My Despicable Me Cake {it;s even lemon flavored}

We have seen a lot of fun movies this summer, and loved Despicable Me 2! With all the birthdays we had this summer, we just had to make a Minion Cake. I owe this inspiration to Pinterest- thank you you incredibly creative people with lots of time on your hands- you all had so many great ideas! Mine is a little different - because I only do super easy cakes. I will share the recipe with you later- because the cake is lemon flavored- and really good!

Minion Cake:
I made one rectangle cake and cut off the corners to round it  as shown. After frosting it as above, I used a Little Debbie's whoopee type pie with the top cut off for the eye, with a Hershey's kiss placed in it. The glasses are just gray frosting, and black licorice. The buttons on the overalls/pants are also Hershey's kisses. No fondant- I did find a great frosting recipe that spread really smooth that I used for the yellow.

Anyway, it was a fun and super easy cake!

Thanks for reading!

Disney's Cars Birthday Party Ideas for DIY

Oh the crazy days of summer- and having 4 active boys with birthdays- while being pregnant with twins! Time is getting away from me! Here is the CARS Birthday I did about a month ago....

I've seen many awesome Disney Car's parties on Pinterest- some where you just buy a kit and it has everything you need- you just pull it out and put it up. If you are looking for that sort of thing, this is not it. I did pull together many ideas I found online, along with some of my own. This is my version of a Disney Car's Party for a four-year-old.

 Most Disney items have a very strict copyright on them. However, there are many free images you can get online for your own personal use. For the invitation, I used a photo I took in Disneyland.
Using Photoshop I printed on it.

 

When the children arrived, I had them choose a coloring sheet from CARS to color. I had brown paper bags (that had CARS on them with their names) to put all their items from the party in. After they colored their picture, we put them in their bag for safe keeping.

Free printable Disney coloring pages are here.

When they finished coloring, we had a road made with painter's tape in the hallway, along with a bucket of CARS from the movie, for them to play with, while everyone finished their coloring page.

 GAMES: I had more ideas than time or energy to get ready. The first one we played, was "Bean Bag Tire Toss". If you look at Target right now, you can find these blow up tires for $3. I ordered mine online from Amazon.

 My almost 2 year old, decided he would sit inside one of the tires, leaving us two to play with instead of three. For older kids, you could have points for each tire if you wanted. I made some CARS beanbags, from scraps I had on hand.

 Another game we played, was "Guess which Cone the Car is Under." I found these colorful cones at ROSS. But you can pick up some at Walmart, or Target. I liked these, because they were better quality, and a better price. Everyone got a prize for these games. I bought a large package of cheap cars at Toys-R-Us, and they all got to choose a car.

Another game, was a "CARS RELAY." I bought cheap water noodles, and taped them into tires. We also had some cones from them to run around. This was a little bit of a challenge with four year olds- some of them got it and some of them did not. But they still had fun.

DECORATIONS:
For DIY decorations, I used pictures I found online of scenes from CARS. I put a border on them, and printed them out  in mostly  5 by 7 prints, and attached them to cones, with balloons. That is about the extent of the ideas. If you are interested in copies, please leave a comment, and I may post them to share. I tried to keep it simple- I did sew a CARS runner out of scrap fabric I had. But there are piles of dirty dishes in the sink, and clutter on the counter that I cropped out of the photo-- yep I picked decorating over cleaning....

The Happy Birthday Banner -below- came from Target- I found it on clearance. The cones- I found at Ross.

CAKE/FOOD:

I have seen these parties with seven courses of treats. You will not find that at my parties. I'm not going to kill myself making themed food, and personally, if the party is for small children, I think cake and ice cream are enough. I usually do cupcakes for the kids, and make a cake, for us as a family to share later. That is what I did. I found an easy way to make a Tow Mater Cake- I will share in another post- since mine is different from what I found online, and made cupcakes. We had ice cream and water to go with it.- Simple.

FAVORS: I bought Hot Wheels cars, Disney Cars fruit snacks, and  some clearance Disney Cars sticker pages I found at Target. I put them in clear bags, and used a Cars sticker to seal the bag. The Disney Cars stickers I used for the cupcake toppers, and to seal the favor bags, I found at Oriental Trading. Note:After the party, I did find some Disney Cars on clearance at the Disney Store that would have been perfect for favors. I'm always keeping an eye out for a good deal.

 

For the last few minutes of the party, we watched some of the Tow Mater Disney Shorts while waiting for parents to come pick up the kids.

 

 I am happy to share my printable decorations and invitation...just leave a comment. I hope you find this post useful...I sure had fun throwing a little Cars party for my 4 year old.

 

Thanks for Reading....

 

 

R2D2 Birthday Cake {super easy star wars cake}

I like to make a fun cake for my kid's birthdays. And I let them request whatever they want, and try to make it happen. Most cakes have been easy, or I have found help online. This year my son wanted the Millennium Falcon. I talked him into R2D2 since it was the day of the birthday....and it had to be easy. And so here you go-a super easy R2D2 cake:

I made two cake mixes (I always add things to my cake mixes because I think plain cake mixes are boring...-I think I added some pudding and fat free sour cream...)
I put one cake in two round pans and one cake in a rectangle pan.

  I cut off about one row on the rectangle off the bottom. I cut part of on the side- you can see on the right- and added it back- so don't do that. Just cut about one row off the bottom. Next, cut a little more than 1/2 of a round for the head. Using the other part of the round, cut out 3 feet- rounded type triangle looking pieces. I just looked at a picture of R2D2 and cut. If you do that, you will be good. I did not have room to add the legs- so I drew lines w/ the frosting as seen below.

Once again, looking at a picture of R2D2 Add all those details. I used graham crackers and oreos- mini and regular size- for the details along with frosting and one red lifesaver.
Please ignore the part where I clearly did not have a steady hand when applying the frosting.

And there you have it. I definitely am not a "fancy smancy" cake baker. I have never used fondant. Nor do I want to (it doesn't taste that great)- and I often use a cake mix. The kids don't care. They loved it. They want the same cake next year.They had the best time eating it, and said I was the best mommy ever.  I call that a success.

Thanks for reading!

Toy Story Birthday Ideas

Time is getting away from me! I did this b'day party back in August. oops... Keep in mind that I had a month old baby-- and I'm not one of those "kill myself over it and never sleep" people. In fact, I don't do fondant when it comes to the cake. I use the stuff from the store and in a jar.

Here are some of the things we did for a four-year old b'day party. I had the links...and since I have put this off for so long, I have to re-find them. oops. I will add to this post and update the links as I find them. If you have a question or need something right away- please feel free to email me or leave a comment and I'll get it for you.

Cute printable invite I found online...or you can buy a package from Target! (yep, that is what I did...)

As the children arrived, I had a Toy Story coloring table set up for them. Google Toy Story Coloring pages and you will find more than you want to count...

I already had a few Mr.Potato Sets, but I bought an extra, and we had two sets. Since these kids were 4, we raced the timer, to see how quickly they could put the guy together. They loved this!

This was a recycled game- as in we used this for an army party a year ago! Why not use it for Toy Story-- there are army guys.

The two above games consist of: get cardboard. Draw something on it. Make a hole or way to toss something into the picture.  Turn it into a game. That's it.

We had so many Toy Story character toys so we played "I Spy a Toy Story Guy". I hid them around the room and the kids found them.

The link is somewhere...but there are these cute printables - just like the ones Andy draws in the movie- and they made cute decorations without any work for me!

I did not even have to waste all my printer ink of these guys! The toppers are a pack of stickers from Walmart, that I stuck on card stock, and cut out. That is it and the kids loved them- only problem was that they were not all the same, so they had requests for certain characters.

This was also a hit! We bought dump trucks at the dollar store, and served Oreo Chocolate cupcakes. I had the kids dump it on their plate to eat, and then they got to take the truck home. Loved it!

I might be the only one still using cellophane baggies and curly ribbon for favors, but I like to see what is in the thing. I had leftover Lego candy from the Lego B'day the month before- since it went with the toy theme-I was able to use up the rest.

Centerpiece is called "Toy Story Toys from our house cleaned off and displayed..." I just forgot to get my wooden blocks and spell out Happy Birthday. The banner is an old one and the tablecloth I already had...

All-in-all it was a fun memorable party!

.

Soda Pop Cake {or orange and banana cake}

 Finally, I am finding time to post Sweets on Sunday! yeehaw. I started a "lifestyle change." {a.k.a.diet}
But this is not anything new after having a baby. And I am still allowing myself occasional treats- just not as often and not as rich and not as much. And thanks to Hungry Girl, I always find something super duper easy to make. Hence...the Soda Pop Cake. This is fool-proof- as are most of my cake mix based recipes. :) I used one yellow cake mix, and one diet orange soda. It was surprisingly- very delicious.

Soda Pop Cake:

Combine one diet soda (12 oz can, any flavor)

with one cake mix (any flavor)

Bake according to the package directions. Make sure to spray your cake pan with non-stick cooking spray.

After baking, cool in pan before removing.

Frosting:

One 8 oz. container cool whip and one small package vanilla pudding mix- NOT sugar free - if you want gooey frosting.

You can use the sugar free pudding, and your frosting will be less sticky. I also used 2 bananas. You could use any fruit you have- that would go well with your cake. Since we used an orange soda, and a yellow cake, bananas worked well. I layered the cake, frosting, bananas, and then another layer of cake and frosting. (note- I cheated a little- with some refrigerator frosting- added to the pudding frosting to make it go a little further)

There wasn't much left after my boys enjoyed it. I will definitely be making soda pop cake again....

Have you made a soda pop cake? If so- what flavors have you found to work well?

Thanks for reading!

Lego Birthday Party Ideas

Hello! I did not mean to take such a long blog break- but a new baby will do that to you. However, he is doing much better- thank you for your sweet comments!

 I have a great Deseret Book CD give-a-way- this week- so make sure to check that out later.

In the meantime, since I threw a little Toy Story B'day Party today, I thought I'd better share the Lego Party from like...2 months ago! Keep in mind that I have seen your amazing parties- with a ton of cute printables, amazing cakes, unbelievable decorations, etc. I just sit back and admire them. I have 4 boys- and when I threw this one- I was 9 months preggers- so my motto is "sweet and simple". You can check out past boy parties we have done here. (You can also look under Creative Play and Preschool Ideas for other party ideas.)  As always- super simple and fun...(these are not magazine cover kid parties people.)

Here are some of the things we did for our Lego Party - credits and links I used to come up with this some of this, will be linked at the bottom of the photo they are found in.

 We found lots of great decorating ideas online. I sewed up some streamers- as seen here, bought a diposable tablecloth at the dollar store, and blew up some matchy balloons. I also cut out construction paper Lego pieces - using the printable found here. Instead of making huge birthday banners, I have decided to make a b'day poster- printing it up at Costco- and making it small enough to fit in a scrapbook album- so we can save them from year to year. I used a cute printable made by Delia Creates-which I also used to make party invites.

 Zakka Life provided this free Lego guy- which we used to let each child design their own Lego guy. This is what I had them do when they arrived. To keep it simple, we just used crayons, and the face was already drawn on the Lego guy cut outs. The kids were so creative with this, and really loved it!

 Here are some of the finished Lego guys. They wrote their name on them, and then as they got prizes, or other things to take home, they placed it on top of their Lego guy.

Guessing or Estimating how many Legos were in the jar was a fun one- but with 6 year olds, you have to give them a range of numbers to choose from. I told them there was more than 50 and less than 150 - to help them with the guessing. There was a small prize for the person who guessed the closest. We used these Legos later for another game.

 This was one of my favorite things to do- build a car- idea found here. To do this, I had to purchase a large quanitity of wheels, etc. and sort them all beforehand. We gave each child the same number of pieces and let them build a car. Next, we raced the cars-using the table as seen below.

It was fun to watch them race their cars- some just fell over because they had so many Legos on them- and some actually went very fast! So this was also  learning activity for all of the kids.

What child doesn't love I SPY games? We hid several Lego guys around the house- in plain sight- and had them look around to find them-"I SPY a LEGO Guy". We play this with every b'day party- whatever the theme is- we will play "I SPY" with it!

This is a game you could play several ways. We used a big flat Lego piece and passed it around the table. I had a brown bag, and the kids drew Legos out of the bag and added it to the Lego sculpture. I told them a number to draw each time. I was going to wrap up all the Legos and have them unwrap them, but I ran out of time for that. You could also use a dice, and have them roll a number and draw that number of Legos to add to the sculpture. We called it "Lego Collaboration". There was no winner- it was just fun to see what they could build with the Legos when working together. If the kids were older, you could have two groups and have them race.

Table: streamers, bubble wrap- I did not paint it- I just put the clear stuff on as a runner, streamers I sewed together, balloons, Lego pieces and Lego guys from construction paper...

The Cake- I am not cake decorator! I found this cake idea from Betty Crocker.- She never lets me down! I love the Betty Crocker website! The cake used marshmellows cut in 1/2 and a sheet cake to make the cake look like Lego pieces. The frosting was just regular frosting-not the prettiest-but- there is no fancy fondant in this house....

I purchased a box of Lego guys, and some Lego candy online. I put them in little baggies with some other little candies. The Lego candy is not that great tasting- but the kids absolutely loved it!  You can build with it too.

Our big present was the Lego Table we made from a Coffee/End Table. The kids that were waiting for their rides, played with this while waiting.

Overall it was a fun successful party. I am sure there will be another Lego party in this house someday....with four boys around~!

Great Lego Party Links:

Delia Creates

Homemaking Fun

And check out Pinterest!

If you still need an invite to Pinterest, send me an email. (see contact tab at top( 

Thanks for reading!

oxoxo