mix, water, egg whites, 1/3 cup lemon concentrate, oil and food coloring. Medium speed for 2 minutes. Spoon batter into lined muffin cups.

2. Bake 18-22 mins. Cool completely before frosting.

3. Beat icing sugar, butter and 1/4 cup lemonade concentrate, until well blended. (Add more concentrate to thin frosting if necessary.) Add pink coloring to desired color.

*Just a note, I added almost 1/2 cup of concentrate to my frosting because I found it quite thick and I really wanted it tart. I would keep adding and tasting until you like it.

They bake up so lovely and even. And flavor aside, they were honestly the most moist and delicious cupcake I have ever had.

Frost and add a straw for garnish. 

 
 
 Pretty easy huh. Let me know if you try them, I'd love to hear what you thought.

On a side note, I have found my blogging mojo (that didn't last long, haha) Now, if only I could find some time. I've been watching a little boy since just before Christmas, and it looks like my temporary job turned into a full time one. So 2 little babies are keeping me on my toes, and I'm lucky if I can find the time to unload the dishwasher, let alone update my blog. Anyways, thought I'd let you know.

Have a great night!