Month: March 2013

Celebrating a good friend turning a quarter of a century

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Last week we celebrated one of my good friend’s 25th birthday with a surprise party which was her loving hubby’s idea. Paul came to Alasha & I with the idea of throwing a party for the love of his life because she was reaching one of life’s milestone birthday and we immediately volunteered to help. Alasha made the reservation and gave out the invitations and I was in charge of getting the birthday girl to the restaurant and of course making the cake.

So Tracie thought that she and Paul were meeting Alyssa, Josh & I for dinner. And she never suspected otherwise so it was so cool to see the pure surprise when she saw her family and friends all sitting together and everyone yelled SURPRISE! It was truly awesome 🙂 All in all the evening was a success and after good food with good company we had dessert and finally went home after closing down the restaurant.

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Hope you had a wonderful birthday Tracie!

Alice in Wonderland Birthday Celebration

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Last Saturday we celebrated the birth of our 5 year old walking talking miracle. After several years of trying my husband & I all but gave up trying to have a baby as we had been trying for years and the doctors had told us sometimes it just not meant to be. Then on my birthday I received the most wonderful birthday present I have ever gotten, I found out that I was pregnant! To this day, it has been the best present I have ever received and am so thankful for my daughter, she is truly a blessing even when she is being sassy lol.

We decided to have a Alice in Wonderland birthday party to celebrate another healthy and happy year with Alyssa in our lives. The planning started a little over 9 months ago since there is usually a lot of detail that goes into her parties and we do everything ourselves. Some of my previous blogs have reflected some of the progress along the way but here is the end results:

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Lyssa getting ready for the day

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We made the Kiddos table extra bright with colorful tablecloths

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To make the kiddos table stand out more we used white tablecloths for the grown ups tables

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Our dessert table was filled with Cream Cheese Butterfly mints, Eat Me sugar cookies, Cheetos Carrots, Guardsmen rice krispie treats, plus the cake of course which I decided to make an Orange Cake and thankfully it was a huge hit with both the kids & adults 🙂

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My hubby and parents are always a huge help with these parties, plus they are great sports and will dress up in costume which is always fun (I love getting to be a funny & entertaining character…it makes the kids laugh which is totally worth it)

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Here are some details that we forgot to take pics of at the party, the White Rabbit was on the door welcoming everyone to the party, the cheshire cat was near one of the signs was immediately inside next to the supply table for the Mad Hatter Hat making contest and the other was near the food table, the March Hare and the Mad Hatter were on the dessert table and the caterpillar was on the gift table. After the party was over my dear hubby did a happy dance that he got our house back and that it was no longer filled with party details lol. As always we posted we were giving the party supplies away for free on hubby’s facebook (sorry I am still protesting getting one). We believe in sharing with others paying it forward so we request that whoever we give the supplies to pass them on to someone else when they are done with them.

Peanut Butter Truffles

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Friday we had a March of Dimes (MOD) bake sale fund raiser so I whipped up some Peanut Butter Truffles

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When I was getting towards the end of making the truffles Lyss gets up for the day and joined me in the kitchen to watch me finish up. When she asked if she could have one I let her have a small piece…to my horror she immediately goes to the kitchen trash can and spits it out. I am thinking oh my goodness all of these truffles taste horrible…what am I going to do?! I pull it together and ask Lyss why she spit out the truffle and if they taste bad to which her response was…Mommy I’m sorry but those cake bites taste like peanut butter, which made me let out a sigh of relief and I shared that they are peanut butter truffles which Lyss replied…well then Mommy they definitely taste the way they are supposed but you forgot that I don’t like peanut butter. Whew! Disaster avoided lol

Alice in Wonderland party snippet

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Here a couple pics from Little Lyssa Hope’s birthday party last weekend. Overall it went really well, the kids had fun (my main goal achieved) and adults seemed to enjoy themselves too 🙂

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My mom as the white rabbit

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I will load all of the pics this weekend.

Angry Birds Treats

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Usually I have tunnel vision the week before Alyssa’s birthday party because there is always so many last minute details that need my attention not to mention that I am baking her cake & other treats (so they will be fresh) and we always make the food ourselves. But this year when a friend came up to me about a month ago and asked if I would please make her nephew Angry Bird cupcakes and cake pops for the same day as A-Bear’s party I couldn’t tell her no, especially since I love helping people’s faces light up with special treats on their special day (truly that is what it is all about).

However, when my ever jokester hubby delivered them he told Barb that I was so sorry for the way they came out and hope she would forgive me (so so mean!) thankfully she loved both the cupcakes and cake pops despite hubby’s bad joke (he did come clean and tell her he just wanted to scare her for a moment).

Hope Nick had a wonderful birthday!

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Personalized Tea Cups for Tots

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What better favor for an Alice in Wonderland tea party than your very own personalized teacup…this is what I told myself around 10 months ago and slowly started scouring for teacups that met my approval to match the theme. Finally luck was on my side and I found 3 packages of four tea cups, after realizing the number of children attending I had to find one more set but couldn’t find the pastel colors again so I went with red (I was thinking of the Queen of Hearts) and all in all…I am quite pleased with the results:

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I used oil based Sharpies because all of the reviews and tutorials (and trust me I went through a LOT) said that they were the better and more permanent choice than the normal sharpies.
Put the mugs in the oven, THEN set it to bake at 350 degrees, once it warmed up to 350 degrees I set the timer for 30 minutes, once the timeframe has past I turned the oven off and let the mugs cool with the oven.

Here are the results:

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I feel in LOVE with Alyssa’s mug as it also had a little white bunny on the inside

Eat Me

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Here are our versions of the famous “Eat Me” cookie that makes Alice grow and grow and grow….hopefully these little delights do not have the same affect lol.

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I used my favorite sugar cookie recipe (from the amazing people at Crisco)
After baking I cut out fondant using the same cookie cutter (makes the fondant the same shape as the cookie) then wrote the words and voila cookies for the little and big darlings alike.

Labor of Love

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Five years ago I was in labor with my little miracle and today I am experiencing labor pains again…like so long ago it is a labor of love (my back keeps cramping every 10 minutes or so, I keep sipping on water and ice chips, I just want to take a break but have to push through the exhaustion) but this time it is for Little Alyssa Hope’s birthday celebration.
I like to celebrate another healthy & happy year on a BIG scale so I know the last minute work in store for me the week of her birthday.
Currently what is causing my reflection on labor pains are little treats (they taste as good as they look…what? I had to taste test to make sure they taste ok…ok I didn’t have to necessarily have to eat one of every color but all I have to say is…yummmm tasty 😉 )

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Cream Cheese Mints
1 package (8oz) Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 package (2lbs) powdered sugar
1 package Duncan Hines peppermint stick flavor mix or approximately 10 drops of peppermint extract
Food coloring of choice
Granulated sugar (for rolling)
Candy Mold (optional)

• Using dough hook mix the cream cheese and slowly add powdered sugar until blended
• Section a hand size piece to work with and store the remaining mixture in a ziplock bag so it doesn’t dry out
• If using a candy mold roll a small amount of the mixture into the granulated sugar and press into mold.
• Turn the mold over and lightly tap the mint out
• Place on a cookie sheet to dry
• Eat & Enjoy 🙂

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