0 Sugar and Spice Baby Girl

We threw a little shower for my sister-in-law who was having a baby girl.  Since this is number 6 for her, yet only her 2nd girl, she wanted pink, pink, pink.  She has had quite enough blue through the years with 4 boys.  I used a Sugar and Spice theme like I had done for a friend last year here, and went with light pink, medium pink, and chocolate brown.  

I molded a fondant baby bottle, rattle, and pacifier for embellishment on the top of her 8" round chocolate cake that was iced in an amaretto truffle icing and filled with a layer of the same icing and 2 layers of whipped cream with chopped strawberries.  The binkie was my favorite.

Just a few decorations to bring everything together--a pendant Sugar and Spice banner and tissue paper pom poms. 

 I was so excited that I got to use my pink top carafes again which we filled with regular milk, strawberry milk, and chocolate milk.  (Those were a hit with the little kids that were there--it's not everyday you get to have strawberry or chocolate milk, at least not in our home).

Unfortunately this picture was taken before all the food arrived.  The other ladies that attended really outdid themselves with the amazing fruit platters, muffins, and breakfast casseroles that they brought.  We really had an amazing feast and a wonderful morning celebrating with Nicky.

Congrats Nicky!  Baby C make it safely here this past Tuesday.  Both mama and baby are doing great.

0 The Doctor is in

I'm back!  We have had lots of changes around here.  My husband graduated from medical school (hurray!!) and we moved across country from Las Vegas to Iowa for residency.  We have settled in, are officially U of I Hawkeye fans, and ready to make more cakes and desserts.  For my husband's birthday last month I decided some doctor-inspired cupcakes were in order for our new Dr. Larson.

I made all the embellishments out of fondant/gumtex and modeling chocolate (all the red was modeling chocolate).  We had red cross symbols, red/white pills, little blue pills (not Viagra--although that is what my husband's coworker thought they were), bandaids, and thermometers.  I loved the digital thermometer.  I painted the screen and end with silver luster dust and painted the numbers on with black gel food coloring.

 I made a butter white cake filled with strawberry whipped cream, and topped with the most amazing Vanilla Buttercream Frosting--a new recipe I tried out from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.  It is worth trying out.  Trust me.  Light, fluffy, and no greasy-tasting shortening in it at all.

We surprised Dr. Larson at work, embarrassed him a little in front of his co-workers (that's what wives and kids do best :) and left him with a tray full of cupcakes to share with everyone there. Happy 29th birthday, Dr. Larson!

(An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but with doctor-inspired cupcakes like these, I may not mind going to the doctor ;)

0 Sesame Street Birthday Party

Here is part 2 of the Dinosaur/Sesame Street Party that my friends Rachele and Emily threw for their kids.  This part is focusing on the Sesame Street half (to see the Dinosaur part go here).  Emily asked me to do the cake for her little girl who was turning 2.  She showed me this cake for an idea, and this is what I came up with.

It was an 8 inch cake covered in sky blue fondant and decorated with white fondant clouds that I cut out freehand.  I did a Mickey head-shaped cloud that was in the back just to see if anyone noticed, but no one said anything, so I guess I hid it pretty well :)  The sign was also cut out freehand except for the letters for Addie's name which I used my Cricut for.  

I molded Grover, the presents, and the balloons out of a fondant/gumtex mixture, but did Elmo out of modeling chocolate--anytime I need red, I usually use modeling chocolate now--easy to make and so much cheaper than buying red fondant (and I don't think I could make a true red fondant myself).

I love how Emily used her Sesame Street Treasury book set to put the cake on.  What a fun touch.  She had so many fun elements to her dessert table, including little Sesame street characters and buildings.

Her Happy Birthday Adelaide banner across the table was darling and added so much to her table.

She had such a fun idea for the favors bags.  Each one had the first letter of each kid's name taped to the front, and inside she had made crayons in the shape of the child's first initial and age (for example: my oldest got a bag with an A on it for Abby, and inside there was an A and 3 crayon since she is 3 years old).

Stickers, bubbles, and playdoh helped finish off the favors, and the kids loved them.

 At the party, Emily and Rachele had set up a "build your own lunch" bar, complete with uncrustables sandwiches for the kids, chips, apple slices, crackers, and chicken salad sandwiches.  The kids loved being able to pick all the parts to their picnic lunch.

The birthday girl wasn't too keen on the idea of everyone looking at her and singing to her.  Her reaction to the birthday song was priceless.

It was such a great party--being able to celebrate both Addie and Beckham's birthdays.  I'm glad I was able to help out by making both birthday cakes.  It's not any day you get to go to a combined Dinosaur/Sesame Street party :)

0 Dinosaurs and...Elmo?

My two friends Rachele and Emily decided to throw a double birthday party for their kids Addie (turning 2) and Beckham (turning 3), mainly because they needed to do it the same weekend and would be inviting all the same people, so they just joined forces for one great party--2 themes--but one party. Beckham wanted a dinosaur party, while Addie loves Sesame street, so there were 2 different dessert tables decked out in the different themes. This post I'll focus on Beckham's dinosaur theme, and do a second post on Addie's Sesame Street theme (too many cute things to show in just 1 post :)

Rachele found the exact cake she wanted me to make (found here)--I was grateful when she said I could just do 2 tiers instead of 3 (we still had tons of cake left over with just 2 tiers), so I modified the design a bit. I made the dinosaurs out of fondant/gumtex mixture and allowed them to harden for a few days on the outside of my big stock pot on its side so they would have a slight curve to them.

I did the same chevron design on the letters as on the example cake but wasn't sure where to put them since I had one tier left to deal with. I ended up sticking them behind my Tyrannosaurus Rex--I decided it kind of gave it a camouflaged appearance which was fun. I piped on the grass with my leaf tip--super quick and easy.

Rachele did an amazing job with the table. I was in awe with how cute everything turned out that she made.

She had got a new Silhouette machine and had fun using it to make her letters, invitations, and other decorations for the party.
Aren't these little rice krispy treats adorable?!

The favors bags that the kids got were too cute--I almost wanted to keep it for myself instead of let my daughters have it :)

Seeing all of her cute decorations made me want to buy a Silhouette too. It was the perfect dinosaur table for a fun dinosaur party.

The birthday boy with his family (that's my talented friend, Rachele--so sad she's moving to Florida and us to Iowa in a couple months for residency--too far away to plan parties together:(

The boys fought over the dinosaurs. They each wanted one. I was surprised how well those dinosaurs hardened up--they didn't break easily, even with a bunch of 3 year olds running around with them.

These kids had a blast. It was a great party--more pictures to come of the food and activities in my next post. So glad we could be a part of it! Thanks, Rachele.

0 Cars themed birthday

It was birthday time for my friend Melanie's little boy; and what boy wouldn't love a Cars themed birthday bash?! Melanie went all out with the food, decor, and game, and I got to help out on the Cars cupcakes.

She had made yummy peanut butter bars that looked like stop lights, chocolate covered pretzels for dip sticks, and chocolate covered oreos for spare tires. She even found cars themed juice boxes for the kids and had race flag patterned bottle water for the adults. I just about died when I saw the party favor bags she made that looked like Lightning McQueen and Mater. They were darling! (oh wait, boy's party--I don't know if I'm allowed to use the word "darling." Maybe I should say they were rockin'--I don't know, I don't have boys).

Melanie borrowed my 4 tiered cupcake platter and decorated it with construction paper to resemble race tracks. So creative and fun.

I'm so glad I got to help her with the cupcakes. These were so fun to make. I molded Lightning McQueens, Maters, and Chicks out of modeling chocolate then stuck them on top of cupcakes iced in red, yellow, or blue almond buttercream.

What made it even better was that Melanie did all the baking, so all I had to do was make the icing and decorate--by far my favorite part. I've always said I would love to have someone do all the baking and someone else do all the cleaning up, so I can just do all the decorating. She made it so easy for me. Thanks, Mel! Don't you love the cupcake liners she used? The were perfect for the cars theme.

We had a yummy lunch together with our friends and enjoyed all the socializing.

Cupcake time--here is the birthday boy blowing out his candles.

These two are sure enjoying eating their cupcakes. My little one took the "no hands" approach to eating.

Melanie and her husband Nephi made this awesome Lightning McQueen pinata out of cardboard boxes and paper maiche. It looked amazing. The kids had a blast trying to break it open and finally resulted to all jumping on it to retrieve the candy and toys.

The goody bags came in handy when the pinata was opened, and the kids started filling them up.

Here are all the kids that came. What a fun group!

Happy Birthday Andersen. Glad we could be apart of your special day!

0 Bun in the Oven Baby Shower

The girls and I headed up to Utah a couple of weeks ago to help throw a baby shower for my niece Megan. She is having a little girl in just a couple of weeks and we are all so excited (especially my sister Shelley--she's going to be a grandma! crazy!). I saw this idea for a "Bun in the Oven" baby shower and used it as our inspiration for Megan's shower.

First I designed these invitations to be sent out. We stuck with the red and aqua blue colors to have that retro feel, even though she is having a girl.

Shelley's friend Alese made the Bun in the Oven letters for us to use--a perfect backdrop to our present area.

We had a lot of fun putting together our dessert table. Shelley already had the red and white gingham fabric which we put over some boxes on a blue cloth to add some height and variety to the table.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a cake for Megan--a little aqua blue oven with some "buns" on top.

She is due on March 3rd, so the digital readout read 03:02. I covered my 8" square cake with a mixture of modeling chocolate and fondant since I had some of both in the blue color.

Shelley took my cake tops and made some cake balls that she dipped in blue and red candy melts.

The Pinwheel Pops were Sara Lee Pecan wheels that I stuck a sucker stick into. Cute to look at, but really not that tasty. Next time I'm trying this recipe.

We got raspberry sweet rolls and cinnamon sweet rolls from Shirley's bakery in Provo. Amazing. One of my favorite things growing up and still just as good. There was also a big bowl of strawberries and blueberries to try to stay with the red and blue motif.

We made some churro cupcakes that were iced with cream cheese icing and topped with some caramel ice cream topping to give it the look of sweet rolls. Mmmm, they were good. When I say "we" I mean me and . . .

this little cutie. She was so excited to make the cupcakes and help out with the shower. She did a great job with the cupcakes and helping Megan open her presents :)

I had this oven/stove set for my girls already, and it just happened to be the right colors for the shower, so we used it as the display for our churro cupcakes to go with the bun in the oven theme.

Some aqua and red tissue balls finished off the whole look. There is a very good tutorial here for the balls.

We had bread bowls and soup as well. My sister also got the bread bowls from Shirley's Bakery. Heavenly. Some great friends brought the soup, and each one was delicious!

Since the shower was an open house and people were coming and going, we passed on doing any sort of shower games, but I made this recipe box up for people to write advice on for Megan. It was just an unfinished wood box from Michaels I painted and added a little rolling pin on the top I found at the dollar store. I've also seen small rolling pins at Hobby Lobby that would work just great.

I designed these cards that read, "Recipe for raising a good bun" on top and "from the kitchen of" on the bottom. We loved reading all the advice Megan got. My favorite was one that simply said, "Call 1-800-GRANDMA."

We put together a little candy buffet with bags for people to fill up on their way out as a little thank you to them for coming,

All the signs (as well as the other ones on the dessert table) I designed in photoshop to go with the blue and red theme. We taped them to different size round glass jars with some red polkadot ribbon.

We had red twizzlers, cinnamon bears, cinnamon hearts, and swedish fish with aqua M&Ms, chocolate balls, raspberry taffy, and pinwheel lollipops..

I was really excited when I found these little guys in the wedding favor section of Joanns. They were perfect for the candy buffet and so cute.

There were so many friends, neighbors, and family that came. It was a great turnout and Megan got so many cute outfits and gifts for baby Reagan.
And I just have to take a moment and brag about my amazingly talented sister who is incredible at quilting and made Megan this beautiful baby blanket. Isn't is gorgeous?!

(Shelley, Megan, and Me). We are so excited for Megan and can't wait for baby Reagan to be born! We love little girls. Congratulations, Megan!