Basketball Cake...and Tears

Somehow I closed my eyes and took a sigh and my sweet baby boy...

...turned into this five foot tall, athletic, smart, funny, and handsome young man.

All it took was ten years. A decade. I have been a Mother for a Decade.

Now I understand all those parents and grandparents who told me time and time again, "Cherish these moments." "Love him up while you can." "He'll be grown before you know it." Because at the end of these next ten years, he will be twenty. A thought that makes my throat seize and my eyes fill with tears.

And I thank God for ten years of  gigantic smiles, bright brilliant blue eyes, goofy dancing in the kitchen, cuddles, excellent debates and discussions, reading together, music, praying together, endless laughter and endless adventures.

So how do you celebrate all this? With a cake! Doesn't cake make everything better??? Even the idea that your baby isn't a baby anymore is lightened up by his excitement over Birthday Cake!

Yep. That's Louie. My Ten Year Old.

And this is his awesome Basketball Swoosh Cake! Inspired by Parenting Magazine...they always have the best birthday cake ideas RIGHT before our Birthday Season starts!

Basking in the Glow of 10 Candles!

Now...excuse me while I grab some toilet paper...I've run out of Kleenex!

Angry BIRD-Day Party...Take Two!

Here's my second (and final) installment of our 9 year old's Angry Birds Party.

The Cake!

Pretty sad, isn't it??? I usually do a pretty good job (if I do say so myself), but we had some Cake-tastrophes that contributed to our simple and gooey cake: dry & crumbly cakes, cakes stuck to pans, runny frosting (totally blaming the insane humidity on that one). You name it...it went wrong!

But we held our Angry Cake Chins high and plodded on!

The "structure" is made of chocolate wafer cookies. The small stones are CoCo Puffs. I was going to add some Oreo Dirt, but we also had a Blender-tastrophe! And the little figures are right out of the kid's Angry Birds "Knock on Wood" game!

But the Kidlets loved it! And the Grown-ups seemed to like it!

Humid Frosting aside...it tasted pretty yummy!

This is my life, Good Bloggy Friends! 

John apparently didn't get the "Crazy Shot" memo!

Angry BIRD-Day! Part 1...

I'm pretty sure everyone and their Mom knows the game Angry Birds.

Well. Maybe not. My Mom was like, "What? What's this you're talking about?" But then, my parents still have a rotary dial phone in their kitchen. Ma & Pa Kettle they are!

Anyway. My kids are obsessed with this game. And they're ridiculously good at it! So it wasn't a surprise when my soon-to-be nine year old asked for an Angry Birds theme for his birthday party.

He wanted an Angry Birds cake, Decorations & Party Invites...but all the gifts on his list were either Pok-e-Mon (which will be the death of me) OR Skybenders (I don't even know if this is correct. It's the video game where you can buy little guys and put them on your glow pad (for reals) and that figure becomes your violent cartoon game character). 

Oh. And he wanted the game Mouse Trap.

But I had to squeeze some sort of Angry Bird into the gift pile. And I found the perfect idea over at Angels have the phone box. She has an excellent free crochet pattern page with the Main Angry Bird Himself and a Green Piggy to go with Him!

Seriously. Don't you want to smack that smug smile of the goofy pigs face when he doesn't explode?

Moving right along...the patterns were easy and quick to follow!

Here he doesn't look so angry! Let me mention that the safety eyes I had malfunctioned and attacked me...so I just made thick knots out of black yarn to use as pupils.

Now he's looking angry! Also, since these were going into the hands of a crazy energetic kid, I crocheted the Angry Uni-Brow instead of using black felt. And I stitched that bad boy on...tight!

Here's my finished pair. They look rather friendly with each other!

And here's my Happy Customer!

Personalized Wrapping Paper

I've been looking for some different and unique ways to do our Christmas wrapping. I'll admit part of the fun of ripping into a present is the crazy paper mess that's left over. Usually to be turned into projectiles...ending with someone getting poked in the eye.

Plus, I usually feel guilty when I look at the paper waste. And I feel ripped (pun intended) off at the store when I have to buy paper that will end up shredded anyway.

I've found a few new & funky ideas on Pinterest:

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I think we'll be doing a bit of both. I've got a few bolts of brown paper and a bolt of plain white paper. I love the idea of not having sticky or taped on gift tags!

This was all swirling in my mind this weekend when Louie had a Birthday gift to give one of his buddies. We were having a crazy run-around type weekend and I wanted him to have something calm and quieting to do. He had chosen his current favorite game (Battleship) as a gift, so I wrapped it in brown paper. Then I plunked down the markers and told him to decorate!

Not too shabby! Our oldest is not the most creative Block on the Quilt, so I was proud of his decorating skills!

The only thing I would have changed is adding one of these to the top!

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Cars Birthday Party

A few months ago we celebrated Middle One's 4th Birthday.

He is a Pixar Cars nut, Cars 2 being the first movie he was able to go to the theater to see! So, of course, he wanted a Cars Party!

If you're doing Cars...you HAVE to include McQueen & his best bud Mater.

My first project was making fork & spoon holders after being inspired by Simply Crafty!

Here's what I did...

Mater & McQueen are empty tissue boxes. I cut out the tissue opening to look like their mouths were open. Then I spray painted Mater brown and McQueen red. Everything else is cut from construction paper! I used the tissue boxes as a guide for how wide to cut out their eyes. Mater has one working and one broken headlight. And McQueen has his racing number on his nose (?), and I cut out yellow lightening bolts for each side. These were a huge hit! Now they're on John's dresser and hold all his treasures!

Here's a shot of the cake table. I make the kid's cakes 90% of the time. John's birthday fell in the middle of the busiest and craziest month we've ever had! So I sucked it up and bought one! He already owned the character pillows (Disney Store on our trip to Branson in 2010). I bought the funnels from the auto section in Wal-Mart.

And here's what the tables looked like! I also got this idea from Simply Crafty and I used it on the guest tables and the cake table. It's as easy as putting down a black plastic table cloth and then running yellow duct tape down the center. Instant Road! And each table got a cone in the middle!

I was pretty pleased with how fun everything looked, with fairly little effort!!! John was thrilled...and his smile is the best decoration EVER!

Dolly Diapers

For the past few months, Kat has been in tune to all things Potty. This is a good thing...it's making potty training much easier! She associates diapers and dirty pants with babies. And she doesn't see herself as a baby anymore (insert Mommy whimper), so she's passing it along to her Baby Dolls.

So when I saw THESE at 2 Little Hooligans, I flipped out! Sooooooo Cute! And a little wipes case to go with the diapers? Yes, please!

Here's how mine turned out:

2 Little Hooligans has a GREAT tutorial and I love the colorful fabrics to make Dolly Diaper Change Time more fun! However, when I tried to free hand a diaper shape...my non-artist skills reared their ugly head! I couldn't get a diaper that didn't look all wonky!

Enter Skip To My Lou! She's got a printable diaper template and I used the heck out of it!!!

I was ready to GO!

I picked out four different fabrics from a JoAnn's 99 cent fat quarter sale. I was going to buy some fleece (it's SO expensive...where do you get your fleece?). But then I remembered an old baby blanket in my up-cycle pile that was backed with white fleece. AWESOME! Then I picked up some velcro for the fasteners.

I printed out the template and cut out all my fabric and fleece. Then I followed all 2 Little Hooligans directions to sew everything together!

Whoops! A little bunched up...

Plenty of Whoopsies! as I went along...but...

All together, they look GREAT! And they are making a Mini-Momma-In-Training very happy!

Now, about those wipes...

I just used cheapy felt sheets that I had left over from other projects.

Open the top to pull out the "wipes"!

Here's the case and the pile of wipes. Again, I followed 2 Little Hooligans directions and I'm so excited with the way everything turned out!!!

Hair Clip Holder

I wanted to share this Hair Clip Organizer I put together for Kat. Bows and Frills and STUFF for the girlie's hair seem to be taking over. And these chicken wire frames seem to be EVERYWHERE on the blog-o-sphere.

What do you think???

The frame is an old one my parents found yard sale-ing when I was little. For the longest time it held a family portrait of my parents and myself...until it retired to storage in my parent's basement. I knew I wanted to try this chicken wire project, but I wasn't finding just the right frame. Then I remembered this beauty!

It was an ugly brown - under a few pounds of dust. So I cleaned it up and spray painted it with primer. My hubby found this green (or as he says "Tinker Bell Green"). It's kind of loud! But it looks great with Kat's Tinker Bell Purple walls!

I clipped the wire to fit the back of the frame. Then I used a staple gun to attach it and pull it tight. Easy Peasy Good To Go!

Now I just need to figure out how to hang it...maybe some cute ribbon?

ps...that's not the Tinker Bell Purple wall I was talking about. I've got the frame propped up on our piano in the living room!

We All Scream for Ice Cream!

Seriously. Don't we?

I do. I luv me some ice cream. It's my favorite dessert!

And it goes hand in hand with birthday cake. And we just happened to have a birthday around here recently (maybe I've mentioned it?)! And I'm starting a lot of sentences with "and"...

Back when we were prepping for our first child's first birthday my Grandma Rita said, "You know my ice cream trick, don't you?"

I didn't. But I learned. Quick. With LOTS of family and LOTS of cake to serve up, no one wants to fart around scooping up ice cream. Sticky, runny, messy-ness!

Here's our solution!

We spend a few minutes the night before scooping the ice cream up into cupcake liners. Then we pop them into the freezer until the candles are blown out. Then PRESTO! Instant ice cream servings that are easy to grab and put on a plate next to some cake.

Now...If you'll excuse me. I'm off to eat some left-overs!

I'm Joining These Lovely Linky Parties!

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Somewhat Simple

Singing Three Little Birds

Marvelously Messy

The Southern Institute

Someday Crafts

Inspiring Creations

Running With Glitter

Sun Scholars

I (Heart) Naptime

Paisley Passions

DIY by Design

Skip to My Lou

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Giggles, Glitz & Glam

Craft Goodies

Funky Polkadot Giraffe

Something Swanky

Smilemonsters

If You Give Kat a Cupcake...

I thought it would be cute to do a Cupcake Party for Kat's Second Birthday.

I'm a HUGE fan of cupcakes at parties, because I'm so incredibly lazy they're fun and easy!

Plus...since we call her Kat...I was able to play with the whole "If you give a cat a cupcake" thing. However, our version morphed from the cute children's book into a pink and purple explosion!

Oh well!

Here's a shot of her "cake":

The cupcakes are just a white cake mix. For the number of Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents & Cousins that were coming, I made three mixes. I left one white and colored one purple and one pink. Then I dobbed all three colors into each liner. Sort of like I did for the Rainbow Cupcakes we made for St. Patrick's Day. The frosting is a homemade cream cheese frosting that I colored pink and purple. Then we had to put sprinkles on top!

Did you notice the "2" hanging above the table?

It was super fun and easy to make! I got the inspiration HERE! via Pinterest.

And what do you use??? Cupcake Liners!

I started with this:

Left-over liners and an empty cake box! I flattened out the box.

Then I pulled out my Mad Middle School Skillz and drew a puffy two.

Hmmm...can you tell it's been awhile since Middle School?!? Okay. Now cut it out. The two that is...but you can also cut out thinking about how old I am! :)

Next I folded each liner in half and then in half again.

I folded the pointy ends a bit to make it easier to glue them to the cardboard. Then I smeared some hot glue on my cardboard a little at a time and glued the liners down. It took about five minutes to fill it up.

Super Cute!!! Then I glued a bit of ribbon onto the back to hang it from. It looked great behind the cake table and it's now hanging on the CuppyCake Princess' bedroom door!

Linking Up HERE!

Embellishing Life

Homemaker in Heels

DIY by Design

I (Heart) Naptime

Inspiring Creations

Marvelously Messy

Not Just a Housewife

Running With Glitter

Skip to My Lou

An Army of Perrys...

This is my LAST Birthday Cake post. Promise! Until Kat turns two in a couple of weeks...

We found a really cheap affordable way to throw Louie a swim party for his friends. A local indoor pool charged us a buck a head. A DOLLAR A KID! Woo hoo! So I had a lot of hungry 8 year old mouths to feed. Eighteen to be exact.

We did pizza and non-caffeine pop...

...and THESE!

Doo Be Doo Be Doo Bah! Perrrrry!

I gotta say. They were pretty cute. And the boys got a huge kick out of them!

Wanna know what's under all that teal frosting?

TWINKIES! I frosted frosted each Twinkie with vanilla frosting. Then I stuck on mini marshmallows and stuck mini chocolate chips onto those. The beak (or bill if you will) is an orange Mike Ike. And the (beaver) tail is a chocolate wafer cookie, cut into thirds.

Side Note: One of Louie's besties (do boys use that phrase???) has some severe food allergies. He isn't able to consume Twinkies so I used two Krispie Treats stuck together to make his Perry body. He also wasn't able to eat the chocolate wafers so I flattened out a Tootsie Roll to use instead. Just as cute. Just as Yummy!

Linking UP Here:

delicateCONSTRUCTION

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Singing Three Little Birds

Embellishing Life

Hey, Where's Perry?

Phew! This week has slipped by!

I'd like to say I was busy whipping up a creative frenzy. But I wasn't.

It's been a lazy week. Not much has gotten done...creative OR otherwise! I keep telling myself that I'm just un-winding from Louie's EIGHTH birthday on Sat. and mentally praparing myself for his school buddy party this coming up Sat. It's been working for me! :)

So. What about my title? Where's Perry???

Do any of you watch Phineas & Ferb? With your kids? When your kids are asleep and you're gobbling stream-lining their Easter candy stash?

We DO! I don't like too much TV time and most of the shows that seem to be geared to my pre-tween child make me cringe. But we LOVE us some Phineas & Ferb! And who could say no to making a Perry the Platypus Birthday Cake? Not ME!

I think it turned out pretty cute! All the cousins thought it was hilarious! All the older Aunties & Uncles were like, "What on Earth is that?"

I made two sheet cakes (Funfetti. It's how we roll.) and layered them. The frosting is tinted with Wilton's Teal coloring. Louie was the judge when it came to tinting. The eyes are marshmallows with chocolate chips. If I were to do this again...I would have cut one marshmallow in half to use (the eyes are a bit buggy). Then the beak, feet & hands & tail are craft foam that I eye-balled and cut out.

"He's got a beaver tail and a bill! And the women swoon whenever they hear him say, "GluggGluggGlugg!"".

Here's the Birthday Boy with his favorite Agent P shirt on and his Agent P hat! Funny story...the fedora was my great grandfather's. I've always loved it and kept it. Louie is named after him and he loves his "Pappy in Heaven's" hat!

We do a big cook out for the family and set up in the garage. Louie and I quickly whipped up this sign half an hour before the party started! If you've got a Perry Theme...you need to throw a little Heinz Doofenshmirtz into the mix!

Linking Up Here:

Spunky Junky

Simply Designing

Inspiring Creations

Homemaker in Heels

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Craft Goodies