Happy 5th Birthday Makyia!

Here is another one of my sister's amazing birthday parties she put together. I can't take any credit, well maybe a little for the cupcakes, but she is the master mind behind it all.

The Trolls theme was very fun, bright and yummy!!

This was the take home gift section (my sisters favorite part) She always has really fun gifts for the kids to make and to choose from. I love her creative brain. She works on this stuff for months. 

Speaking of "Life being all cupcakes and rainbows"...

My mom and I made these.

 

 We colored the frosting, purple, pink and blue. We added the 3 colors to a piping bag being careful to keep each color on its own side of the bag and then squeezed it out until we saw 3 colors. We used a 1M tip to swirl onto the cupcakes. For the rainbows we used the blue frosting as the base, we cut a slit into the cupcake where the rainbow candy will go and then gently push it into the cupcake. They don't always stay in an arch but that was ok with us. Then you pipe on the white clouds using a small star tip. You could use mini marshmallows as well.

The Vegas heat in June made the cupcakes a little melty but I think the cream cheese frosting (8 oz. cream cheese softened, 1/2 cup butter softened, 1 tsp. vanilla, 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar) is yummy no matter how it looks. 

I think Linc agrees with that!!

We did 2 chocolate fountains with pink and blue chocolate melts.

Hug time!

We served pizza at Lady Glitter Sparkles and King Gristles Pizza Parlor. 

This was the best picture I could find of the adorable Lady Glitter Sparkles piñata she made. Seriously that hair is so awesome!

Here is the fantastic photo booth she created! She even had color hairspray for the kids to create their own Troll hair.  So fun! 

Happy Birthday Makyia!

Thank You "Berry" Much!

I made these as thank you gifts for some friends at church. I was in a huge hurry and didn't have time to take better pictures so I will include these just so I can remember what I used for toppings. 

I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips to dip the strawberries in. I usually use almond bark because it sets up so much better but I don't love the taste so I tried it with chips and they tasted so yummy. 

I dipped some in Heath Toffee Chips.

Crushed Oreos

Turtles (chopped pecans, melted caramel squares stretched and wrapped around) not super easy or pretty but they were yummy.

Mini M&M's

**I placed them on a cookie sheet and put them in the fridge to set up quicker since the chocolate chips take awhile to set up at room temp.

I placed each strawberry in a mini cupcake liner and then put them in small box I got at Hobby Lobby in their baking section. 

 

Teacher Appreciation

This is what we did for teacher appreciation gifts this year. My favorite thing was the "hugs" Lucy made. We traced her hand and cut out 2 of them. We cut a piece of ribbon that was Lucy's arm length and attached the hands to each end. We added hearts to the center and wrote thank you messages to her sweet teachers. I found this idea online.

We gave her teachers a Target gift card. We found this fun idea online as well.

Lucy wanted to give these to the cafeteria workers, janitors, and crosswalk friends.

We used our white chocolate popcorn recipe: 2 bags of microwave popcorn and 2 squares of almond bark melted. Mix and spread on pan to set up. 

We found these containers at Dollar Tree. 

I found the tag here

The parents in Wyatt's class put this together for Mr. Estrada. His sweet wife (who is also a teacher) was telling me that they were going to be taking a couple road trips this summer to see their daughter graduate and also again when she has her baby. We decided this would be fun to combine our money and put a road trip basket together. 

I wrapped the basket with a map I found at the Dollar Tree. I made the tags by printing off a map and then gluing the words to the map arrow.

We got gift cards for places to eat, music, books, coffee, gas, and a pitstop to Target (who doesn't want this on a road trip) We also included some road trip snacks and necessities like wipes, Kleenexes, and a first aid kit.  

We even included a gift for their grand baby.

Thanks for being the best teacher ever!! Happy Road Tripping!

You are my sunshine...

Lucy and I had fun putting these together to mail to her grandma's for Mother's Day!

We had a great time finding yellow and orange things to go in our boxes of "sunshine"

You can also do bags or baskets of sunshine. We did this for a friend who just had surgery. 

A color theme is fun to do for gifts especially if you don't know them well or just need a simple idea. We have done, "We are tickled pink it's your birthday", "I just want to Teal you, happy birthday", "We are feeling blue without you", "Orange you glad its your birthday," "hope your birthday is red-iculously great,"  "hope your birthday is golden," and "hope your birthday is plum fantastic." The ideas are endless.

 

Fruit Pizza

Lucy's class snack for May

Fruit pizza:

Crust:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 & 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup butter
Mix together and pack onto a 16" pizza pan. Heat oven to 350 and cook 12-15 minutes.

1st layer:
8 oz cream cheese (softened)
1/2 cup sugar (I used powdered)
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix and spread on cooled crust.

2nd layer:
Add fruit of your choice. The more color the prettier.

Top layer:
1 cup pineapple juice
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. corn starch (I stir mine in a little of the pineapple juice so it's not lumpy)
1/2 cup sugar
Cook in small saucepan on med high heat until it is thick and clear. Cool and spread over fruit.
Place pizza in fridge to cool and then serve.

The above recipe is enough to spread evenly on a 16" pan but I doubled my recipe and apparently didn't separate them equally so this one was a little smaller. 

I pulled up pictures online for ideas on how to decorate them. This was the fun part!

The more color variety you use the better!

Taco cookies

We made these for a Cinco de Mayo party,

They were so fun to make. They reminded me of the hamburger cookies I made for a barbeque years ago. 

We started with a golden Oreo. Scrap the insides out and cut the cookie in half-using a serrated knife.  Use almond bark (white with a little chocolate added) as a glue to glue together the cookies to resemble a taco shell. You can set them in a mini muffin pan to hold them together while they dry. .

Crush up Oreos and add chocolate frosting for the ground beef. Add this to the taco shell. 

Then add the toppings:

lettuce-coconut dyed green

cheese-yellow and orange sprinkles

tomatoes-mini M&M's or I read online you could use cut hot tamales.

sour cream-white frosting piped on using tip 2 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy 13th Birthday Ethan!

Today is Ethan's birthday and he requested an Angel Food Cake to celebrate with. I have always used a box mix. My favorite brand is Betty Crocker. 

I love how simple my kids have been lately with their birthday cakes!

I love this picture. Linc couldn't stop sampling his cake. And Ethan was so sweet and couldn't get mad at him.

Happy Birthday bud!