How I Spent My Birthday

My Birthday was Sunday and to celebrate we headed to where else... the Happiest Place on Earth. Spent the morning and early afternoon there with some of my very favorite people and then when it got crowded we left. Later we went out to Outback for dinner and then came back home to eat cake. It was a fun day... with the possible exception of being a year older.

All About Me Cake

This year I made my own cake. I was excited to do it. Actually, I begged Jason to let me do it. I wanted an ice cream cake, so I decided to decorate it with butter cream. I thought it would be fun to make a cake that represented me - things I like: Coach, cooking, Disney, flip flops and of course, Starbucks. I really like how it turned out... although, at one point I almost gave up and bought a store made cake. I *shudder* at that thought. The making of this cake was one disaster after another. I'll share because it's funny.

Jason went to the store to get something for dinner. He told me to text him my list. I did. After he was home for about an hour I asked him if he had put the CoolWhip in the freezer. What CoolWhip? Oh... the stuff for your cake. He forgot to check his text. Well, that sucks.

We eat dinner, I finish up my butter cream transfers and then head to the store. It's already after nine. Ugh. My list: Cake mix (yes, I cheated, but I always make my own frosting), CoolWhip and ice cream. The first place I head in the store? The bakery... Maybe there is some plainly decorated cake that I can just scrape off the crappy store done design and then put my transfers onto it. Maybe. Because I'm tired. Really tired. And at this point I just want to go to bed. But no luck. They are all hideously decorated with way too many flowers and balloons to remove. And expensive. So I go get my supplies, pay and then drive home.

I preheat the oven. I gather up my eggs and my oil. Crap. I'm almost out of oil. I pour it into the measuring cup and it's just short of the quarter cup that I need. It's almost ten. I'm tired and there is NO way i'm heading back to the store. Instead I head to the computer and hop onto Google. One suggestion, just use extra water. Ok. This I can do. I add the little bit of water and dump it into the mixer bowl along with the mix and the eggs. I beat it for the required two and a half minutes. I check the batter. It's thick. Really thick. Why is it so thick? I added the three eggs, the oil mixture and the water... wait! I. didn't. add. the. water. Crap. I add in the water and turn the mixer on low and the water sprays me. Crap. I grab a spoon and try to mix it in. It works so I turn the mixer back on and mix it up some more. Not bad. It's usable. I put it into my four little pans and pop them in the oven and wait the twenty minutes, take them out and let them cool in the pan for the required ten minutes. I go to unmold the pan and the stupid things break apart and pieces of each are stuck. in. the. pan. Crap. I realize that I forgot to grease the pan. It's a nonstick pan. Nonstick my butt. I save what I can and toss the rest. I grease the pans and go for round two. I fill my pans and run out of batter. And I have no more oil. Great. Just great. I put what I have in the oven and hop back on the internet. Some suggest apple sauce and some suggest mayo. I decide on mayo. I grab the jar out of the fridge and attempt to open it. The lid won't budge. I'll have to go with the apple sauce. Ugh, it's cinnamon apple sauce and it's eleven thirty and at this point I don't care. The timer beeps and I take out the baking cakes, they cool and I remove them from the pans. Some come out without a fight and some, well they break again. It's midnight and I'm defeated. Who needs and ice cream cake. I'll just serve plain cake with ice cream. I grab a normal square pan, grease the crap out of it, pour in the freshly mixed batter made sans oil and with the cinnamon apple sauce. I bake it. I cool it. I pop it out of the pan. Success. It's nearly one thirty. I have to get up at six. I go to bed. Cake undecorated. I don't care.

The alarm goes off way too soon and I hop in the shower. While I'm standing under the hot water trying to wake up the light bulb goes off. I quickly finish my shower and head to the kitchen. I grab my pan and cover the bottom with plastic wrap and dump the ice cream in it. I spread it around the pan and then toss the chocolate-cinnamon-apple cake on top. I throw it into the freezer and I now have my ice cream cake. It may be undecorated but it's a cake. I head to my "party" and come home several hours later. I takes me maybe ten more minutes to finish the cake. Perfect.

Next year... I. will. let. someone. buy. me. a. cake!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Today was Jason's birthday and to celebrate we went out for Mexican food. He thought it was going to just be the three of us, but I surprised him by inviting Derek and the kids and David and Kara! He was so surprised when we got to the restaurant and they were there. Too bad he wasn't as surprised by his gift...

He had mentioned that he needed a new wallet, so that is what I decided to get him (exciting, I know). Dillon was with me and insisted on getting him a brown wallet and I figured that Jason would like it since Dillon picked it out. I also got him a few gift cards and slipped them into the wallet before I wrapped it up. All day Dillon was so excited to give his Daddy his present that the minute Jason walked in the door Dillon handed him his cards and present and said "Open your cards and your present. It's a wallet and it brown. Open your wallet, Daddy!" It was cute!

I also tried to surprise him with a cake, but that failed too! I made sure that I had cleaned up every single piece of anything that I had used to make the cake with, did all the dishes, wiped down the counters, stashed the cake away in a cabinet, only to have my attempts at a surprise foiled by Jason... and Dillon. Jason was home for less than five. FIVE. minutes when he says "I smell cake. Dillon, did Mommy make a cake?" "Yeah, my Mommy make a cake for you and it has a guitar on it!" Thanks little big mouth!

Dinner was a lot of fun and delicious. The waiter found out that it was Jason's birthday (no one told him - he saw presents) and at the end of dinner, they surprised him with a sundae and stuck a big sombrero and his head, shoved a spoon in his mouth and sang him a birthday song. It was pretty funny and he was a good sport. When we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, Jason left the hat on the table and the waiter placed it back on his head and told him that it was his to keep. Just what we need - a big huge sombrero! At least Dillon will have fun playing with it.

The Super Details

Dillon's birthday party was a lot of fun to plan. I started with a photo shoot where I took over eighty pictures (gotta love digital cameras). The invitations were super easy. I made two different collages using one of my favorite sites, picnik. The front of the invitation was all pictures and the back had all the info and some more pictures. Next I uploaded them to Costco's photo center and had them printed as 4x6 photos in a matte finish. I used double-sided tape to tape the front and back together. I mailed them in 5x7 manila envelopes that I ran thought the printer to address. I decided that it would look more "top secret" to have the addresses printed directly on the envelopes instead of hand addressing them or using labels. I picked a basic font for the envelopes (I think it was Courier).

After I had made and printed and assembled the invites Jason and I thought that since the party was at one pm people might eat before they came and we were planning to have food, so I hopped back on picnik and made a food will be served card. I had them printed as wallets and put one in each envelope along with the invitation.

I wanted to keep the decorations fun and easy and didn't want to use crape paper and balloons. While I was brainstorming ideas, I thought it would be fun to have, for lack of better words, word bubbles like in comic books with the words used on the Batman TV show. I googled "Batman Fight Words" and came up with a list of words that I liked. I made stencils using this font and traced the letters onto poster board. The letters were painted using acrylic paint and then the poster boards were cut into jagged circles. I used a staple gun to hang them along the fence. My "niece" Alyssa made a poster that we hung on the outside fence reading "Slagle Crime Fighting Superhero League"

I also made a banner that read Happy 3rd Birthday Dillon loosely using this idea from the awesome blog imperfect / pleated poppy. (Really cute stuff over there!). Since I knew that my banner was going to be long, I made my background signs with half sheets of letter sized paper. I used the same font from the word bubbles for the banner.

Since most of the kids at the party were in the 2-5 age range, I kept the activities to a minimum. I bought a pack of PlayDoh from Target (on sale!) and some plastic cookie cutters from Michael's and set up a PlayDoh table. I also put out several sticks of sidewalk chalk and let the kids color on the patio with it. I decided on playing one organized game - pin the mask on the superhero. My brother drew me a cute little superhero and I painted it. I made some masks out of a sheet of cardstock. And after all the hard work on the game... we didn't play it! But the little guy looked super cute hanging on the fence with the signs.

I know some people don't give out party favors, but I like to. I bought some little bath buckets from the dollar spot at Target and filled them with Batman & Spiderman fruit snacks, a couple of Spiderman temporary tattoos (also from the dollar spot), a small tub of PlayDoh, some twenty-five cent crayons and some superhero coloring pages. Each bucket also had some Super Dillon bubbles. I bought bubbles from the party section at Target and peeled off the labels. I printed a picture of Dillon on some letter sized labels (three per sheet) and then affixed those labels to the bubbles. I coated the new labels with Mod Podge for paper so that the bubble drips wouldn't cause the picture to bleed.

So there you have the details from my lil' superhero's birthday. I would also like to thank my super helpers for all their hard work pulling this all together. Thanks Kara, Tiffany and Alyssa - you guys are awesome!!

Happy Birthday Dillon!

Age: 3

Personality: independent, strong willed, energetic, silly goofball, observant, sweet, loving

Favorite Books: Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy, Elmo's Ducky Day, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Snuggle Puppy!

Favorite Songs: "Twinkle, twinkle little star," anything by Metallica, "All I Ever Wanted" by Kelly Clarkson

Favorite Movies: Finding Nemo, Ratatoulli, Space Buddies, Cars

Favorite Food: Chicken soft taco, yogurt, apple sauce, fruit snacks

Favorite Games: Tag, football, basketball, domino's

Favorite TV Shows: Little Bill, Super Why, Scooby Doo, Curious George, Calliou, Yo Gabba Gabba

Favorite Toys: Balls - any kind, cars, Thomas the Tank Engine, play mat with streets on it, Doodle Pro, crayons & paper, drums

Favorite Activity with Mommy: snuggling, reading books, building "curvy" roads with play mat to roll balls, cars and hockey pucks down

Favorite Activity with Daddy: washing the car, playing in the back yard

Superhero Cupcakes

Six dozen cupcakes

Six designs

Six cups of homemade butter cream

Five flavors of cake

One-hundred-twenty-nine pieces of fondant:

Seventy-one letters

Twenty-five starts

Eleven word bubbles

Eleven superhero shields

Eleven superhero mask

A Superhero Party

For Dillon's birthday we decided to have a small (and by small, I mean in the neighborhood of forty) party with a Superhero theme. I didn't want it to be Superhero, like Batman and Superman, so instead we had a Super Dillon party. We rented a bounce house and Dillon LOVED it - so worth the money we paid! We decided to keep things simple and just ordered some pizza from Costco, I made a pasta salad and a Caesar salad and we bought some chips and whipped up some dip (meaning that I tore open the powder pouch and dumped it into a container of sour cream). The party was fun and laid back and wore me out... but it was worth it! Later in the week I will do a post about the cupcakes and the party details... it would be a huge post if I were to include it all here! 

the Super handsome birthday boy:

my niece and her best friend were brave and wore these:

Super cousins... couldn't get either of them to look... or smile:

the little kissing bandit:

Super Dillon!