The Birthday Party

The birthday party was a huge success.  The kids all had a fun time and took home lots of loot and the play room was completely trashed.  My kids weren't real thrilled about the play room since it's their responsibility to keep it cleaned up, but they got over it.

Since our house number is a little difficult to see, I made a huge bat symbol to put on the front door so everybody would know what house was having the party and it worked like a charm.  Every kid was yelling at their Mom while in the car "Look at his front door!"  I took a piece of yellow posterboard and used a projector to get the bat symbol onto it and then painted it in with black craft paint.  Very easy.  It's now on his wall above his bed.

We had face painting for the kids, but only two took us up on it.  One had a bat and the other kid (who belonged to me) went as the Joker:

This is his action pose

The house was filled with blue, green and black crepe paper streamers as well as the same color balloons.  We also made some bats before hand for a game that the kids played.  We taped them to the kids' backs and they had a game of tag where they had to chase each other (in the house - total chaos) and see how many bats they could collect.

I also had all the kids "capture" The Joker  by putting him into a chair and wrapping him up with rolls of toilet paper.  In order to get his presents he had to "escape" from his bonds.  He loved that part.

The only other game we had was one called "Stomp the Bad Guy".  We filled balloons with candy, blew them up and drew stuff to represent the bad guys on them with a sharpie marker.  For the Joker we wrote "Ha Ha Ha".  The Penguin had an umbrella, Catwoman a cat and the Riddler had question marks.  There were two balloons for each kid to pop.  One little girl was so tiny that she had to get a pair of scissors to pop her balloon.  She just didn't have the weight to do it.  It was very cute.

The capes that I made were also a big hit and they wore them for most of the party and were really excited that they got to take them home.  They took the bats from the tag game home as well.

The little guy had this smile on his face the entire day, long after the kids went home.  I call that a big success!

Batman Birthday Cake

Before tomorrow's birthday party, let me introduce you to the official Batman Cake (please ignore the outlet in the background):

It's made from Marshmallow Fondant frosting and it was way easier to do than I expected (the cake, not the fondant.  I've made that before.)  For a great tutorial on how to make the fondant go here.  I added yellow food coloring, Wilson's Paste, to the fondant as it was mixing.  As long as you use a ton of vegetable shortening all over your counters and rolling pin, this fondant is really easy to work with.  Clean up's a real pain, but I'll take that.   Once I used all the yellow I needed, I added the black to the mix using my Kitchenaid Mixer. 

I decided to go with a yellow cake and black cityscape.  When it came time to do the buildings, I cut out squares for windows to let the yellow show through.  I also let all the buildings be way off kilter for an authentic cartoon look to Gotham City.  Have you ever really studied buildings in cartoons?  They are never straight up and down.  Go watch a Looney Tunes cartoon sometime and you'll see what I mean.  Every single window, doorway and building is skewed.

If your background frosting, in this case yellow, is not perfect, don't try to make it so.  You'll be layering on tons of buildings and it hides imperfections like a dream.  I did the layering one building at a time and put windows in where the yellow was perfect. 


The candle on the cake came from Party City and the figures are all Batman Imaginext toys that my son already had.

I'm thrilled with how this turned out!

Let's Make A Super Cape!

So say you have a Super Hero party for your child (ours is coming up this Saturday.)  Could be Batman, Superman, etc.  And suppose you need a cape for the Super Hero.  Oh, and one for each of the guest heros that will be attending the party.  Should you shell out a bunch of cash and buy them pre-made.  NO!  I'll show you a way to make a Super Cape (or 20) and do it for pennies.  Sound good?  Let's get started.

1.  The first step is to make a template of your cape.  Grab some newspaper.  I would also recommend a child to hold it up against, but that's strictly optional.  :)

These are the (very crudely drawn) measurements of the ones that I made.  This was to fit a five year old boy.  I know for a fact that there will be a tiny little girl at the party that this will probably hang on and I'll need to make some adjustments to it for her.  Like I said, if you have a child in front of you that you can measure against, it would be really helpful.

I wanted to have the cape fall just below the rear end of the child and not be skimming the floor.  This is for a Super Hero, not Darth Vader.  If you plan on making a Vader cape, plan to make it twice as long.

Notice that the outsides at the collar edge are angled in.  If you do not cut those angles, the cape will not drape right and it will sit all wonky at the shoulders.  

2.  The Material.  This is where you save the pennies when making this for multiple children.   I did not use fabric.  Fabric can get really pricey and I just don't have the money right now to shell out that much for this many capes.  The next best thing?  Plastic Tablecovers!  You can find these at Party City or at your local dollar store.   I've made all sorts of costume pieces for the stage for children out of this material and it will save you a ton of money. 

 

3. The horizontal fold that you see going through the center is the main center fold.  I cut along the center fold and then every three rectangles to get the measurements seen above.  Use your individual child's measurements to make sure that you have the width and length that you need.  The factory folds just made this project easy for me to measure by.  With the 54" x 108" table cover, I got enough "fabric" to make 10 capes. I purchased two tablecovers to get my 20.

4.  Cut to the pattern.  When you lay your newspaper pattern on each piece of the tablecover that you have cut, save yourself some cutting time by moving the pattern all the way to corner at the bottom.  This way you have two less sides to cut.

5.  Cut the fabric out.  Then the finishing touches are added.  You can add some Sticky Back Velcro, shown below, to the points at the collar to hold it on.  In the case of Batman, points were cut out at the bottom of the cape to give it that bat-like effect.

6.  Try It On!

BackView

Front View:

 

So what was the final cost per cape?  I spent $1.99 for each tablecover totaling $4.00.  Divide that by 20 and it comes out to just 20 cents per child!  Not too shabby huh?  

5th Birthday!

Five years ago today I was a happy camper.  Finally no longer carrying around an alien in your stomach leads to a very happy mama for sure!

Today is The Youngest's Fifth Birthday and it's been a fun one.  We are not having the official party until either the end of January or February.  It's just too close to the holidays.  But he's had a ball today anyway.

In October I put in a shopping moratorium for the boys.   No spending on themselves whatsoever until after Christmas.  The purpose was twofold:  A)  So they wouldn't buy what was already bought for them as presents and B) So that they would save up their allowances and supplement what they did get for Christmas.  So today, the moratorium went away and they knew down to the penny what they had in their wallets.

The Youngest bought himself a Spiderman/Green Goblin/Venom action figure set with his $20 that he had saved and he's thrilled with it.  He got this after he had already opened his gifts from us.  To him, it's like a second Christmas already and his Aunt will be bringing another set of gifts over this evening.  His brother managed to buy five different Wii games for the new Wii they got this Christmas (which I got for free from Swagbucks by the way - Still happy about that one!)

Oh, and the Youngest got to eat Coconut Cake for breakfast too.  He's thinking that he's had a Pretty Alright Birthday!   Cake, presents, shopping...  I think I might have to agree.  Sounds fun to me too.

A Girlie Birthday

Since today is the Second Anniversary of my 39th birthday, I took a girl's morning and had some fun!

We had coffee at the coffee shop, a real treat for me and then we had pedicures.

Last but not least, I treated myself to a Fascinator hat (for a tea that I'm hosting in December) and a fun and obnoxiously huge ring:



I love the hat.  Who doesn't love feathers, flowers and lace on their birthday?

Wanna know what the kids gave me?  An electric tea kettle that I've been eyeing for a while and the Youngest picked out the most eye irritating fuchsia colored lipstick that you've ever seen.   The kind that little old ladies wear and that makes me look like death warmed over (not the best look for someone as pale as I am.)   Completely cracked me up.  His favorite color is pink and he was so proud to have picked it out for me.  I'll be sneaking out to exchange that for a pink that's a little more wearable for me.  He'll never know the difference.  :)

Birthday Surprises

Yesterday, the Eldest received a birthday gift from my parents.  Want a great tip to make a kid really happy on his birthday?  First, grab a box.  Then take 30 one dollar bills, crumple them up lightly and throw them in the box.  Wrap gorgeously for the kid to open.   You'll get this response:

Now, beware.  See the little fella?  That smile was only for a split second and right before he realized that there would be none of those little green thingies coming his way.   There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, stomping of feet and huge tears once he figured out that those pretties were not for him.  We had to give him two of dollars of his own to keep him (The Youngest) from punching his brother out of anger because he (The Eldest) wouldn't fork over any.     Life is never dull with The Youngest around.

Happy Birthday Eldest!

Today is my oldest baby's tenth birthday!  Happy Birthday Eldest!

 

The Youngest is having a tough time with his brother getting the spotlight today.  He wanted to know why The Eldest was keeping him from having a birthday.  He hasn't quite gotten the concept of each person having his own special day.  He's also mad as all get out that I put all those minifigs on the cake.  He'll get over it.

We're foregoing a big party this year.  The Eldest has chosen instead to go to a video arcade place with one special friend instead.  Yay!  No party stress for Mom!  We opened presents first thing this morning and both boys were tickled to death to get birthday cake for breakfast!

Lego Birthday Cake Incident

"Creativity is the ability to hide horrible wrongs artistically."  - Shea

I stand by my statement.  This has served me well through many projects that had serious flaws and my son's 10th Birthday cake is no exception.  This was supposed to be a ridiculously simple cake.  Now why is it that I get the words "simple" and "difficult" backwards so often?  Difficult cakes?  No problem.  Simple cakes?  I totally screw them up.

Take the Lego cake for example.  Simple concept, should have been easy.  I took a 9 x 13" cake and chopped off one side.  I took a small cup and made "biscuits"  in the chopped off side and then cut them in two so that I would have two circles from each.  I then frosted the cake, placed the circles on top, then frosted those.  See, sounds simple doesn't it?

Well.  The cake was crumbly and mixed with the frosting.  I couldn't get the frosting to go around the circles right.  Some of the circles are lopsided.  D@mn.   To be honest, the cake looked like a torso with eight breasts.  Unless you're a hormone raging teen boy, it's very unappealing.  Oh, and the Youngest made a hole in the side with his fingers when I wasn't looking and that didn't help matters either.   This is officially the worst birthday cake that I've made so far.

So what's a gal to do when something like this happens?  Disguise the mess!

I raided the boys' Lego bucket for embellishments.  I found quarter round red pieces, long red pieces, round red wheel bases, eight different colorful minifigs and three antennae thingies.  Wanna see how it turned out?

The 10 candles hide the hole made by little fingers pretty well, don't they?

Notice the strategic uses of the quarter round pieces  and center wheels bases to define the circles a bit more.

The long red pieces disguise some uneven edges and the baywatch babe coordinates well with the frosting.

 

The Mime and the Skull Guy near each other just crack me up.  You'll also see some yellow things sticking up in the center of the cake.  That was more to aggravate The Eldest than anything else.  It drives him nuts that those are some of my favorites pieces to build with.  I put those yellow antennae thingies in almost all my creations.  So of course, it had to be in the cake too! 

I'm here to tell you that there's nothing like making a project really busy in order to hide all your sins!

A Pirate Birthday Party

Ever wondered how to have a successful Pirate Birthday Party for a pre-schooler?   I think I might have just figured it out this weekend.  The party was a super hit with the little guys and some of their older siblings.

When all the little pirates arrived they were told that they weren't really pirates yet, they just thought they were.  They were told that they would have to earn the right to be called a Pirate.  They thought this was really funny and couldn't wait to do it.

First task:  Every pirate must have a pirate chest.  I mean, you can't be a pirate without one can you?  I found some little wood chests for the kids to paint with tempera paints and covered the table with aluminum foil to protect it.

Second Task:  By finishing the chests, the Pirates earned the right to decorate their own pirate hat.  I made the hats out of black foam sheets (12 x 18) and had the kids decorate them.

Here's how I made the hats:

1.  Take one (12 x 18) sheet:

2.  Cut the sheet in two lengthwise:

3.  Stack both sheets, one on top of the other.  Then, trace the outline of a pirate captain hat and cut it out.  Don't get rid of your scraps though!  I'll show you why in a second.

4.  Staple the hat together as shown.  This hat fit every one of the kids and did not need adjusting. 

 

5.  Decorate!  I just this set of foam stickers that I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby, but you could have pirate stickers or stamp them with paint.

6.  What to do with the scraps?  Make shark fins!

I made a small cut at the bottom and then folded the flaps as shown.  Tape the flaps to the floor and you've got an ocean full of sharks!

Third Task:   The pirates earned their eyepatches and earrings by learning the Pirate jargon.  I googled "how to talk like a pirate" and came up with a fun list.

Fourth Task:  They earned their loot and telescopes by playing games.  I googled a couple of games and this is what I used:  (these are not my games and I don't take credit for them, but they were lots of fun)

First game:  This is to teach the new pirates how to avoid being detected by the enemy:  Throw a balloon in the air.  While it's still in the air they have to laugh like pirates by saying "Yo-Ho-Ho!"  When it lands on the ground they have to be silent.  If not, they had to  Walk the Plank!  Guess who was one of the first ones to walk the plank?

Notice the sharks on the floor?

Second Game: The kids were given orders to follow like this:

If I said:   Port!   They all had to run to the left side of the room.

If I said:  Starboard!  They had to run to the right side of the room.

If I said:  Captains Coming!  They had to stand at attention and salute.

If I said:  Climb the rigging!  They pretended to be climbing a rope.

If I said:  Mess Deck!  They sat down with legs crossed.

If I said:  Submarine!  Everyone had to lay down on the floor and pretend to be a sub.

This one was so much fun!  I don't have pics for you of this one, there was too much movement and they all came out blurry.

The kids were now officially pirates and got to have the cake:

I'm pretty proud of how my cake turned out!  I used a Wilton's pan that I got from Hobby Lobby.  One day I might even take a class or two on how to decorate cakes.  Just imagine how dangerous I'd be then.  Ace of Cakes, here I come!

Here's a better pic of it:

We even had a chest for the forks:

Of course, no Pirate party would be complete without Pirate Swords.  I set out a bucket of swords on the hearth.  These were a huge hit and the adults had to all duck quickly before they were skewered:

The Youngest was incredibly pleased with his party and the kids all had a blast with the games and crafts.  Everyone took home lost of pirate loot and the Youngest went to bed with a huge smile on his face!

Happy Anniversary To Me!

Today's a big day around here.  It's the first anniversary of my 39th birthday!   Woohoo!

At this point in my life, I have decreed that there will be no further birthdays, just anniversaries.  I am stopping at 39.  I want my (eventual) obituary to read something like "Shea, passed away today.  She had just celebrated the 51st anniversary of her 39th birthday."

Yep, that's what it's going to say.  I plan on being in total denial for the rest of my life. And, barring something totally catastrophic, it could very well say that.  I have grandparents and other ancestors that lived well into their late 90's!  So, that means I haven't even hit the halfway point yet.  That deserves a big Woohoo! in my book.  :)

Just wait until you see what my boys picked out for me for my birt  anniversary!  We have a tradition around here of letting the boys pick out the gifts for people.  It's way more entertaining that way.  One year, for mother's day, the Eldest picked out these plates that had a summer Hawaiian theme.  He gave me a hint that he had gotten me some "Mexican eatin' thingies."  It's been an endless source of amusement for my mother.

Today's gift was just about as good.  I got a six pack of Snickers candy bars and these lovely skull and cross bone orange-black-gray argyle slippers:

I've been wearing them over my green Wicked socks that my Sis In Law gave me for my "anniversary".  She's in denial too.  She just celebrated the same "anniversary" as me, just 25 days sooner, which makes her older than me.  Ha!

But don't they look lovely together?

Edited to add:  When I wrote this earlier today, in my little obit section I put 49th instead of 39th.  Gee, senility sets in early when you hit the big 39 + 1, doesn't it?

Birthday Cake!

I survived the birthday party!  Just barely.  I got a sum total of two hours sleep on Saturday evening.  I was a little tired the next day.  It was a fun party.  One of the boys declared that "This is the funnest birthday party ever!"  I call that a win. 

The camping themed cake went well too.  I took a 9 x 13 cake, chopped off the end, broke that into pieces and stacked it up in one corner to make a hill:

I covered the hill with some water and chocolate rocks, added a few trees (frosted sugar cones), a tent (used graham crackers), a fire (using pretzels and frosting) and some grass and came up with this:

Click to Enlarge for Details

 Here's another (and better) angle:

 Click to Enlarge for Details

 

This was also declared the coolest cake ever.  The parents loved it as much as the kids.  They had no idea how easy this cake was to make!

It got a lot less cool after the boys attacked it:

More fun stuff about the party:
- The kids got to make a camouflage shirt to take home. We used tshirts and Rit dye (brown, tan and green).  They turned out really cute.
- They made a fire in the firepit in the back yard and made smores.
- They camped out in the living room floor since it was too wet to camp outdoors.  They got to watch Iron Man.  This turned out to be a good settle down activity.
- They also made the survival kits.
-We had Pigs in a Blanket and fries for supper, and I made a mountain of pancakes early the next morning for them all.

I had other stuff planned for them to do, but it turned out that this was plenty.

The Eldest was extremely pleased with everything.  I guess I get to keep my "Best Mom Ever" credentials for another year.  :) 

Happy Birthday Youngest!

We're celebrating a big milestone today at my place:

Today is the Youngest's 3rd Bday!


Unfortunately, his bday falls at a very poor time of year. Everyone is partied out, or has a party already planned. So, we're having an intimate party this year. He personally requested Scooby Doo cupcakes as his birthday cake this year. Yeah! I like this idea. It's a heck of a lot easier than me having to get out a fancy cake pan and Icing tips and doing a big huge colossally awful tasting cake.


Here's a close up for all you Scooby fans:


He wanted orange colored cream cheese frosting on a marbled cupcake too. Which actually works with the whole Hippy/Psychedelic Scooby color scheme, don't ya think?

B-Day Recap & an FO!

Only eight days left in the contest! Leave a comment any time you feel like it and get an entry for the prizes.

*****

I am happy to report that the Birthday Party was a huge success! It was held at Monster Mini Golf which is a glow in the dark indoor mini golf place and was wicked cool. Perfect for a b-day party. The kids played golf, ate cake and played arcade games. There was also some mean Pokemon card trading going on before they left to go golf too!

This is an example of what the place looked like:I had to take this with the flash off so that the black light stuff would show up and of course there was absolutely no making the kids sit still so they're all blurry, but you get the picture.

When I asked the Eldest if he had fun he said, "Yes Ma'am! We should go back there anytime we don't have stuff to do!" I call that a success, myself.

*****

In other news, I finally finished Jaunty Cap #2!

Here's friend bear modeling it for you as well:


I also frogged the first Jaunty Cap that I ever made. I'm not going to waste the Noro Silk Garden on something that I'll never use. I'll put it towards a much more appropriate project some other time.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, My birthday turned out to be an almost lovely day. My parents came over and took us out to dinner sans kids. We ate at a nice small italian restaurant. We all went to the In-Laws and picked up the kids and got my bday loot and had cake. Everything was very lovely. EXCEPT. I'm covered in sore/itchy/hivey type spots and I'm still achy.

See, a couple of weeks ago I was bitten by a tick. Totally gave me the heebie jeebies when I found it on me, on the back of my head! Ewwwww. Now, I've got spots. So, I had to race to the doctor to get drugs to combat whatever this may be. It's too early to know and I refuse to worry myself about whether I have lyme disease or some strange Alabamian middle of nowhere fungal plague from my parents place at the lake. Hi Mom!

I've gotten zero knitting done in 3 days. My parents stayed the night last night and we were too busy chatting and playing with kids. The look on the Youngest's face today as they were leaving was priceless. He could not have made them feel more guilty if he had tried. Absolutely pitiful. Boy loves his Nanny and PawPaw. He kept saying " N' Go!" and pretended not to see me as I tried to take him from his Nanny. Thus, fully engaging in the theory, "If I can't see you, you must not be there and therefore won't take me from the person I would rather be with so you should just make me happy and go away." I guess I know my place in the world huh?

Just because I wasn't knitting does not mean that I was not being crafty though. This morning was the Cub Scouts Space Derby. Eldest and his Dad made a rocket. Guess who got roped into painting it? Yep. Your's Truly.

I got the "Most Imaginitive" award for my trouble, er, effort! Well, the certificate said that the Eldest got it, but I'm claiming it anyway. Here's a pic with the rocket and the model used. Ever heard of Larry Boy from Veggie Tales? If you haven't you should fix that. These are a parody of batman and spiderman done by the Veggie Tales crowd and they are super funny. Adults find it funnier than the kids do because of all the pop culture references. Anyway, here's the results:

I Am That Hero!

Duct tape can fix anything

Well, our luck (my hubby says there's no such thing as luck, but I think he' full of crap) turned for the better on the weekend. Eldest had a wonderful birthday weekend. There were presents, family, a moonwalk and fireworks galore and no major disasters (barring one incident with a face scratching cat, of course - Eldest was safe, youngest, not so much.)

I'm afraid the moonwalk was not all that we hoped for and once blown up was not like the picture that I posted previously. There were a gazillion small holes in it. The previous owner did not take good care of it. I need to buy a lot of official patch kits for it. But! There's a reason that my Dad says that duct tape can fix everything (he also says the same about kerosene, but that's another post.) I now present to you, The Official Redneck Moonwalk!

Check out that duct tape!

Eldest loved it anyway and had a wonderful time.

My dad took this wonderfully unflattering pic of me eating a celery stick.

My knitting totally sucked this weekend. I made the mistake of picking up an old ball of acrylic yarn to take and knit with while I was at my folks house. It made my hands ache so bad I pitched the whole thing. Note to self - ditch all synthetic yarn! Not only does it squeak when you knit with it, it doesn't glide on the needles. That's reason enough for me to become a yarn snob. Even if it does cost a few pennies more!