Birthday Party

It's finally over... Hailey's 8th Birthday Party Sleepover, and let me just say I am tired! Who knew 8 little girls could wear a person out so much? Well, in all honesty Michelle and I know that very well but have decided that the smiles that appear on our children's faces make it worth it! Now Michelle already showed you the invitations but I'm just going to attach them again to complete this post.

I love how they turned out! (Good job, Michelle)

After invitations were complete off to Pinterest http://pinterest.com/ we went to find ideas for decorations, cakes, and games. Let me just say I love love love Pinterest! With the sleepover theme it was easy to decide on decorations. I set a table to make it look like a bed with pillows and blankets. Then on top of blankets I scattered all kinds of candy. The girls thought they had entered a candy store; they even played a real life Candyland game. I know the parents were thanking me the next day for all the sugar :) shhh.

I decided to make Hailey a special birthday shirt to wear to school. I bought just plain shirts to decorate with fabric I cut out with my Cricut. This turned out to be a little more challenging that I had thought, but this was my first attempt at cutting fabric. After some trial and error, I ended up with a great shirt.

First, I did some practice cuts on scrap paper to make sure my sizes weren't off. I thought I had decided on the design I wanted but you will see that as I work on projects they tend to change into something totally different most of the time.

Before you cut your fabric you need to purchase an item called Heat n Bond. You will Iron this onto your fabric giving it a more stickable texture to help it adhere to the Cricut mat. make sure you use a clean sticky mat for fabric cuts, and a new Cricut blade. If you mark your blade with a F for fabric it will help you remember which is which. After fabric is cut just iron it on. Then for some extra touches I used stickles tracing around edges.

For Hailey's treat for class she wanted to take homemade Melting Snowman cookies. These are so easy. I was short on time so I took the easy way out with pre packaged sugar cookies.....come on it was already 2:15am I was tired.

Melting Snowman Cookies

Cut into 1/2 slices and bake according to package.

(They don't have to be perfectly round you want them to look a little messy)

Next I used a mixture of Cookie Icing and Whipped Vanilla Icing and mixed it together then microwaved it for about 8 sec to help drizzle on cookies. You want icing to run off the sides and look sloppy.

For the head of the snowman I used large marshmallows and microwaved them for about 6 secs then took them out and cut in half and placed sticky side on cookie . Press down a little to make it look smushed.

Finally decorate faces and body with different color icing.

Now the Cake... Hailey choose the one she wanted on Pinterest. This was my first try at piping a cake and I think it turned out pretty good. The cake had four layers top one yellow, two middle ones just a hint of cherry and the bottom layer was cherry. For the cherry flavor and color I used koolaid. for the icing I made a homemade buttercream icing for sides and vanilla icing for top. I have to say this was one of my best tasting cakes ever. It was a big hit!

Breakfast the next morning I made pancakes and used food coloring in the batter and the girls thought it was the coolest thing ever. Overall, I think that the party was a great success.

Super Princess Valentine's

For Valentine's day my boys wanted super hero valentines. This is due in part to the fact that my husband still dreams of one day becoming a superhero. When he was a kid he would dress up in yellow pants, shirt and cape and he became Yellow Man... he had the power of yellow. I'm still not sure what that power is and Norm won't tell me what that means? LOL My boys now are in love with all superheros. At any given moment, you will see my youngest son Connor in yet another costume. Hailey, on the other hand, is a mixture of both wanna be superhero and princess.
Hailey choose butterflies for her Valentines.

Yet again to get ideas for almost anything I head to Pinterst. Hailey's valentine was made with Cake Basics cricut cartridge, for the butterfly outline cut at 5 1/2 inches and George Basic Shapes for the circle and heart. I used my Gypsy to cut out everything so I didn't have to punch out the hearts or circles. I just set images overtop of each other to make cuts. After the butterflies were cut out I folded them in half without creasing them and made two slits to slip the sucker stick through. Glue your circles on and write your message and you're done.

Both boys wanted the same valentine so this made it easier on me. For the cape and mask I used my Superman Cricut cartridge. Then on both valentines I put the boys initials on the back of the cape. For the hole in the cape, you could use a hole punch. If you have the Gypsy like me, I just overlapped my cuts to make a circle at the top of the cap. That's it pretty simple.

A Popping Valentines Day

Our Valentines for this year. Each of my girls, ages 3, 9, and 11 picked out a color scheme that they liked and my 9 year old "designer" went to work with my Digital Scrapbooking Software.  This one was my favorite!

We made big batches of Koolaid Popcorn and filled little treat bags with that yummy treat, attached the valentine to the top, and super cute valentines were DONE.

Here's the recipe for that:
Kool-Aid Popcorn

Popcorn (I popped 1 cup of kernels in my hot air popper)
1 cup corn syrup
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter

2 packages kool-aid
1 tsp. baking soda

Pop the popcorn.  Pour into a large roaster pan.  Stir together the kool-aid and baking soda.
Melt butter, corn syrup, and sugar together.  Boil rapidly, stirring continuously for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add the kool-aid/baking soda mixture. (It will bubble up.)
Pour this mixture over the top of the popcorn in the roaster. Stir until popcorn is coated.

Bake in oven for 10 minutes. Stir. Bake for another 10 minutes. Stir and bake for an additional 10 minutes.  Immediately pour it out into a large bowl and allow to cool, breaking it into pieces once cool.

ENJOY!

Our middle little lady wanted an "Awesome" valentine's box (of which I am not good at.)  So, to Pinterest we went and she found a robot one she liked. I think it turned out pretty great- what say you?

Then the "baby" wanted a great Valentine box, too, so we came up with this and she was super excited about hers.

So, Happy Valentines Day!  Do something nice for your sweeties!