Puppy Cupcakes - our Girl Turns 7

Tell me these aren't some of the cutest cupcakes you've ever seen.

Go on, tell me.

Ha.  I knew you couldn't.  :)

I took the idea for these straight from Hello Cupcake (which I borrowed from a friend) and Marissa, our little dog lover, couldn't have been more delighted.  The other little girls were pretty excited about them too.  

They're really simple, and not as time consuming as I anticipated.  

Since I don't want to violate any copyright laws or anything, I won't give all the instructions on how to make them.....but I will tell you that you use miniature cupcakes for the heads - and miniature marshmallows for the ears and shaping the nose.  For the tongues, I used tiny bits of pink Mamba candy (Starburst would work just as well), and the eyes and nose were mini Reeses baking bits.  

They were very fun to make and the girls sure had fun eating them!

The biggest activity at the party was cake decorating. 

I had gotten the idea from Glorious Treats months ago and just HAD to do it for Marissa's party.

I baked little cakes for each girl - most were 5" layer cakes, a couple were 4" cakes.  I frosted them with white vanilla buttercream and then set out various sprinkles, candy (I knew those Easter M&Ms I got on clearance would come in handy!), and bags of colored frosting with various tips for the girls to decorate their own cake to their heart's content.

It was SO. MUCH. FUN. to watch them and to see their personalities reflected in their work.

One little guest started out very meticulously working on a design - but by the end she had thrown all caution to the wind and just piled the frosting and candy on as high as she could.  It was hysterical.  

Marissa was very proud of her cake.

All the girls - Marissa, Natalee, Annika, Lydia, Anna, Esther, and Elizabeth. 

An awesome group - just lovely.  

And their cakes were lovely too.  

Here's a look at the food table.

Yeah, not a lot of healthy stuff there.  But they sure enjoyed it!

Honestly, it was one of my favorite parties we've ever had at our house.  

Children in this age range are just a blast to have around.  

I just wish our kids weren't growing up so fast.  

And for the record, I wouldn't recommend having three children born in the same month -  if you can help it.  Not only is it a lot of work planning and pulling off three parties, it's really hard to not gain like 10 lbs with treats like Cinnabon Popcorn and Puppy Chow sitting on my counter.  Not to mention the cake and ice cream. 

Great, now I need to diet going right into the holidays. 

So now we have a *short* 1 month break until the next child's birthday.....

Linked to Trick or Treat Tuesday

Chess Cake - and our Boy turns 9

So for Corban's birthday this year, he just couldn't decide what he wanted the theme to be.  He's already done Legos.  Swimming.  A skateboard.  Although he loves soccer and basketball, he wasn't interested in either of those being the theme.  Hmmmm.

Finally, after pondering it for days, I presented the idea of a Board Game Party to him.  He loves playing games and never gets the chance to play them with a group of friends - and he was instantly sold on it.

Although he is not super knowledgeable about chess, he does enjoy it and I thought doing a chess cake would be fun.

I got inspiration from Cake Central - and ordered molds for the playing pieces and the board off of Amazon.

From there, it was really very simple.  I used chocolate candy coating - white and dark - to make the pieces. To make them 3D, I had to "glue" two halves together with more chocolate.  I had a few mishaps and had to melt and re-do a few of them, but it wasn't too bad.

The checkerboard was trickier - because keeping the white and dark chocolate from getting into each other's spaces was a lot harder than I anticipated.  The end result was FAR from perfect, but I don't think 9-12 year old boys really care.  ;)

So I made the pieces the week before and stored them in the fridge and freezer.

I baked a 14" square cake (use ~13.5 cups of batter - I made homemade chocolate cake).

Then I just made Chocolate buttercream - a double batch, to which I added some sifted cocoa powder to make it darker brown.

I frosted the cake - put the mold pieces on - and then piped on some accents.  I used the Wilton #17 star tip for the shells and the swirls - and a  #4 round tip for the border around the checkerboard.

Oh, and the cake board is just foam board from the Dollar Tree - cut to a 16" square and covered with foil.  Cheap and easy!

The only downside to the party was that Corban wasn't feeling too well.  He had just come down with a head/chest cold and was just feeling tired and cruddy.  In fact, he didn't even taste his cake until 2 days later.  He just didn't have the appetite.  So sad.  But he loved his party and spending time with his friends.

They started off the evening playing a little basketball.

A good game of Apples to Apples Jr. - listening to them was so funny!

We had a Connect 4 Tournament.....

Corban had a little helper.  What a good big brother.

Isaiah was the winner!!

Corban with Seth and Caleb (brothers).  He had that Lego set built the next morning - despite feeling sick.

Israel and Corban - those Nerf guns are pretty fun!

Will and Corban - and some really cool camping gear. 

Joseph and Isaiah (brothers) with Corban - and a new Superbook video.  Awesome!

Happy 9th Birthday to our Corban! 

Linked to Crazy Sweet Tuesday and Trick or Treat Tuesday

Cupcake Pull-Apart Cake

I can hardly believe our baby is now 1.  Seems like just last week we were headed to the birthing center.  If you missed it before, you can read her birth story here.  

Here are a few things to know about Miranda:

1. She is our only baby that didn't like a pacifier.  Major bummer. 

I can't tell you how many times I wish she would take one.

2. She got her first tooth at 7 months and now has 8 teeth.  She got 4 on the bottom,

then two canines on the top, and finally her middle top teeth.  Corban had exactly the same pattern.

The other 3 girls all got their 2 middle bottom teeth at 9 months and no more teeth until they were 15 months.

3. She is our only baby who refuses to crawl on all fours.  She scoots on her bum and leg.  She gets

around really fast that way and the seat of her pants is always dirty.  Her knees stay clean, though. 

4. She adores her daddy more than any of our other babies.  For several months now, as soon as she

hears his voice when he comes home from work, she starts squealing "Da da!" and waving her arms and bouncing around.  She thinks he hung the moon.  He, in turn, is completely wrapped around her little finger. 

5. She gives the BEST. BABY HUGS.  Seriously.  She will wrap her arms around your neck and squeeze. 

None of our other babies did that at such a young age. 

6. She doesn't like bread/muffins.  

The only exception is cheese pizza.  She loves beans (especially spicy Mexican flavored ones), lentils, cheddar cheese, grapes, blueberries, kiwi, strawberries, pineapple, and cheese crackers.

And she was pretty fond of her cupcake frosting and ice cream. 

7. She LOVES our dog.  Pretty much any animals, really.  Grant takes the credit for that,

as he has encouraged her to pet Monty and play with him since she was born.

8. She also loves the dog's food and water bowls.  Her favorite thing to do is stick her right foot into 

his water bowl and splash around. I don't think Grant encouraged that.   

9.  She has a killer scowl when she's upset with you.  I'm pretty sure she gets that from me.  

10. She is a pure delight and joy to us.  We cannot imagine our lives without her.     

So I had decided to make a cake out of cupcakes for her birthday several months ago, and had a general idea what I wanted to do, but I actually got my final inspiration from this cake on the day of the party.  I had already baked cupcakes (using this recipe, minus the raspberry filling) and just needed the frosting.

I made a batch of buttercream and tinted part pink, a smaller part purple, and left the rest white.  

I arranged the cupcakes in the general pattern I wanted and chilled them in the fridge for awhile so they'd be easier to frost.  Some people recommend putting a dab of frosting under each one to "glue" it to the board, but I didn't do that and I had no problem with them moving or anything.

You can see here how I just frosted over the whole top just like it was solid cake.  The gaps don't really matter. 

So I frosted the bottom first, then the top with white, then I piped around the edges and did the sprinkles and writing.  Very simple and quick - and it turned out so cute!   

Sneaking a dab of frosting before we sang to her. :)  

Yeah, I think she likes it.  

We took her cute dress off for the real cake eating.  Getting messy was fun!

Ummmmm.....fistfuls of frosting.  Made for a happy baby!

Linked to Trick or Treat Tuesday and Crazy Sweet Tuesday

Love this Girl......

The Setting: Our dinner table.  Three oldest kids sit on a bench on one side, Ellia (2.5) sits at one end, Miranda (11 months) sits at the other end, and Grant and I sit on the other side.  Grant sits between me and Ellia.

We were doing our family devotional after dinner last night and Grant quoted something I had said earlier, then added, "What she said is so right."

Annika (5): "Who said that?"

Grant: "The pretty lady sitting next to me."

Ellia piped in: "You mean me?"

Horse Pasture Cake - and the Party Fun

Our sweet little Annika turned 5 on Thursday, September 6.  We had her

birthday party with a few friends last Saturday.

Since her favorite thing is horses right now, that's what she wanted for the theme....

and she was very specific that she wanted a "Horse Pasture Cake".  

Okay.  Got it.

If you ask Annika what her favorite color is, she'll reply, 

"I love all the colors in the world (or in the rainbow), but green and blue are my favorite."

That worked out perfectly with a horse pasture cake.  

I decided to make things easy on myself and make the decorations on top of the cake one of her presents, so I picked out a super cute Playmobil set to be the main attraction. 

Toys R Us was having a great sale on Playmobil - Buy 1 get one 40% off.  In addition, with ordering online, I got free shipping with an order over $49, so I took advantage of that and bought few different sets to have for the girls for their birthdays and maybe Christmas. LOVE getting bargains!

The cake is chocolate, made from scratch (recipe coming soon!) and is 15 x 11". 

I made it a couple of days in advance and froze it for easier frosting. 

I made a large batch of buttercream, ending up with a bit too much....but I'd rather have that than run out.

I left one bowl white, for frosting the sides.  I did that first.  

Then I tinted a bowl green....and frosted the top, leaving the corner unfrosted. 

Another bowl was light blue - and that became the pond.

Then I used the Wilton 4B tip for piping large blue shells around the base. 

The yellow border was a Wilton tip 18.

I placed the Playmobil set all over the cake how I wanted it - and then finished up with grass details using the Wilton tip 233 (grass tip). 

Finally I wrote the birthday message with Wilton tip 2 in yellow.

Super easy - fast - and thoroughly delighted Annika.  

I'd call that a success.

Her reaction at first seeing the cake.

The girls inspect the cake.  

Marissa was so excited to help decorate by setting up toy horses everywhere. 

One of the party games was "Stomp the Fly", where they had black balloons tied to their ankles and had to try to pop others' balloons before getting their own balloon popped.  Probably a game more suited for boys, as a few of the girls were afraid of the balloons popping....but it was hysterical to watch them play.

The balloons were tough to pop - even with kids sitting on them and bouncing!

Lydia, Natalee, Marissa, Annika, Elizabeth, and Hannah.  What a sweet bunch of girls.  

Annika loves her new umbrella.  

The other popular activity we did was to make Stick Horses.

I had printed out a template for a horse head here  and enlarged it, then traced around it on poster board 16 times (I needed 2 for each horse).  I bought long sticks for a dollar each at JoAnn's Fabric store and hot-glued each stick to a horse head, then used rubber cement to glue the other horse head on the other side.

The girls got to glue on googly eyes, yarn for manes, etc. and color their horses.  They all turned out so cute.  

The party favors were their horses on sticks, some Cow Tales candy, and a jar of Cowgirl Cookies Mix.  

Recipe coming soon!!

Back to School Cake

Today was our first day of school....and I decided to start a little tradition.

Cake for breakfast! 

Oh, I know I've served cake for breakfast before, with our Breakfast Cake or Blueberry Breakfast Cake -

but this now, real chocolate cake with buttercream frosting...I've never gone that far.

I baked the cake from scratch from start to finish yesterday afternoon while the entire family was watching Olympics on the telly....and much to my surprise, not a single person realized that I was doing it. 

We have a very open floor plan, with the kitchen, dining area, and living room all in one big space.  I was watching stuff with them while working.  

How did they not smell it, at the very least?

I have no idea.

The funny thing was,

after the kids went to bed last night and I started to make the frosting to decorate it, Grant asks, "Where did that cake come from?"

Anyways, I was really happy about their lack of observation, because it made the surprise this morning that much better.   

I started out with a 13x9" chocolate cake (Hershey's Deep Dark Chocolate Cake),

which was obviously cooled.  Wish I had had time to freeze it so it wouldn't be quite so crumby for frosting, but oh, well.

Then I made a batch of Buttercream -

2 sticks of room temp. butter

1/4 cup shortening

4 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2-3 T. cream or milk

I had a little less frosting than I would have preferred, very nearly ran out when I was piping, in fact, so I would recommend using at least 1-1/2 times that much, if you want to have larger borders.

I just used some storebought piping gel for the letters, paper "holes" and apple.

(oh, and in case you don't know, CMAEM is the first initials of all the kids.)

The cake was a HUGE hit and so much fun.....and made the start of school definitely a celebration, which is always a good thing.

Linked to Trick or Treat Tuesday

Just In Case You Thought My Kids Were Perfect....

In the past 24 hours, she has:

• smeared petroleum jelly all over her legs, arms, and hair during nap time
• drawn on her cheeks and palms with an ink pen (while I was running on the treadmill)
• stripped down to her birthday suit and covered her bottom, legs, and hands with Miranda's prescription diaper cream (while I was nursing the baby).....oh yeah, just remembered there's some on the floor too. Guess I need to clean that up sometime.  
• drawn with black marker on the bonus room wall (and a couple of kitchen toys)
• dumped out 8 or 9 (25 piece) puzzles in a heap on the floor, decided she couldn't put them back together, and left them there (while I was in the shower and big brother was supposed to be babysitting)
• shocked me with the statement, "Mommy, you look so beautiful.....I don't like you." (when I had come downstairs all ready for church on Sunday)

Life with a 2 year old.  

There's just nothing like it.

Family Update: April Edition

Miranda is such a big girl now.  She takes her baths in the ever beloved ducky tub now, no more infant tub over the kitchen sink.  Whew.  She absolutely loves splashing around, although she's certainly not a fan of water in her face. 

We're full force into soccer - this is Annika's and Marissa's first season - Corban's 4th.  Annika has scored a couple of goals in games already and is really gaining skills and confidence quickly. 

She is a really good goalie and takes great pride in her abilities. 

I haven't gotten any good shots of Corban and Marissa yet - hopefully I will soon!

We got to go strawberry picking on a gorgeous day  - we picked 25 lbs of berries. 

I made freezer jam, ice-cream, puree for 3 more batches of ice cream, a cake, spinach strawberry salad, and froze several bags whole for making smoothies and oatmeal.  And we ate a lot plain.

Yum!

This was Ellia when we got there.  Nice and clean. 

Yeah, I had my hands full trying to get her to actually put berries in her basket.  See the red stained fingers?  Not to mention the face.  And you can't see the trail of juice down her (thankfully already) red shirt.  That girl had some fun in the strawberry patch. 

Annika did a little better than Ellia, but she was very strawberry stained by the time we finished as well.

Little story about this kid:

A few days ago we were sitting at dinner.  It had been one of those "no make-up" kind of days.

Annika says: "Mom, can you put on some lipstick and make your eyes pretty?

Corban instantly jumped to my defense and exclaimed, "Mom's eyes are already pretty!"

Annika loudly retorted, "Not pretty enough."

Sigh.

There's nothing like the honesty of a 4 year old. 

Corban was a diligent and fast picker.  He ended up helping Ellia fill her basket too.

Miranda and Ellia playing ball - well, Ellia is actually trying to make sure Miranda's legs are open enough for the ball to roll to her.  Obviously it was pretty funny to Miranda. 

We took the side off Ellia's crib.

A necessary step to growing up and independence, but something I regret at least once a day. 

Let's just say she is thoroughly enjoying her freedom. 

And training her to stay in bed during naptime and bed time is a little bit of a challenge.

The upside?

She loves having her siblings sit on the edge of the bed to read to her. 

So precious!

Marissa and I got to go to a Mother/Daughter Tea for the K-2nd graders from Wed. night classes at church. 

It was absolutely gorgeous and we had a lovely time. 

 This was one of the tables - isn't that amazing?  I wish I had the gift of decorating. 

 Here are some of the mini-cupcakes I made for the tea - they were really cute and a big hit with the little girls and their moms. 

 The mild temperatures have the kids playing outside for hours every day - and sometimes they even talk me into having picnics out in the yard.  Ellia and Annika chose the wagon for their lunch spot.

Miranda is now a full-fledged participant in the outside play  - the swing keeps her very happy. 

So that's our April in a nutshell.  Looking forward to seeing what happens in May!