Butterfly Birthday Party

My 5 year old had her first 'friend' birthday party last month. She decided she wanted a butterfly theme. So, I made a chocolate cake with frosting flowers and white chocolate butterflies. We colored butterfly (and dragonfly) pictures while waiting for everyone to arrive. Then we made butterflies out of coffee filters, played pin the butterfly on the flower, danced around to pretty classical music, and played duck duck goose. The party was in the middle of the day, so there was butterfly themed lunch food. We had butterfly shaped sandwiches, butterfly shaped crackers and pretzels (pepperidge farm), and lots of yummy fruit. Then we opened presents and played until parents arrived to pick up their kids. It was lots of fun. But, I'm glad birthdays are done in our house until spring.

Cinnamon Vanilla Cake

My daughter's birthday party was a 'sugar and spice' theme. So I made her a cinnamon vanilla cake,  per her request. It was delicious and all the girls loved it. I made it pink and put a henna-style peacock on it, but the sparkly gold decorators gel spread a little more than I thought it would, so it didn't look as great as I'd meant it to. Nobody minded.

Pinterest Challenge?

Someone mentioned that they were doing a 30 day pinterest challenge. They will be doing one craft, recipe, or reading an article, each day for 30 days. Well, I certainly have a bunch of crafts and articles pinned on my own pin boards that I want to do/read but haven't made the time. I think I'll join in the challenge. From now until Halloween, I'll be trying out pins.

First up, a birthday cake. I saw this cool construction cake on Pinterest and knew my son would love it. How convenient of him to have a birthday just in time for this challenge. It turned out amazing. I admit I used boxed cake mix and canned frosting instead of making it from scratch (I did add black food coloring to the chocolate cake to make it darker). It still turned out great.

So anyone want to join me for a pinterest challenge?

Birthday Time

So my kids both had their birthdays recently. I enjoy baking and decorating cakes, so I did just that for each of their birthdays. Here are the pictures:


This is for my 1 year-old. His nursery is all in a frog theme, so was the baby shower he got when I was pregnant.




My now 5 year-old wanted a Halloween birthday party. We did a spider theme with the colors purple and black. This is the haunted house cake she wanted (for some reason she refused to have a spider cake).