Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts

Monday, September 3, 2012

welcome to the jungle

I had a great time planning and hosting Owen's jungle theme first birthday!
Seriously, I love to do this party stuff... especially the dessert table!!!
 
I made this bunting banner with scrapbook paper and then displayed in on a large picture that I wrapped with a neutral gift wrap.
 
 
 
 
Gahhh, I couldn't wait any longer to show you this super cute snake!
I just sliced sub sandwhiches into small appetizer size pieces and laid out the pices with a litte curve to them on the food table to look like a snake. I used toothpics to put on the olive eyes and cut a red pepper to look like a tongue. So easy and so cute!
 
 
 
 
Here's an over-view of the food. Main table is snacks and drinks and the buffet to the left is desserts
 

 
 
I hung some streemers from the ceiling and cut a few jungle leaves from scrapbook paper to jungle the place up a bit :)
 
 
 
 
A closer look at the food table. Mostly veggies and fruit so guests were able to justify splurges at the dessert table - haha!
 
 
 
 
I attached zebra scrapbook stickers to one of my punch jars and simply poured in green hawaiin punch and pepple ice (I buy pebble ice at Sonics) for this fun colored "jungle juice"
 
 
 
 
For the water bottles I removed the labels and then wrapped the bottle in zebra packing tape. This was also really simple to do and I love the impact it makes!
 

 
 
Finally a shot of the desserts!!!
 
 
 
 
The cake pops were pretty darn cute!
At least it was pretty easy to tell what they were supposed to be :)
 

 
 
tigers
 
 
 
 
lions
 

 
 
and monkeys!
 

 
 
I have the bakerella cake pop book and used that for my directions with just a few tweeks.
 

 
 
Of course you can't have a party without cupcakes
(at least not in this household!)
 
 
 
 
The cupcakes were vanilla or chocolate with a marshmallow creme filling and green-vanilla buttercream - YUM!
 

 
 
The cupcake toppers were actually dollar store stickers that I stuck on scrapbooking paper and cut around. I hot glued the cut outs to toothpics to finish them up.
 

 
 
Animal crackers were a must for this jungle party!
 

 
 
THE CAKE: This adorable monkey cake is a very yummy banana cake with chocolate buttercream. I found the directions for decorating it here and just made a few changes... for instance I made mine a double layer... cause doesn't that sound soooo much better than just one layer of delicious banana cakes?? I found the banana cake recipe here and I would highly recommend trying it out for yourself!
 

 

 
 
Owen also had a little chocolate smash cake to enjoy.
 
He started out nice and slow
 
 
 
 
but then mommy got involved and things went crazy!
 

 

 
 
must eat more cake
 

 

 

 

 
 
A very happy sugar-high birthday boy: love him!
 

 
 
Just can't believe how fast a year has gone by, I remember when this little dude was born as if it were just a few weeks ago... sniff sniff. Yay for happy memories!




 
 

Sunday, May 13, 2012

i once had a birthday

I once had a birthday... it was three weeks ago now, but here's some pictures anyway :)


Casey's birthday was just a couple of days b/f mine so we got to celebrate together at our in-laws




Jayne was happy to share in the brithday cake!




I made sangria for my birthday cookout - YUM!




and my baby-girl-friend Ella made sure to check out my birthday flowers




The best part of my birthday was that Kevin got me a hammock!!!!




We've really been enjoying it (except for the bird poop on my maiden voyage nap).
Callie and I have taken many naps in it and sometimes Kevin will join us and rock the hammock!
It's the best thing ever! Seriously!




I LOVE IT!!!!




Despite all the hammock naps, Callie was still worn out at the end of my birthday weekend :)


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

happy bee day, ella! {part 2}

This post is continued from here. Be sure to check out the food & decorations in part 1.


After the bee bee Q sandwiches and bee nector it was time to open gifts.
Ella knew what to do




and so did her big cousin, Tessa!





Finally it was time for some birthday cake!




Where's my cake???




Ella got her own mini beehive cake.
She was a little cautious getting started




but it didn't take her long to figure things out...




...take a handful and stuff it in!




getting drunk on sugar :)




must eat more




do you see my belly... it's full of cake!!!




This party was sooo much fun!! Fun to prep for and fun to enjoy!
Great idea, Amy & great job being so cute, Ella!




Wednesday, August 10, 2011

kevin's bd party: cupcakes!!!

For Kevin's birthday cake I wanted to make several different kinds of cupcakes so everyone could have their cake of choice! The only problem is I don't really ever make cake from scratch (I just use a box like most Americans!). But this time I wanted to do it right and so I pulled out my go-to cookbook, the Better Homes & Gardens checkered one, and got to it.

I was so excited that I even got up around 6am on Friday to get started!
I made batch #1 - a basic chocolate. They looked a little like mushrooms, but not too bad and they tasted pretty good so I moved on to batch #2 - red velvet (Kevin's fav) and achieved the same results as batch #1.

Batch #3 - carrot... looked perfect.
Now I suspected that batches #1 and #2 maybe weren't good enough after all.
Batch #4 - a basic white and batch #5 - a basic white with a chocolate chip cookie in the center also turned out perfect and so i knew I had to redo batches #1 and #2 as batches #6 & #7.
That's right I made 7 batches of cupcakes and got done around 1pm - just in time to meet some friends for a lunch break.

Why did the first 2 batches not turn out so pretty? I filled the muffin cups too full. Unlike a box mix, these homemade cupcakes weren't rising all pretty and high, but rather spilling over the edges like a mushroom. Turns out that's pretty common so I wasn't doing anything wrong, other than overfilling.


The icing went really well until my last batch, which was the red velvet. After a little trial and error I ended up refrigerating that icing overnight and then whipping it in the morning. It ended up just a little runny, but not too bad (I'll be sure to post tips when I post that recipe). I got all cleaned up around 10pm. So that was about 12 hours of making and icing cupcakes off and all on day.

But they turned out pretty and tasty and I didn't mind the effort at all, especially since it was for Kevin's big party! If you just make one kind at a time then it's really not all that much work, especially now that learned so many things that I can pass on!


Don't they look great?!










I also made these cute little tags with a circle punch. I love tags in cupcakes it really kicks them up a notch!










batch #1/#6

chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream frosting




batch #3

carrot cake with cream cheese frosting




batch #5

vanilla cake filled with chocolate chip cookies and iced with buttercream frosting
(see here for buttercream recipe)




batch #2/#7

red velvet cake with red velvet frosting




batch #4 (forgot to snap pics!)

white cake with almond buttercream frosting
(see here for buttercream recipe and add 1/2 tsp almond flavoring)


this is how full my fridge was after filling it with all the cupcakes!





Again, it was hard work to make this quantity and variety, but totally worth it for the big birthday party!!!