david's cake

Okay, so I did not make this cake. It's from Whole Foods. After a busy week of making three cakes, David's birthday fell within this same week and I just couldn't bake any more.
We at least let him go get his favorite ice cream along with his cake...what a treat for the boys, too!


As you can see, Jonas is thoroughly enjoying David's birthday celebration.

party time!

Asher's birthday party kicked off with the kids decorating their capes and donning their masks. Let the fun begin!


After all were in their Super Friend gear, we headed outdoors to Super Friend training. First the kids created their own super hero by coloring and giving a name to their boy/girl hero.

We then headed to the obstacle course. Wish Asher got a great kick out of watching Elijah lead off for all the kids to see how to do it!

My original idea was to have each kid go through individually but they were too excited and just all raced through it together...which did make it much more fun! Sometimes it's better to have kids take the lead than plan ahead.


KB making her own design for Gotham City!

Jonas managing the back yard, ensuring that all of the friends are having a good time.

How do you manage this many kids to line up and take multiple pictures for you? You promise them cake right after it!!
FRONT

BACK

Singing Happy Birthday!

An exhausted family at the end of a very fun party!

We love you sweet Asher and are so thankful for making our lives not only better but so much more fun!! You continually make us laugh!! Thank you for letting us all celebrate your four years of life with you!

batman party theme

What do you do when your almost 4 year old requests a Batman themed party for his birthday? You start by Googling images of Batman themed parties to gather your ideas and then let then fun begin!! We started off with homemade invitations. We used free printables from this site.

You welcome all your Superfriends arriving to the party!

You have a Batman cake (made by your mom)!

You make a birthday banner using recycled comic strips for the letters.

You have food inspired by this Batman party. Our menu included: Penguin's Pizza, Robin's Raw Veggies, Catwoman's Claws, The Flash's Fruit, Superwoman's Pasta Salad, Mr. Freeze's Fruit Tea (for the superfriend's parents), Wonder Woman Water and Joker Juice.

You use your Batman toy for decorations.

You have a drink station for thirsty SuperFriends (thanks Deanna for letting us borrow your beverage dispenser).

You hang bats made from foam from your lights!

You create Gotham City! I had recycled a box and turned it into Gotham city, using black spray paint, a silver marker to outline the city, cut out windows and lined with recycled yellow tissue paper and then placed a small desk lamp behind to give the nighttime affect. My mom had covered Asher's present with large Batman symbols so I recycled one and used it above the city.

You give party favors! I again loved the ideas from this party and for the party favors I found yellow buckets (for the boys) and pink buckets (for the girls) and attached a bat symbol with modge podge and filled them with SuperHero Snacks (again, free printable from here).

I also made each child a customized cape and mask. The capes were made from felt and I used felt with adhesive for the letters on the back. Each child then had 4 stars they could use to decorate their cape.

This kids loved running around with their capes and masks as they did the SuperFriend training outside.

pink party birthday theme

We celebrated my neice's 5th birthday at the beginning of March (yes, I'm very behind in posting!). I made her cake for the pink party theme. This was my first attempt at making a bow. I learned a few things from it and hope to improve the next go around.


The birthday girl enjoying her cake!!

3 girls, 4 cakes, 1 birthday party

I have been busy cake making/decorating so have been absent for awhile. This last cake order was fun to do and brought new challenges to what I have done in the past. The party was for three girls with birthdays all within a couple of weeks of each other so instead of three parties, they decided on one party with the same theme and same friends. The theme was gymnastics and I really didn't know where to begin with a design. But, thankfully to Google images, I was able to find a cake that fit the description and we altered the colors to match their party theme. I matched the girls' hair color with the girl on top of their cakes. The most challenging part was making the fondant gymnastic girls. I had difficulty with keeping their legs, arms and faces from not falling off. You will see that I had to repair the girl on "Ellen's" cake so her leg isn't as straight as I would have liked. Thankfully, Ellen and her mom were very forgiving and layed back with the it all and were so fun to work with in the design. Each girl had their own 8"round cake to take home with them for their family party and then we did one sheet cake to serve their friends at the the party.




If anyone has had prior experience to working with fondant in this situation, would love to hear any feedback!!

bakers

My mom made these matching aprons for Asher, Jonas and me. They have already loved wearing them. We each have a chef's hat on the front with our names' written on them. Now we just need to bake something.....

birthday cards

One of the things I look most forward to on my birthday are David's homemade cards. I think he should quit his daytime job and go into card making. Below from left to right are cards from Asher, David and Jonas.

Inside of Asher's card...

Inside of Jonas' card...

Inside of David's card...

He does a great job of capturing the boys' personalities and what they really might say if they were writing the cards.
Love these boys and love my husband!!

farm birthday party

Jonas' second birthday party almost didn't happen. We scheduled it a week after his actual birthday due to David's dad, Ralph, having bilateral knee replacements in the hope that he could attend and even kept the invites to family only. Things got set back for Ralph, sickness invaded our home (including David's mom, David and Asher) and I finished up a week of playing nurse. However, the cake had been made! And, despite Asher having a fever, our family was still willing to risk it for Jonas' sake.
So we bought some balloons that I turned into farm animal heads.

I made a barn cake and with a few of Jonas' favorite barn animals (made of fondant) to go with it.

His favorite was the sheep (or baa baa as he likes to call it).

Both my boys go into their shy mode when the singing of "Happy Birhtday" breaks out.

However, there was no shyness when the cake was passed out to eat.

Asher and Daddy sporting their farm animal visors...and Asher's visor upside down pretty much sums up his entire party experience. Does this boy look sick or what? David and I would take turns sitting in the corner with Asher to keep him away from our guests. (We didn't find out he had strep until the Monday after the party...but I realize we still look like bad parents.)

The Party Guests!




I was so thankful my parents were able to make it down and were a huge help to make this party even happen. We all were pretty worn out and David's mom even came despite not being back to 100% from her sickness. I am thankful for our family's support to help us celebrate Jonas' second birthday and make it such a special evening!!

happy 2nd birthday jonas!

This sweet boy of ours has turned 2! It suddenly feels like we no longer have any babies in our home. Jonas is running around and keeping up with Asher's every move. He lights up the room with his sweet smile and contagious laugh. It has been fun to see his personality come out (even if it includes his individual stubbornness).
We celebrated Jonas' 2nd birthday on his actual birthday, October 4th with just our immediate family (and Nana). David's dad was in the hospital for bilateral knee replacements so Nana has been staying with us for an easy commute to the hospital. We had a simple dinner followed by cupcakes from The Cupcake Collection. Jonas and Asher had strawberry cupcakes. Nana chose chocolate and David and I had marble (vanilla and chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream and cream cheese frosting). They were delicious!! This past weekend we had a small birthday party with our extended family....pictures to come! :)

A Week of Celebrating

It's hard to believe that Asher turned 3 on March 12th! We have been celebrating his birthday in many ways over the past week. Since Asher doesn't like large groups, I had our neighborhood playgroup friends over for a lunch and firetruck cookies. On the day of his birthday, Asher wanted to eat at Pie in the Sky so just our immediate family took him there and we ended with cupcakes from The Cupcake Collection (a local cupcake shop a couple of blocks from our house!). Below is Asher enjoying the the cupcake at Pie in the Sky.

My mom and stepdad, Bruce, and my aunt Candy all traveled down this past weekend for us to have an extended family party for Asher. David's mom and his brother's family all joined us as well. We had taken Asher to the party store to decide the theme of his birhtday this year. It came down to Thomas the Train or firetrucks and he chose firetrucks.

Below is Asher asking me if we can have his birthday cake yet. So sweet! (Notice he is in his fireman boots.)

I asked Asher if he wanted a hook and ladder truck or a pumper truck for his cake. He went for the hook and ladder. David said it was funny that we even know the different types of firetrucks.
And here is the cake (my final cake for the month of March)......

We are singing "Happy Birthday" to Asher and you can tell he wishes he could disappear. He definitely does NOT want to be the center of attention.

Jonas thought that he would get into the mix of opening presents. I suppose he figures that he will get to play with them as much as Asher. Elijah (Asher's cousin)is dressed up in Asher's firejacket.

I was thankful that my mom was able to come for the party. It was nice to have her help, along with my aunt's and even step-dad's (who helped me put together the ladder for the cake) to make the party a success.

For our goodie bags, we gave everyone an iced sugar cookie of a firetruck.

It was such a special time to celebrate Asher's three years of life. I am so thankful for him and all the ways he has changed our lives!