This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for any purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support! Between a wedding and a birthday, we are in the party mode around here!
That happy little boy up there turned 9 this past week, so we threw him a birthday party! It was so much fun to plan as well as execute. Today I'm sharing all about it!
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This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for any purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support! Do you see that beautiful girl in that picture above? That is Rachel and she is soon to be my daughter-in-law! We are so excited to have her in our family! Since she is from out of state, where her family threw her a bridal shower, we decided that she needed to have one here in her fairly new home state of Arizona, so Maddy took the lead and planned a shower for her, with Lindsey and I helping. It turned out so great!
This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support! Some of our grandchildren were going to be in town two weekends before Halloween, so we thought we would gather the family together and have an early celebration. Since we also have 2 birthdays in the family that are close to Halloween, it seemed like the perfect time to have a party! Because we had our party early, maybe some of our ideas will help you with any event you are now planning at the last minute! The Menu: I wanted to keep it simple, yet satisfy a lot of different tastes and make it feel like Halloween! Maddy and I planned the menu together and we came up with:
Maddy loves strawberry cake, so I used a cake mix to make one. But, to make it special I decided to decorate it with my Disney Skeleton Apple mug that Maddy bought me from Disneyland one year. I made strawberry sauce to use as blood! Click the gallery below to see how my granddaughter and I did it. The root beer was a big part of the fun! I found root beer extract at our local grocery store. That brand was much less expensive at the store than on Amazon. But, if you can't find any, there are a lot of brand choices on Amazon that are less expensive. We made 3 gallons, which was way more than enough. The best part was putting in the dry ice. The kids loved that! The root beer was delicious! The Fun! Two days before the party, I went to the store and purchased a variety of different pumpkins. Maddy came over the morning of the party and she and my son set up a pumpkin patch in my strawberry garden box (without smashing my strawberry plants) and decorated with fall leaves and flowers. We had been having some cooler weather in Phoenix, but of course on the day of the party , the temperature shot up again, so some of our plans didn't happen as I had hoped. We set the carving tables up at the side of the house in the shade! We had hoped to have everything outside, including a fire in the firepit, and then lighting the jack-o-lanterns around the yard after they were carved. But, we had to move everything inside because of the heat of the day. The kids loved carving though! We had plenty of those carving kits that make the carving so much easier! After the carving was over, we sat all of the pumpkins on the table. The kids were able to sit and eat their dinner all around them. Then, we all visited and talked awhile until the sun set. I had purchased small battery powered candles to put inside the jack-o-lanterns. We lit them and turned off all of the lights so everyone could oooo and aaah! Then we sang happy birthday and ate dessert! The party was a success overall, in spite of a few glitches to our plans. Of course, today the Fall temperatures are back! I guess we can have our firepit going on the real Halloween, but it won't be as much fun without the grandkids! Other Halloween Ideas You May Enjoy:
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. Okay, first I have to tell you that I forgot to take some really good pics of these cupcakes before taking them to the baby shower that we threw for my extra daughter Charly. These were the practice ones. Do you see the liners in the back that are blue with polka dots? Those are the ones I used. Charly and her husband are not finding out the gender of their baby until she gives birth, so we wanted a very neutral theme for her shower. Charly loved the Rubber Duck idea, so I looked on Pinterest of course and found this idea from Sweets & Treats. I hadn't heard of their company before this, but I fell in love with theirs large variety of sprinkle mixes and their cupcake liners keep such bright color after baking in them! I definitely recommend checking them out. They have some great items on their sale page as well! You know I love sprinkles and I can definitely use some new ones when Hot Cocoa Bomb Season begins! To decorate the cupcakes, I simply used a large circle piping tip to dot on frosting to look like bubbles. I enhanced the bubble look with large and small round candy sprinkles. Finally, I popped these rubber duckies on top! They were the perfect size for the top of the cupcakes. These rubber ducky cupcakes were definitely a hit and a centerpiece at the party. I love when treats are easy to make and pack a big punch! |
Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
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Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
March 2024
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