Snowmen Cake Pops

Emily's birthday is always over the break, so I take in a treat for her class to celebrate her birthday in January each year.

The first Friday in January was a snow day, so I took in treats and a "healthy alternative" (required by the school) the second Friday back.

We decided to make snowman cake pops. I got the Bakerella cake Pop book a while back & we decided to try some out. They were fun and turned out pretty well (especially for our first shot). They were also super time consuming! I would only make them like this again for something special, like a birthday. Also, they really didn't taste all that great. I think I'll try experimenting with my own "from scratch" cake & frosting recipes to get a better taste. In the book she recommends getting the KopyKake edible pens to add faces. I ordered them especially and they were awful! They were totally dried out and it took me literally hours of re-capping, shaking & coaxing to get enough ink to make all their faces. In the future I'm going to use candy pieces or sprinkles or something for faces.

Still, they were cute, a big hit with Emily's 4th grade class and a really big hit with Emily!

 

Ready for transportation to school!

(Drive with one hand, balance cookie sheet on passenger seat with other.)

Four

I cannot believe my "baby" is four years old!

I'm crazy about her!

All About Jane.


Nicknames - "Janie" or "Janie Baby". 
Lately she's been protesting about the "baby" part but I'll keep trying it as long as I can.


Middle Name - Adelaide.

Favorite Color - Purple, Purple, purple. Always has been. Probably always will be!

Favorite Food - Cheese. It's actually the only thing I can count on being able to get her to eat. She's not quite as picky as Emily but would never fall into a "good eater" category!
 
Favorite Animal - Horses and dogs. Or is it dogs & horses?

Best Physical Feature - Her skin. It is fantastic. Her cheeks have that great "peaches & cream" complexion and then in the summer she turns into the most lovely deep brown color. That blond wavy / curly hair is pretty great too!

 Favorite Holiday - Her birthday. She LOVES birthdays and it kills her to wait a whole year for hers to roll around. Not a real holiday, but at our house it sure is!

Talents - Jane is a crafter! She loves to make things with play-dough, model magic or sculpey clay. She loves coloring, cutting and gluing. As soon as I start a project she's right there beside me asking me what I'm doing and if she can help. The same goes for the kitchen - she also loves to cook.

Favorite Thing To Do - Play dogs, play with horses, or go to see dogs or horses. She also loves to do anything her big brother & sisters are doing. My little Jane is following in the footsteps of her older siblings and becoming quite the swimmer. We just wouldn't be without her!

Future Career - We think she will make an excellent terrorist negotiator. She absolutely does not bend from her initial demands or her will. So stubborn. She's spending her formative years practicing wearing down the opposition (us). So far she's coming along nicely!

Favorite  Movie - Spirit. Man, we've watched that thing 6 million times!

Favorite Toys - Her dogs. They go everywhere. "Bingo" was even on the roll at pre-school. She also plays with her horses and our plastic animal collection a lot too.

Puppy Party

Jane loves 3 things the most - horses, babies and dogs.

She had a horse cake last year and I thought a baby party for a 4 year old would be strange - so we settled on dogs. Fitting, as we are getting a puppy at the end of June.

The first thing I did was contact Angie from blonde designs. I was fortunate to get to know Angie when we lived in Brooklyn, and have been continually amazed by her ever since. I knew she had to be my source for cute invitations.

They were adorable & Jane was delighted.

(the real invitation had our phone number on it - I just edited it out for the blog.)

I decided to make it be like a dog obedience school and they would all be the dogs and would have to complete a series of "dog training." I made each child a small booklet and bought a set of dog themed stamps. Each task had a page and they earned a different stamp for each one.

To start off they had to become a dog. We did face painting and they could make a collar from construction paper, stickers & glue on sequins.

Some kids loved the face painting.

Some - not so much.

Emily painted herself to look like an Entlebucher Mountain Dog - the breed we are getting.

What do you think? Does she look like one?

I think if I were to do this again, I would make them all some form of felt ears or something else to become dogs and skip the face painting. My kids LOVE to have their face painted, so I had no idea so many kids would be freaked out by it.

Fetch.

I had rolled several newspapers (one for each child) and we made three teams. Kind of like a relay each child had to run and fetch a paper and when they were back the next person could go. Once the whole team was done they sat down. First team all sitting down was the winner. They loved it - even though in the excitement, the whole concept of not going until the next person got back got a little blurred ....

Retrieving.

I know, technically the same as fetch, but I was looking for activities 3 & 4 yr old's could do so I gave it a new name! I bought a bunch of rawhide bones (we can use them for our dog later) and hid them all around the yard. Once they had found one, they could come and get that stamp in their book.

They were really into getting the little books & getting their stamps.

 

Playing at the dog park.

Which was really musical puppies. Thank goodness we own more stuffed animal dogs than any one family really should!

We walked in a circle around the dogs to music. When the music stopped - rush in and grab a dog. The person without a dog was "out." There was one less dog each time, until we were down to the "winner." It got a little crazy but they all loved it.

Housebreaking.

(I had to put it in there - the stamp set had a fire hydrant!)
OK, no pictures of this one. We took everyone to the bathroom who need to go and everyone washed their hands to eat. Which they were happy to do for another stamp!

Beg.
I had them all "beg" before they ate, which they thought was hilarious. They got a bone & dog bowl stamps in their books for this.

Angie made me water bottle labels too. They were super cute. Normally we would not use plastic bottles - but I thought that this could be an exception. Water is healthy and I probably would have used disposable cups for a party anyway .....

I tried to keep it as dog themed as possible - but made sure we had a few healthy choices. I had extra mini sugar cookies (the bones) from the goody bags to serve too.

Scooby Snacks in a dog bowl were a hit.

So were the "bone" sandwiches

and the "pup cakes."

For the cake, I copied the puppy from Angie's invite.

It turned out well (if I do say so myself!)

Jane thought it was a great puppy cake!

I'm pretty sure she wished for a real puppy. So glad it's one that can really come true.

After the food we played "Pass the Puppy." They all sat in a circle and passed the dog around, if you were holding the dog when the music stopped you were out.

Then I read them "Pretzel" by Margaret & H.A Ray while we waited for their parents to arrive.

My kids LOVE that book - and so did everyone at the party.

Goody Bags.

These were supposed to be their reward for completion of dog obedience school. If I had thought of it sooner, I would have made them all diplomas.

I made small paw print tags for each child with their name. I love personalized things!

I am in favor of simple theme centered goody bags. With that in mind we put in dog stickers, a very bouncy ball, a bag of mini dog cookies (with tags by Angie) and a Ty beanie baby dog.

They all seemed to like them and I've heard from many parents that their child is quite attached to the little puppy we put inside.

All in all it was a successful party. How do I know?

This little happy puppy told me!

Brrrrrrr

It's Rebekah's birthday today, so we let her sleep in & miss early morning seminary. Since it means a later morning & longer in a warm bed for US, we didn't need that much convincing.

Rick however, still had to get the 6:20am train to work.

Here's the e-mail I sent him after the big girls had gone to school -

OH, I'm so glad I'm not you today. I am very happy to be staying in 
this warm house until I take the kids to pre-school! Thanks for going to work for us!

The reply I received -

I regret to inform you that your husband froze to death on the way to the
train station.  We are currently asking for volunteers
to come forward and brave the cold in order to pry his frozen corps from
the sidewalk.

Lightsaber Cake

For Jacob's birthday he wanted a "lightsaber cake."

I have to say, this is one of the easiest cakes I've ever made, but it was still impressive because of it's size. I made two sheet cakes and cut them each in half longways.
Jane helped. She loves cakes, can you tell?

 
I bought a board at home depot, because I didn't think cardboard would support it.
I covered the plank with foil and put the cake pieces end to end.

Then I rounded one end, and tapered the length of it out to the handle.
Blue and grey frosting and some candy embellishments for buttons.

Too bad this year was one for a "family"party and not friends - this was a lot of cake!

 

One happy little birthday Jedi!

Five

Jacob turned five today, and I can hardly believe that I am even typing that. Where has that baby boy gone??? Maybe I feel his aging more keenly as he is my only son. Just one "go around" of all things little boy for us!

Here's all you need to know about Jacob -

Nicknames - Jake or Big J.

Middle Name - Robert. A middle name he shares with his Grandpa, who also shares his birthday.  

Favorite Color - Orange. (Blue is a close second.)

Favorite Food - EVERYTHING! If I had to pick one - shrimp. No, sushi rolls. OK, Mangoes. Or Haagan Dasz Mango sorbet. This kid loves food way too much to just pick one thing!!

Favorite Animal - That's tough. Sharks and Rays tie for first place. He's pretty crazy about octopi too. He really just loves any ocean animal. And dogs. Oh and worms. That's probably it.

Best Physical Feature - His hair. I LOVE it. Definitely the best in our family. It's so thick and smooth and shiny - unusual for such a blondie. I also think his height and upper body strength will probably serve him well as he gets older.

Siblings - Man, is this kid tender with his three sisters.
Rebekah just thinks that he is the coolest little boy on the planet (still not allowed to take pics of her), and the other two adore him too. Jane follows him in everything he does and while he and Emily have their fair share of run-ins (mostly over space & belongings) they play and wrestle and love to hang out together. He is always "snuggling" them.

(Thanks Jeff T., for this picture.)

BFF - Colin Stanley! He still isn't over the fact that Colin and his family moved 18 months ago. Either am I for that matter. We've done a pretty good job at getting our families together every 6 months. These boys still adore each other, so we're going to have to keep it up. (I'm secretly hoping they'll end up being missionary companions someday.)

 Favorite Holiday - Halloween. The kid is crazy about Trick-or-Treating and costumes and all the spooky decorations we put up. He has loved pumpkins since he was super little, and I think that it doesn't hurt that it comes not long after his birthday. I think in his mind, Halloween is kind of an extension of  his birthday.

Talents - Should I be ashamed that he is awesome at video games?

 

Favorite Thing To Do - Play with friends! I have never met a more social child. He loves to have friends over. He asks kids in line at the grocery store for their phone number so we can call them to arrange a play-date. A day is just not complete for this guy unless he's visited a friend.

Who He's Going to Marry - Definitely Stella (next door) - he tells me all the time. I'm still holding out hope that he'll marry my friend Melissa's daughter so Missy and I can be related! But if he end up marrying Stella, I'll be delighted too because she's super cute.

Favorite  Movie - Star Wars. Hands down. 

Favorite Toys - He really, really loves Lego's.

Favorite TV Show - Magic School Bus. He's crazy about this show. Seriously, this boy spent the first 4 yrs and 10 months of his life NOT watching TV. A good thing in the long run, but tough on the Mom if she needs to shower or take her eyes off the kid for a second without disaster befalling her!  He watches it in the morning now while I exercise, and I'm pretty happy that he's learning from it too! 

MY Favorite Thing About Jacob -  Jacob is a tactile boy. One of the ways this translates is that he likes to play with my hair. I LOVE having my hair played with! He mostly does it when he's mellow - or bored. He'll crawl into my lap and run his fingers through my hair. He's done it since he was a baby.

Happy Birthday Buddy! We LOVE having you in our family.

Jane's 3rd Birthday Celebration

Our friend, Rob, makes the best birthday cakes for his family. He usually makes a sheet cake, cuts it into a shape and then decorates it. He makes whatever was significant for that year - like a sneaker when his wife ran a marathon, or the cover of "Goodnight Moon" when his daughter was turning 1 and loved that book.

My kids are always saying "we wish Rob could make our cake", so I decided it was time to give it a try before they left our family for theirs.

Jane loves purple and horses, so requested a "purple horsey cake." No huge surprise there. I asked her what kind of cake she'd like it to be inside and she said "purple", I explained I was talking about the inside of the cake and it could be vanilla, or chocolate, or yellow cake ... She repeated "purple." OK then, purple it is.

I made a white cake and added purple food coloring. These scraps show the color.

Then I cut the shape. Rob free-hands his, but I'm not that good. I used a favorite coloring page of Jane's and enlarged it on my printer, then cut around it.

Then decorated it to look like a horse, in her favorite colors.

She liked it!

With 3 pink candles ready to sing.
Happy Birthday to Jane!


I don't know anyone who loves birthdays as much as Jane. Even as an infant she knew what they were, she gets the concept of it being your special day, the cake, gifts, everything.
We don't give our kids a birthday party every year, and Jane had one for her 1st and second, so I was going to skip this year. Jane asked for weeks before her birthday how long until her "birthday party" and talked non stop about her "purple horsey cake" and that she was going to invite "everyone."

At the last minute, we invited over a few of her friends for cake and ice-cream, bought some balloons, threw out our bounce house, and put the bubble machine in the backyard. Instant birthday party. Jane bought it, and was delighted that her friends came over to share her day.

After everyone left we took her for her birthday surprise - a horse ride (really a pony, but she didn't care.) The pony was really cute, and named "Tinkerbell" - she was delighted.

She got to be lead around the arena twice. Rick said "It's probably really dangerous that this place is so close to our house." Yeah, I think we'll be back on a regular basis.

After her pony ride we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. We had just been seated and ordered when Jane said she felt sick. She was lethargic, and felt warm, and wouldn't get off my lap. She even dry heaved a few times. I had them put her food right in a box, and was thinking about leaving Rick and the others there, taking Jane home to get ready for bed and some Tylenol and then going back for them. Rick suggested we just eat and then all leave together, since the food was already there - but I just felt awful for her - who wants to be in a busy restaurant on a Saturday night, surrounded by food if you're feeling sick? Even worse on your birthday! I decided to zip into Whole Foods, which is next door, and see if they had any kind of homeopathic fever reducer, that could tide her over until we got home. I bought some oscillococcinum, which I have never used before. I gave it to her and within 10 minutes, she was sitting up, eating her food, drinking lemonade and talking. Even the waiter commented "Oh, you feel better now?" when he came by - it was a marked difference. By the time we left, she was skipping out of the restaurant, holding the bag with extra food it it, and swinging it around. I'm not sure if it was a fluke, but I'll definitely try that again when one of them gets sick!

When we got home we opened presents from family. She got lots of lovely things including -

A purple skipping rope from Emily -
from Green Toys, the handles are made of recycled milk bottles.

A light saber from Jacob - purple, of course.

Comes in handy for battles with Jedi brothers.
A big horse puzzle and horse stickers from Rebekah.

A new tea-set from Grandma & Grandpa O.
She had asked for "a big big horse." So, we gave her a Breyer one - that looks like "Spirit" (from the movie.) But I also got her a stable to play with all her smaller Schleich horses.

It's beautiful, and she loves it. Because it's made by Schleich, all the other horses we have (we have many) fit in it really well.

I also got a fence to make a corral around it.She and I will have lots of fun with this one!

We changed pj's - it was too hot for winter one's, and then opened cards. Grandpa D. sent her money. I asked her "What are you going to buy with it?" She said "A horse."
At least she's consistent.

All in all, I think she had a really great day.