Happy Breakfast!

Josh wanted happy face pancakes for his birthday yesterday.To make happy face pancakes you need:  A large pancake, banana slices, chocolate chips, chocolate syrup and whipped cream!  Happy Breakfast makes happy kids! Just look at their smiles below, and it was only 6:45 a.m.!

Chocolate mousse cake

So Today My oldest turned 8 years old!! I cannot wrap my head around the idea that he is going to be a teen in a few short years!! For his Birthday Josh gave me a menu of what he wanted to eat on his big day. First up, for breakfast Happy Pancakes. Then for dinner he wanted BBQ Ribs and for his cake he wanted Chocolate Mousse cake. Chocolate Mousse cake, seriously? When I was 8 all I wanted was a Cookie Puss from Carvel!! I mean he is obviously my kid because I love Chocolate Mousse(who doesn't?), I just was not expecting that request! Of course I made him one, i mean you only turn 8 once! It was 3 layers, the bottom layer Devils Food cake, the middle layer Milk Chocolate Mousse and the top was Fresh Whipped cream that I just piped on with a star tip. It came out really yummy, and he said it was exactly what he asked for. My hubby was actually surprised it came out as neat as it did! I love to bake , but I am far from a professional and usually my cakes are lopsided, lol! The only thing is, I was afraid to take the cake off of the bottom of the spring foam pan. so I just left it, my luck the whole thing would of wound up on the floor!  My mom's birthday is in a few weeks I think I may make her this cake, except I think I will try a triple mousse this time!

Happy Birthday Josh!  

Harry Potter Birthday Invitations

Josh told me about a month after his Jedi Training Party last year that he wants to be Harry Potter for Halloween and have a Harry Potter Birthday Party. So of course that's what we are doing this year. I really didn't want to get generic invitations so I decided to make them. Josh wants the whole Hogwarts experience for his party so we are doing, Potions class, Quidittch and then some shopping in Hogsmeade. I thought it would be fitting to send the invitations out to look like the Hogwarts Acceptance Letter from Book 1. I found the Lumos font and some other cool fonts and graphics online. I used the wording from the first book and of course tweaked it a little to make it an invitation for a Birthday Party. I printed it on parchment paper using green ink. I found Professor McGonagalls signature online and added that to the bottom to make it official. I also added the Hogwarts crest to the top of the invitation and cut one out and glued it to the back of the envelope. Josh said it would be funny if an owl really delivered his invitations to his friends. Of course that is not possible, but I added a little image of an owl to the bottom of the envelope to be funny. His party is mid November so I still have a few weeks to get everything in order. I am sure the parents are going to think I am completely nuts, but Oh Well, Josh is excited and I have to admit so am I!

envelope, like the owl?

back of envelope

closer look of the wording!

Mermaid Birthday Party

   Emma turned two years old at the beginning of October! She is all about Mermaids these days so it only seemed fit to have a Little Mermaid Party for her. I really don't like all the commercialized party decor out there. So I decided to make most of the decorations myself. I added little touches of Ariel to bring it all together. Overall it came together very nice!

   The Birthday Banner was really easy and it cost me $5.50 to make! I got a pack of pastel colored scrapbook paper for $5.00 at the craft store. I just drew a pennant and I was able to get 3 pennants per piece of paper. I picked a font in word blew it up to the size I wanted , printed them and then used a clear Tupperware lid to trace the circles. I glued them on with a glue stick. I punched holes in the pennants and then strung the ribbon I got for $0.50 at the craft store through it. It would of been alot easier if I would have had a cricut, which I hinted about to the Hubby as I was cutting all the circles out!

These Pom Pom Wands I have been wanting to make since last year. I was originally going to buy them off of Etsy , but I then realized that I can probably make them, so I did! I have found a million tutorials on these things all over the Internet. Here is the tutorial I used for making the pom-pom , except I used tulle. I attached the pom-pom to plain wooden dowels that I painted white and then glued a white shimmery ribbon around. They came out perfect! The little girls loved them! 

                      

These are the hanging decorations I had hung around the room. Tissue paper pom-poms and then craft paper fans, I got the idea's from Martha Stewart. They got a little crushed in the car but nobody notices those things but me!! They added a nice whimsical feel to the party. They are  ridiculously easy to make, and you can get the paper at the craft store and the dollar store! For the rest of the decorations I used teal table cloths and lavender plates and cups. For centerpieces I got little fluted fish bowl at the craft store and filled them with blue sea glass and tiny sea shells. I cut out little fish and sea stars from sparkly scrapbook paper and glued them to a painted BBQ skewer. I didn't really get a good picture of them separately but you can see them on the table with the cake.



These are the cake pops and sugar cookies I made for the party. I had visions of homemade rock candy and  jars filled with purple, aqua and pink M&M's but it never happened.  And yes I am very much aware of the fact that my Tiara Sugar Cookies look like a certain hand gesture. Of course i didn't realize this until  the day of the party, the kids didn't pick up on it and the adults got a little giggle out of it. I will be retiring that cookie cutter, unless someone gets on my bad side! (Ha, Ha!)

My dear Best Friend Made this chocolate lollipop basket for us! She is getting in touch with her crafty side! She did a wonderful job! It came out adorable and of course matched with the theme completely!!

The cake we got made from Kiddie Cakes in Staten Island, it came out absolutely perfect and was filled with chocolate mousse and fresh bananas...yum....! Normally we like to make our cakes or cupcakes, but there was no way we were driving from Massachusetts to Brooklyn with a large cake in my lap!!

I was really happy we got to do her party in New York with all of our friends and family. That is the hard thing about being a Military family, you don't always get to spend all the special celebrations and holidays together. Right now we are lucky enough to live within a drivable (although not easy) distance from our family. So even though we don't get to spend every holiday together, we try to to come in as often as we can without interfering with work and school schedules! Thanks again to everyone who came last weekend and shared the day with our sweet baby girl! I still can't believe she is two!!  

Happy Birthday Little Princess!

Ruffle Cake

I have been seeing ruffle cakes everywhere latley. I think they are so pretty and I really wanted to to give it a try. I decided to make one for Emma's 2nd Birthday. I found a tutorial on you tube here. I used the Martha Stewart Swiss Meringue Butter Cream recipe. I used only 6 sticks of butter instead of 8 and I used salted butter. It made plenty of icing. I made one layer, cut it in half filled and iced it. I really wanted to make a 2 or 3 layer cake, but this was only for the 5 of us so I opted to just make a smaller one. It came out so pretty, and it was very yummy too!  I found these sweet little princess wand candles to add to the top. As you can see by the picture below, Emma does not like to be sung to! She cried all through her Birthday song, but she loves the cake! Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl!

Happy 2nd Birthday Emma!