Half-Birthday Cake in a Mug

Celebrating half-birthdays has been a tradition in our family since O(7) was a baby.  The girls love it, and it's a simple way to have fun together as a family.  This year O(7) decided that she wanted to bake cake in mugs for her half bday celebration.  We did this a few years ago, but I couldn't remember what we did.  I asked my mom to find the simplest and quickest way to bake cake in a mug (since I had to work on O's half bday and wouldn't be home until after 7pm).   Luckily, I can always count on my mom!

Here's what we did...we mixed one box of angel food cake mix in a large bowl with a box of brownie mix (my mom said to use cake mix, but I only had brownie mix).  After stirring the 2 mixes together thoroughly, we put 3 tablespoons of the mixture into a mug along with 2 tablespoons of water.  We mixed it together thoroughly and microwaved the mixture for 1 minute. Done!  It really doesn't get much simpler than that!  While the girls and I were mixing up the cake and microwaving it, my mom was making a whipped cream topping.  It was delicious!!!

Here is a picture of the cake before we added the topping.  It doesn't look very pretty, but it tasted great!




Adding the topping...



Here's the cake after O(7) added her 7 and a half hot pink candles :)



After singing "Happy Half-Birthday" to O and my mom (they share a birthday), we ate the delicious cake.  We had so much fun, and it was so simple...a great snack and activity for movie night or a sleepover party, too!

Cupcake Decorating Activity

According to E(3), the best part of her 3rd birthday party was decorating cupcakes!


We've had a "decorate your own cupcake" station at their parties for the last couple of years (with the exception of O's Little House on the Prairie party), and it's always a big hit with all of the kids.


Usually, I splurge on lots of surgary, dye-filled pre-made icing, but this year my mom made deeeeeeelicious homemade icing that we dyed in several different colors (so, we still had our fill of artificial dye, but at least we could pronounce the other ingredients :)


About a week before the party, we were helping my sister move to her new house, and I found the perfect icing containers and tips.  Luckily, she didn't mind us borrowing them :)


My mom and the girls made the cupcakes, and we set them up on cupcake stands on the morning of the party.  O(6) wanted to know why we bothered with the white icing, and I said that it was so they'd have a blank canvas to make their icing art, but she pointed out that it's really not necessary...she's right, and it will be less work for us (ummm, I mean, my mom!) for next year.


E(3) spent a LONG time decorating her cupcake.  She was thoroughly engrossed in the activity.  She ate very little of her creation (thank goodness) and said that she was going to nibble a little bit each day.  She ate a little each day for about 3 days before she forgot about it!




We had leftover cupcakes and icing, so this was a fun rainy day activity for the girls!  Luckily, it's all about the process and not the product, and they ate very little of their creations :)









Fun times!

Elliott's Kit Kat Cake

After seeing this cake on facebook and Pinterest, I realized it would be perfect for Elliott's birthday since he loves kit kats and m&m's.  Also, it was easy!   Elliott was excited and impressed with his cake, and we are all overjoyed and relieved that he made it to 35 after his (our) traumatic year!

Birthday Party Snacks!

I had fun gathering ideas for E(3)'s birthday party via Pinterest!  I loved this waffle cone snack idea, so it immediately went on my list!   The girls had fun helping me filling the waffle cones, and they were excited that we had leftovers for them to enjoy later in the week!

I debated for a while on what kind of container to put them in, and I realized that the rainbow rice from our rice pit would work perfectly to hold them upright in a bowl...and it did!



Since E(3) was having "L" week during the week before her party, we decided to make a lollipop tree for the party!  O(6) and I did most of the work, but E helped a little bit. To make the lollipop tree, we stuck dum dums into a styrofoam ball.  We ran out of lollipops when the ball was about half covered, but we decided to just go with it and stuck it in a flower pot.  (here's the lollipop tree that inspired ours...this one looks much better than ours!)


Our girls and their cousin have LOVED homemade popsicles this summer, so I decided to have homemade popsicles at E's party.  I ordered several popsicle sets from Amazon, and my mom and the girls made juice and frozen fruit popsicles for all of the kids.  Each child got to choose his/her own popsicle...fun!


We also had homemade brownies and cookies (made by the girls' grandmother), watermelon, carrots, broccoli and dip.


The highlight of the party for the birthday girl was the cupcake decorating activity, but that's for another post!

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Birthday Balloon Surprises

I always have trouble coming up with party favor ideas for our girls' birthday parties, and this year I ran through several ideas before finally deciding on balloon surprises (the idea came from this blog via Pinterest).

(this is not a great picture...sorry about that)
Late into the night before E(3)'s party, I was filling these balloons with small prizes...stickers, candy, rings, etc. I then blew up the balloons.  This sounds easy...it wasn't!  It took forever, and I popped many balloons.  I was dizzy by the time I finished blowing them all up.  But enough complaining because it really wasn't that bad...I had a book in my lap, so I was able to read while I worked :)


Each child chose his or her balloon, and they took turns popping them with a stick pin.  I helped them and screamed when each one popped.  Really you would have thought that I was used to the POP by the 14th or 15th balloon!  The kids were all really excited when the prizes exploded all over the ground.  I'd planned to put glittery confetti in the balloons, but I was worried that the birds would eat it.  Maybe I'll put bird seed in them next time...

Kid Decorated Birthday Cakes

Our sweet baby girl is 3!!!  Time flies!  E's birthday party was lots of fun, and much more work than we anticipated (as usual!).  We started letting the girls decorate their own bday cakes when O(6) turned 3...this is always a HUGE hit with the girls.  They love the decorating process, and they are always so proud of their cakes.  I love to see them being so creative, and it takes the pressure of creating the "perfect" cake off of me (or my mom!).

E(3) was happy and proud to decorate her own "cake"...a fairy garden dirt cake (made with pudding and crushed oreos).

An action shot of the decorating process.


She received Playmobil fairies as one of her balloon countdown surprises, and we used them to decorate the cake...SO much fun!




Here is a link to E's cake from last year.  O's 4th bday cake was one of my favorites!  Here is a link to it.

O's Birthday Ring

For some reason, I ALWAYS (at least for the past couple of years) forget the birthday ring!  This year we set up O's birthday ring a week late.  This was fine and kind of nice since it was a little extra celebration after all the birthday hype died down.

Since we didn't have a #6 candle, O decided to use a #4 and 2 extra candles to make 6 :)  Elliott brought home donuts for the girls (a very rare treat), and he put them in the center of the birthday ring while we sang to O.


Fun times!

A "Little House on the Prairie" Party AND a Giveaw ay!!! (details of Giveaway at the end)

O(5) told me that she wanted to have a "Little House on the Prairie" party for her 6th birthday shortly after Elliott's brain tumor diagnosis, and I was so thankful to her for giving me something fun to think about!  We've been talking and planning ever since!   Her party was this morning, and it was great!

We hung dress-up clothes from our clothes lines for the children to dress up in as they arrived at the party.  My niece was proud to stay by the clothes to help the children choose their clothing and get changed.




Our first activity was embroidery.  I read the children the book, Summer in the Big Woods, before introducing the activity.  We gave each child a small embroidery hoop with a piece of embroidery floss knotted onto a needle.  We drew heart patterns, and they embroidered using a straight stitch.







The children then moved to the next quilt to make scented satchets.  Each child chose a piece of cloth which they filled with their choice of dried lemon and orange peels, dried rosemary, dried chocolate mint, and dried lemon balm.  Once they filled their squares of cloth, they tied them together with yarn.





We then moved to the clothes washing area.  The children LOVED this activity.  They took turns washing clothes using a washboard and then hanging them on the line.  After the party activities were over and the cake was eaten, they all gravitated back to this area to wash more clothes!
















They had fun hammering nails into this piece of wood.







The children loved walking on these logs that we arranged in the shape of a 6!  My dad cut these logs for O to use as seats at her party, but since they were wet from rain, we decided to set them up as an "old time" playground!  My mom thought of the idea to set them up in the shape of a 6, and O was very excited about this!






The next activity was making butter!  We gave each child a small jar that was filled about 1/3 of the way with heavy cream and a marble.  The children shook the jars until they had butter.  One child's marble broke through the glass and cut her finger, so be careful if you do this activity.  Luckily, we had a grandaddy with a first aid kit nearby!

We put an old butter churn next to the butter making station to add to the authenticity.  After the butter was made, we spread it on biscuits for the children to enjoy.  My mom also made fig preserves (with figs from our fig tree) to spread on the biscuits.  This was a huge hit!




After they finished their biscuits, the children shopped at the mercantile.  We gave each child a tin bucket (from Target) filled with 20 pennies.  Everything at the mercantile cost 1 penny each, so they were able to buy lots of goodies!  O and E were the proud shopkeepers at the mercantile (O said this was her favorite part of the party!).

We've been making goodies to sell at the mercantile for the past few weeks (the girls love to play "Laura and Mary" while they craft).  We had a tray of lace, button lamps, and corn husk dolls on this table.




On this table, we had small balls of yarn, large pickles, cookies (molasses cookies and tea cakes made by O's grandmother), and candy!






We had apples and biscuits on the next table.





We made homemade lemonade (using the lemon squeezer in the picture) to serve in mason jars at the party. The children loved the lemonade!


The idea to set up a mercantile came from this blog via Pinterest.



After the children finished shopping at the mercantile, we had cake and ice-cream.  O has been planning her cake decorations since February, and she was very pleased with how it turned out!  She originally wanted white icing so she could pretend it was snow, but I suggested tinting it green to look like grass since it is summer.  She thought that was a good idea.  I laminated Laura, Mary, and Jack paper dolls to put on the cake, and O drew a log cabin which I also laminated.  She drew lines with a butter knife and said it was the garden, and she asked me to put the candles in the garden.



The children played with the hoop and stick and dropped clothes pins in old glass milk jugs as the last activity.

Four of the children at the party (one of them was O) were wearing dresses made by Cheri at Ashleys Attic.  She is offering a 10% discount to readers of Chasing Cheerios.  When you check out, put chasingcheerios in as a coupon code to get 10% off your order through August 15th!

In honor of O's birthday, Cheri has offered to do a GIVEAWAY of an apron and bonnet set!!!  To enter the  giveaway, go to her Etsy store, Ashley's Attic, and browse around for a while.  Come back here and leave a comment telling me which item you like best in her store.  A random number will be drawn to choose the winner 1 week from today (July 22, 2012).

Our girls received these pioneer nightgowns for Christmas, and they love them!  O's pioneer dress is similar to this one, and it is perfect for our little "Laura."


Btw, I've had this blog closed to comments, but it's (obviously) temporarily open for comments again in order to host this giveaway :)



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