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!

Me Likey Monday!!!

This week I rounded up some great CupCake recipes.

We're big fans of cup cupcakes around here. Especially for birthday parties. They're cute and fun and so easy to serve up to a crowd! So here we go!

These Pink Champagne Cupcakes are from Betty Crocker's Website. I was at a wedding shower awhile ago and the cake was Pink Champagne...and it was YUMMY!

TidyMom made these AWESOME looking Apple Carmel Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting...and added a in-a-jar option!

I couldn't resist these Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes from Amanda's Cookin'!

Rita Jean over at Country Maverickess made these yummy Lemon-Poppyseed cupcakes. And be sure to check out her entire Cup Cake Series!

Check out these Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes at Homemade By Holman...they look like Summer wrapped up in a dessert!

My Hubs LOVES Andes Mints (& so do I!) and these cupcakes would make a perfect treat for him! You can find them at Your Cup of Cake.

Mountain Dew Cupcakes??? Nuff Said!!! Nothing But Country has the secret!

Don't these Cookies And Cream Cupcakes make you want to lick your computer screen??? I found them at These Are Days to Remember.

These Shirley Temple Cupcakes are SO pretty and they're also gluten-free! I found the recipe HERE!

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan...and these Butterbeer Cupcakes from amyBites are a MUST to help celebrate the final movie coming out this Friday!

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

Cuppy Cake!

So...it's been awhile!

Long enough for me to be having crazy bloggy thoughts like, "Has it been to long? Will anyone still be interested in what I'm doing? Should I delete me and re-invent myself???" Do you ever have those days? I can't be the only one around with a nutsy lady in my brain telling me things...

But I decided to ignore "Nutsy Brain Amy" and go ahead with a New Post!

We had a WONDERFUL time on our week long South Dakota vacation. Lots of pictures (I won't bore you with) and lots of cute kid stories (I won't bore you with)!!!

Moving right along...do you Pinterest? I am in LOVE with Pinterest. And I found THESE mouth watering cupcakes on there that I HAD to try!

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes?!?! 

Yes, please. Pretty Please...With a Cherry on Top! Literally.

Here's my version!

Drool Worthy! I followed the recipe and they turned out so yummy!

Linking Up at These Parties!
Blue Cricket Design
Craft Goodies
Young and Crafty
The Creative Crate
Spunky Junky

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

Marvelously Messy

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

Bleedin' Snake Cake

I want to share my First Place Cake at the Blue & Gold Scout Banquet!!! VERY EXCITING!

I don't mean to Toot my own Horn...but it's pretty sweet, right?!? (toot! toot!) It's obvious why I call it a Snake Cake, but where does the " Bleedin' " part come in?

Ahhhhhh...Red Velvet Cake! I'm going to assume most of you have seen Steel Magnolias...and ever since I did way back in 7th grade...every time I see an animal cake I think of the Bleedin' Armadilla grooms cake! And the best way to make an animal cake "bleed" is to stuff it with red cake! (don't judge...I've got TWO boys...it's all about blood and gross stuff over here!)

So I made up two cake mixes and baked them in bundt pans.

I think I watch too many movies, because when I see a bundt cake I think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding..."But there's a hole in this cake!"

Anyway, let your cakes cool down. Then I sliced each in half and fit them together to make a curvy snake body.

I shaved off a bit at one end to make it look more head-like, and a bit at the opposite end to make it look like a tapered tail. Then I went to town with my Star Tip!

This is regular Chocolate frosting. I planned on adding black food coloring to the chocolate, but I was out!

Green came next. Louie picked out the color combo since it was technically HIS Blue & Gold cake entry. Star Tipping took a long time, but the stripes ended up SO nice and neat. The bundt pan also helped by giving me clear line markings to fill in with color.

Last came the blue. I should mention that the blue & green frosting I used was a home made cream cheese frosting (awesome with the red velvet and chocolate!). Then I used two peanut M&M's for the eyes and a piece of licorice sliced in half for the tongue.

It was well worth all the work! And I knew what I was getting into because...

...I made one the year before for Louie's Birthday!

Linking Up At These Fun Parties!



Our Little Lady Turned ONE!

Last weekend we celebrated Little Lady Kat's First Birthday. Kat has been an amazing Blessing in our lives. We were happily truckin' along as a family of four when BAM, we found ourselves expecting a third. Since we already had two boys, I let myself assume that we would have another one. The day we found out that we were going to have a girl was crazy. James was over-joyed. Me? I don't know. I wasn't depressed or angry. I was so thankful that the baby was healthy and growing like she should. But I wasn't happy, either. What on Earth would I do with a girl??? Girls are just...so...girly!

Then June 5th, 2009 arrived and with it this little bundle of cuteness. I thought it would be awkward having a girl, but she looked at me with these ageless, piercing blue eyes and it clicked. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was perfect. And that has been the story for the last year. Time has gone by so fast with Kat. It makes me sad, because I am enjoying her so much. I don't know if it's because she's a girl, or because she's the third and I'm much more relaxed.

So now our Little Lady is One and we celebrated in Grand Lady Bug Style!

I made this cake by layering two round cakes. Then I star tipped the whole thing. The "black" frosting is chocolate, and the red is strawberry frosting with no-taste red coloring. The eyes are marshmallows.

Centerpieces were the rocks I painted a month or so ago. I also took mini flower pots and painted them red and black. Then I used my pinky to dab black dots on them. We filled these with daisies.
Finally we have the LadyBug Princess herself. I made her tutu by following a tutorial (tutu-orial!) I found here. It was fun and easy and took about 20 minutes total! We will be making many more of these...Kat LOVED wearing it! Then I made her birthday crown by using the pattern I found here. I'm still not very good at sewing, but this took me about an hour. I also sewed a cover to put over the elastic in the back. The crown was a hit! Making it from felt made it comfortable for Kat, and she kept it on for most of the day. Finally, for her "1" shirt, used the applique process I found here. Put this all together and you have the Lady Bug Birthday Princess!