Hoosier Homemade hosts a weekly link up called cupcake Tuesday that I often link my cupcake creations to. Over the last month she has been hosting a Holiday Cupcake Challenge in which I entered some of my cupcake creations from both last year and this year.

Each week has had a theme:

Week 1 – Holiday Flavor

Week 2 – Thanksgiving Cupcake

Week 3 – Christmas Cupcake

Week 4 – New Year’s Cupcake

Here are the cupcakes I entered…

Week 1 Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcake

Week 2 Thanksgiving Cupcakes

Week 3 Santa’s Crew Cupcakes

Week 4 Almond Champagne Cupcakes

It’s been so much fun to see all of the creative holiday themed cupcakes entered by the participants. People are just so awesomely creative and inspiring.

I haven’t bothered soliciting any votes from my readers for any of the individual cupcakes, but this week YOU CAN VOTE FOR ME ONCE, as “Overall Winner.” So if you’ve got literally ten seconds to throw my way, click here, and leave a comment on the Hoosier Homemade post saying that you vote for MommyTopics.

I sure would appreciate it!

Merry Christmas and Happy Baking!

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Have you ever visited Confessions of a Cookbook Queen's blog? She is totally hilarious, loves all things pink and sparkley, and creates the most decadent, indulgent, desserts!

A couple weeks ago she posted a recipe that called for Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses and I was shocked to learn such a thing existed.

You heard me… “PUMPKIN SPICE – Hershey KISSES.” See you’re shocked too right?!

One of the reasons we’re both so shocked about this is that they don’t sell them anywhere… except for at Target. At least… that was my experience. I looked at Walmart, Albertson’s, CVS, Michael’s, JoAnne’s… no one had any clue what I was talking about. So then I had to go back to the source and Ms. Cookbook Queen herself informed me that they were where all good things go to hide… at Target.

She was right. There they were. But, Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses were not the only thing I found!

I also found Candy Corn Kisses and even Caramel Apple Kisses.

I had no idea Hershey was branching out like this with their chocolate.

So along with grabbing the Pumpkin Kisses to make the Cookbook Queen’s Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Blossoms, I also just had to buy the Candy Corn ones and figure out something to do with them.

When you don’t know what to bake… bake brownies! Right?!

Who’s with me?

I mean you can never go wrong with brownies.

BAM!

How you like them brownies?!

Oh yeah!

Candy Corn KISSED!

These were so easy to make, they look extra special for fall, they taste fantastic, and you just have to make some!

Thanks Cookbook Queen, for the inspiration! I wish I had taken some pictures of your Pumpkin Cinnamon Sugar Blossoms that I made, but I literally baked them and dashed off to church with them and they were instantly devoured!

Next time I make them, I promise to get some pictures. And oh yes! There will be a next time.

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So you saw the Thanksgiving Throwdown between Bobby Flay and the Pioneer Woman didn’t you?! Wasn’t that fun?!

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman was the first blog I ever started reading, and her site is what inspired me to start a blog of my own. I even got to meet her once.

I really enjoyed watching the Throwdown the other night on the Food Network. If you missed it, don’t despair, it will be on again several times a day through Thanksgiving weekend. Check your tv guide and set your DVR!

While absolutely everything on the show looked DELICIOUS, and I was whole-heartedly rooting for Team Ree, there was one thing that completely, without question, intrigued me the most… Bobby Flay’s Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pomegranates and Vanilla-Pecan Butter!!!

I don’t know what it is about Brussels Sprouts, but there is something inside me that wants to love them, and yet I’ve never tasted one that has agreed with my tongue. But this recipe gives me hope.

The tricky part is finding that Pomegranate Molasses! There are still a few bottles available on Amazon.com and you can also try efooddeopt.com. You can also find it in Middle Eastern grocery stores. If you’ve ever seen or purchased this product at a large box store, please leave a comment to let all of us know where we might be able to run out and grab it last minute! I tried both Sprouts and Cost Plus World Market to no avail. But… I did order mine online… it’s coming!

I’m going to give this recipe a shot next week. Here it is…

You know what else looked sooooo good?! Both of the desserts.

Ree made a perfect Pecan Pie with a Whiskey Maple Cream Sauce.

Bobby Flay made a Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Spicey Caramel Apple Sauce and Vanilla Bean Cream Anglaise.

Check them both out… you’ll be glad you did!

And for any of the other Thanksgiving Feast Throwdown recipes you’d love to try, click here to see them all

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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(UPDATE: If you’re here visiting from the Pioneer Woman’s Pie Post… WELCOME! You might also enjoy reading about the time I got to meet Ree, and my take on her throwdown with Bobby Flay this week, including links to some of their recipes. Thanks so much for following the link and stopping by my blog. Happy Thanksgiving!!!)

The holiday season is upon us. Year after year there is a growing expectation in my marriage for me to become…

A pie maker.

One of my husband’s most beloved things about Thanksgiving and Christmas is his grandma’s cherry pie.

When we got married and said our vows, one of them was, that I would learn to make this pie.

Okay… not really… I mean I didn’t actually have to say that during our ceremony, but believe me… it’s been implied.

In order for this marriage to work well, one of the things I will need to eventually, quite literally, “bring to the table”, is the ability to perfectly reproduce Grandma’s Cherry Pie, during the holidays.

But… I’m not quite there yet.

I’ve taken some lessons with grandma, I’ve written things down, I’ve experimented on my own, but I have not yet achieved official “Now That’s Grandma’s Pie” status. I won’t give up though. I’ll keep plugging away. My practice season is upon us.

Since I don’t quite have it down, I can’t share the secrets of making that perfect pie with you… yet.

But what I can share are these…

Holiday Pie Cupcakes.

Cupcakes.

Now there’s an area where I feel a bit more confident.

They don’t require a lot of counter space, complicated ingredients, a rolling pin, or the dreaded transfer of a thin sheet of sticky, easily tearible dough, from cutting board to pie pan.

Phew. I’m breakin’ a sweat just thinkin’ about all of that!

Back to cupcakes.

Ahhhh cupcakes.

Yes… that’s better.

Holiday fruit cupcakes that look like pie.

And… with these you don’t have to commit to just one kind.

My husband loves cherry, my father in law loves apple, my favorite is peach, and everyone loves fresh raspberry.

With these little beauties, you don’t have to commit to just one or two types of pie for your celebration. It’s easy and fun to quickly make several different kinds, at once.

I used apples, peaches, and raspberries with the batch shown, but you can use whatever types of filling your family loves best: cherries, blueberries, candied pecans, ready made pumkin pie cheesecake filling – sky’s the limit!

I’ve found that this Butter Pecan box mix flavor is perfect for these mini pies, both in taste and color.

I used canned pie filling for my Peach, and Apple Pie Cupcakes, but for the Raspberry Pie Cupcakes I used fresh raspberries, lightly covered in store bought Strawberry Glaze.

In order to make these Fruit Pie Cupcakes, you’ll need to leave plenty of room in your cupcake papers for the fruit to lay on top of the cake and still be held within the paper. When pouring the batter into the cups don’t fill them more than 1/2 way. Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 full is just about perfect. And, if you do have some cupcakes that puff up too high to fill with fruit, never fear… once they’re baked just use a knife to gently cut the cupcake down enough so the fruit will fit. No one will ever see the part you cut hidden under all that fruit.

Next, cover the top of the cupcake with your favorite fruits. For raspberries, blueberries, and cherries, they look beautiful if you place them one by one with your fingers, but for the canned peaches and apple slices, you can dice them up and spoon them on.

Once you get all your fruit on, you’ll be tempted to stop right there… And… of course, you could. These Fruit topped cupcakes are beautiful and delicious just like this.

But, if you want to take it a step further and create a little Holiday dessert that will truly thrill your guests, give this extra step of turning Fruit topped Cupcakes, into little Mock Pies, a try.

The Pie Hatch and Crust design is created by piping on Frosting. I like to use a delicious mixture of Butter Cream and Caramel frosting, to get a great taste, and perfect pie crust color.

One or two tablespoons of Caramel Frosting. mixed into a full tub of Buttercream, will give just the right shade for a Mock Pie Crust.

If you’ve seen any of my other Cupcake recipes, you’ll know I often just use a plain old Ziploc bag as my piping tool. But, in order to get a flat appearance for the hatch-work on the top of these pies, you really are going to want to use a piping bag and a flat tip.

Here are some examples of Wilton Tips that would be appropriate for this project. Personally I prefer a small smooth flat tip like #44 above, to create the look of a pie. The ribbed edge tips are more for creating the look of a basket weave, although if you already have a ribbed tip, you can turn it upside down so that the smooth edge is on top, to get the same effect as a smooth flat tip. Tip #46 above demonstrates this.

When you place your berries in, one by one, you’ll end up with some gaps in between them. You should fill those holes in with cut or torn pieces of berries so that you have a nice full dome shape for your hatching to rest on.

Don’t start your first line on the middle of the cupcake because it can throw off the spacing of your lines. Using your piping bag and tip, lay your first line just off of one of the sides.

Lay all of your lines across the top, from one side to the other. I was able each time to fit three or four lines across in each direction, depending on the spacing. I think the cupcakes with four lines going each way came out the best.

Rotate your cupcake and begin piping lines horizontal to the ones you’ve already done.

Don’t worry about how the ends of your lines look because they will be completely covered up by the Mock Pie Crust you’ll do next. Just make sure each end of every line touches the cupcake paper, but doesn’t droop or flop out beyond it.

If you do have some frosting that accidentally drips down the cupcake paper, use a lightly damp paper towel to wipe it off. No harm, no foul. It will dry in seconds and no one will ever know.

Your Hatch Top is done as simple as that!

You’ll be so proud of yourself at this point, and you should be… You’re almost done!

Using the same piping bag and tip, create your Pie Crust by working in sections. Don’t try to pipe all the way around the cupcake without taking a break.

Using an up and down folding pattern, pipe the area directly in front of you. Stop piping, rotate the cupcake, and pick up where you left off using the same up and down folding motion. Each cupcake will be divided into about six small sections like this.

I highly recommend taking the time after you finish decorating each cupcake, to immediately place it on a cookie sheet in the refrigerator in order to help the shape of the Buttercream on top of the fruit and glaze to set in it’s place. Leaving the cupcake out while you decorate all of the others, may cause some the frosting to begin drooping and coming apart.

And please don’t give up if your first try at this is a mess. Mine was. Just pick out a couple of cupcakes that didn’t turn out so well in the baking process and without even bothering to put any fruit on them, use them to practice the piping techniques. Or, if you can’t waste any of the 24 cupcakes you baked, practice the piping technique on the dome of an orange or a rubber ball. (Better buy an extra tub of Buttercream for this just in case) When you’ve got it down, move on to your lovely Fruit Topped Cupcakes and turn those little tarts into Pies!!!

And, whether you’re a pie expert, or are in the learning stage of pie making, be sure to head over to Tidy Mom’s Love the Pie Party for all kinds of fantastic tips, tricks, recipes, and inspiration for making great pies this holiday season.

If you do make awesome pies, you may also want to make some of these as well. They’re just to pretty, festive, unique, and EASY, not to include in your celebrations this year!

Your guests, both young and old, will adore them. And they aren’t just attractive and clever… they also taste sooooooo good!!

Happy Holidays!

This post is also linked to: Fireflies and Jellybeans

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Most of us love Ribs. Beef ribs. Pork ribs. Ribs, ribs, ribs, ribs.

As long as the meat is tender, and the BBQ sauce is awesome… YUM!!!

But, eating ribs at a restaurant can be pricey.

Why not master the art of cooking them at home?

Especially when it can be done in the crock-pot.

Now I REALLY have your attention right?

Let’s get started…

This couldn’t be easier or more impressive to your family!

You want to start with some good, meat, RIBS… naturally.

I buy mine at Costco. They are incredible. I know everyone doesn’t have a Costco membership, but seriously if you don’t have one, find someone that does and ask them to buy you some ribs.

The pork ribs at Costco are more thick and “meaty”, than any ribs I’ve ever had a restaurant.

They really are that amazing!

The first thing I do is set my oven to 400 degrees.

Next, I rinse and salt all of the thawed ribs. You can season them with pepper too at this point, but my husband and kids don’t like pepper, so I leave it out.

Here are the ribs after they come out of the oven. Fifteen minutes on each side.

Then into the crock-pot they go, one at a time, so I can get each one good and drenched in my favorite bbq sauce.

I live in a house with my extended family, so when I make this meal, I cook 8 lbs of ribs all at once. You really have to have one of these larger, oval shaped crock-pots to accommodate that much meat. If you have a smaller family, or a smaller crock-pot you may want to half this recipe.

Although, if your crock-pot size isn’t what’s limiting you, I should let you know, that these ribs taste so good, reheated in the microwave, two and three days later.

I’m always excited about the idea of over-cooking on Sunday, eating leftovers Monday through Tuesday, and not having to prepare a new dinner, until Wednesday.

But it’s your call.

The next thing you need is AWESOME BBQ sauce.

My family’s favorite BBQ sauce in the whole, wide, world, comes from a Southern California restaurant called Sweet Lumpy’s.

Lucky for us, they sell their sauce in their restaurant by the bottle.

I don’t know if they ship their sauce, but if they do, you should definitely order some. It’s incredible!

Of course if your family already has a favorite, out-of-this-world BBQ sauce, you will LOVE trying it with this recipe.

I use one bottle to glaze the ribs before they go in the slow cooker, and save a second bottle to re-glaze them before serving.

That’s a lot of meat!

So here they are after cooking for six hours in the crock-pot, on high. If you prepare them before you leave the house in the morning and wont be back for eight hours or more, no problem… just set the crock-pot to low instead.

Once they are done cooking, a ton of juice and fat has drained into the bottom of the crock-pot and the BBQ sauce looks pretty much gone. I remove the ribs from the crock-pot and all the drippings, and put them back into a large clean baking pan, to re-smother them with a full second bottle of BBQ sauce.

Make some awesome garlic mashed potatoes to place along side, and serve up a plate of love!

And let me show you this…

FALL – OFF – THE – BONE!

These ribs are so tender, that as you’re removing them from the crock-pot, it actually takes some effort to keep the ribs intact. The bones just slide right out, clean as a whistle.

See here where the arrow is pointing… where the bone just slipped right out?!

Now that’s a lot of tender meat!

Seriously, if your family likes ribs, grab your favorite BBQ sauce, pull out your crock-pot, and become an instant ROCK STAR!

Here’s the recipe!

Oh yes! You will enjoy!

This post is linked to: It’s So Very Cheri

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Nothing says autumn quite like all your friend’s Facebook status’s reminding you that the Pumpkin Spice Latte is once again available at Starbucks.

So, when trying to come up with a new delicious flavor that represents the holiday season, I could think of nothing better than a Pumpkin Spice Latte flavored cupcake.

I used a box Spice Cake mix, followed the instructions, and added a cup of canned pumpkin. Instead of using a cupcake tin, I poured the batter into individual coffee cups.

After the cupcakes were baked and cooled, I drenched them with a coffee infused tres leche mixture.

Next I needed the perfect topping.

I wanted to make some home made whipped cream, but for some reason after twenty minutes of working at it with my mixer, the cream just would not thicken.

As I went to throw the carton away of mysterious non-inflating cream, I noticed that it was Half and Half, not Heavy Whipping cream.

Good one Rachael! (FYI, I don’t talk about myself in the third person, but I do talk to myself. Often.)

So… many hours later, after a trip to the store, and the purchase of some actual, genuine heavy whipping cream, I returned home with a newly developed nervousness toward trying to create whipped cream.

I knew the Half and Half had been the problem, but still… it gave me a complex.

I also wanted to make my whipped cream, Latte flavored. With already being nervous about my cream never whipping, I was doubly nervous about the thought of trying to add coffee to it, for fear of watering it down, and it once again, never puffing up.

And then it hit me…

My french press.

Do you have one of these?

I love mine.

My husband doesn’t drink coffee, so after a while it seemed silly to have a big coffee machine taking up space on my counter top, just for little ol’ me. So, I hid my big clunker coffee maker under my sink and have been using a french press ever since.

And wouldn’t you know… it works perfect for infusing heavy cream, with coffee, no water necessary.

If you’ve never seen how a french press works, after you let the water, or in this case the cream, sit for a few minutes (3 minutes for a cup of coffee / at least 10 minutes for cream) infusing with the coffee grounds, you press down this nifty very fine strainer that comes with it, and it allows the coffee or cream to rise to the top, and traps all the grounds at the bottom.

If you have a stock of emergency food supplies in your home, you should definitely add one of these little babies… makes coffee without electricity… invaluable in a crisis… I’m guessing.

It whipped up perfectly and it tastes AMAZING!

So I plopped a layer of latte whipped cream onto my latte soaked pumpkin spice cupcake, and spread the layer flat to look like… well… a latte!

Then I topped it off with some sweet vanilla whipped cream to make it really look like a drink…

Sprinkled on a little cinnamon and sugar mixture, and…

Viola!

Moist… pumpkiny… cinnamony… sweet…. latte…. cupcake goodness! It tastes the best after several hours in the fridge. YUM!

Also linked to: A Vision to Remember, Along for the Ride, Tip Junkie, New Nostalgia, Today’s Creative Blog, From My Tiny Kitchen, Blue Cricket Design, Bobbypins Boardwalk, Me and My Bucket, My Backyard Eden, We Are That Family, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Bloggeritaville, Beyond the Picket Fence, Tidy Mom

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I’ve seen some amazing cupcakes in my life.

Online I’ve also discovered blogs with incredibly decorated cookies, and wedding cakes, but never before have I seen such mind blowing pancakes.

Until now!

This is Jim, and his daughter Allie. They like pancakes.

Jim makes ‘em…

And Allie gets delighted by them. Then she eats them.

That’s what I would do.

Allie is a smart girl.

And Jim is one talented and creative Dad.

When it comes to pancakes… Jim is my hero!

Something you should also know about Jim is that he isn’t just an amazingly creative pancake engineer, he’s also extremely generous.

On his website you will find a wealth of tools, recipes, tips, and tricks, so that you too can become a breakfast super hero. Several of his posts even contain instructional videos.

See, with Jim’s instructions and brilliant idea of using squeeze bottles of food colored pancake batter, I believe I could actually create something like this.

or this…

or this…

And with some practice, maybe even this.

But…

Never this.

This will be left to brilliant, talented, creative Jim. My pancake hero.

Get on over to Jim’s Pancakes and have a look around.

And be sure to “like” his Facebook page so you never miss a pancake!

Is it breakfast yet? I’m getting hungry.

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These pumpkin cupcakes are so festive for October and November.  Just looking at them makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside… with a touch of whimsy.  I got this idea out of one of my favorite cupcake books .

These cupcakes are much more about their cute appearance than the actual cake part. You can use any cupcake recipe you like and make any flavor you want.  With everything I’ve got going on in life I usually look for a semi-homemade approach to my cooking and that’s what I did with these.

I used store bought yellow cake mix, followed the directions on the box and added:

3/4 can of pumpkin

2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice

Just look at this beautiful, light, yummy, pumpkin, cupcake batter.

I love all the little speckles of pumpkin pie spice.  I just want to dip my finger into this picture and lick it. Sorry.  Ok… here we go

Another great tip for making pretty cupcakes is to put the batter into a Ziploc bag and dispense it like frosting.

This helps with equal portion control in each cup and it helps to keep from getting batter drips on your paper cups.

I used three different sizes for my cupcakes and just kept a close eye on them in the oven for cooking time differences.

Viola!

What a cute little cupcake family.  Reminds me of a story of three bears and a little girl named Goldilo….

Oh… we’re not done are we? Ahem….

…Onto the frosting.  For making the pumpkin shape I would recommend using a good thick somewhat stiff frosting.  Buttercreme would work, but with pumpkin cake I think it begs a crème cheese frosting.  If you don’t follow the directions here, make sure to double whatever recipe you use.  You’re going to need a good amount of frosting to make your pumpkin domes.

Whip sixteen ounces of crème cheese with two sticks of soft unsalted butter until light and fluffy… about three minutes.

Slowly add:

8 ounces of powdered sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

1 tbsp of milk.

Even if your frosting seems really thick, remember you’re going to be adding some liquid with your food coloring so hold off on adding any more milk until later if you need to.  You don’t want your frosting runny or soupy because then it won’t hold it’s pumpkin shape.

Now it’s time to add the orange food coloring… look at those beautiful swirls.

Just keep adding drops until you get a nice strong orange color.

Lovely, lovely orange!

So now it’s time to frost the cupcakes.

The best approach I’ve found is to use a butter knife and put a big dollop of frosting on top.  Carefully smooth the frosting down towards the cupcake paper being careful to maintain a dome shape.  Don’t worry about making it perfectly smoothe… the sugar crystals will cover up your strokes.

Just focus on making it even and round.

Once you’ve frosted a batch of cupcakes it’s best to put them in the fridge and let them set up for at least fifteen minutes before continuing the decorating.

You can use this time to prepare your other decorating ingredients.

Your going to need a small batch of frosting that is a darker orange than what you used on your cupcakes already.  To achieve this just add a bit of red food coloring to what you’ve already made.

Put the new darker frosting into a Ziploc bag and set it aside.  This is what you’ll use to make the seams.

These rainbow Twizzlers are what you’ll use to make your stems.

Take out a few green ones.

Chop them into some different sized stems and set them aside in a bowl.

Dump your orange sugar crystals into a bowl.  I used a mix of two shades.

Looks like edible fairy dust.  Makes my heart happy.

So now you’re ready to start the final stage of your decorating.

First you’re going to roll your cupcakes gently in the sugar so that the frosting is coated with the sugar crystals.

Next, you’re going to use a sharp knife to cut seems into your cupcakes.  If you’re having a hard time cutting clean seams easily, set your cupcakes back in the fridge for another fifteen minutes, and then try again.

Cut a tiny hole in the corner of your piping/Ziploc bag of darker frosting and pipe it into the seams going from the top of the cupcake down to the paper cup.  Make the hole you cut in the bag REALLY small.  You can always make it a bit bigger if you need to, but once you cut it too big it’s no fun to have to start over and transfer all that frosting into a new bag…. I know… I did it.

Once you’ve piped on all the seems, pick out a stem and gently push it down into the frosting on the top of the cake in the center of where all your seams meet.

And there you go…pumpkin cupcakes!  They make a great treat for a kid’s party.  In fact I think these would be adorable any time of year at a little girl’s Cinderella birthday party.

In October and November these cupcakes serve as a beautiful centerpiece at any family dinner… especially on Thanksgiving.  I bet your guests won’t even realize they’re edible until you point it out.  They’re just so pretty.

If you make some, please leave a post about how it went and what creative things you did with them.

Happy, happy Autumn to you all!

Linked to: Blue Cricket Designs, Someday Crafts, Me and My Bucket, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Funky Junk Interiors, Tatertots and Jello, The Girl Creative, The DIY Showoff, Keeping It Simple, It’s So Very Cheri, Skip to My Lou, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, Making the World Cuter, Tip Junkie, New Nostalgia, Blessed With Grace, The Diaper Diaries, Tatertots and Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Along for the Ride, C.R.A.F.T.

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Recently we celebrated Llany’s 2nd birthday.

I went with a robot theme because Llany LOVES robots. It all started after he saw a Bachyardigans episode called, “Robot Rampage” about a robot repair man. He was hooked… instantly. He wanted to watch that episode all day, every day, from then on. Lucky for him he has a responsible mother who would never allow such a magnitude of irresponsible TV watching.

Huh!

All day, every day. Not on my watch!

Just a couple times every day is plenty.

Llany just so happened to have one single shirt with a robot on it, and once he knew what a robot was from the Backyardigans cartoon, that became the only shirt he wanted to wear.

Check out this awesome new robot shirt I found for him on Zazzle.com. He loved it!

Sadly my local party store didn’t have any robot balloons, so naturally I did what any intelligent parent would do… I opted for one of Mickey.

Cause who doesn’t love Mickey? Right?!

Just because I’m throwing a robot birthday and didn’t plan far enough ahead to find a robot balloon like an organized, party planning maven of a mother would have, doesn’t mean there’s no room for Mickey. Mickey is always welcome.

And besides, Llany loves Mickey. And Llany doesn’t know anything about the silly adult world with confining rules such as, “Pick a party theme and stick with it.”

My husband does a great Mickey impression and calls the kids on the phone once in a while pretending to be Mickey. They love it. They really think Mickey calls them.

I know… we’re liars. We’re terrible, dark, evil, deceptive, Mickey liars.

We’ll come clean with them soon.

I promise.

I decided to take some pictures of the party this year from the perspective of the birthday boy. I thought it would be fun to have some photos to remember the day, that show him his birthday, from his vantage point at the time.

Try it. Just lay down and shoot your party from the ground up. It’s fun… If you’re weird like me.

The party store also did happen to have one balloon left of a Backyardigans character… when I called to order them… the day of the party…. like three hours before the party… because I plan… because I’m awesome.

See?

See!

Here’s where I planned.

I ordered these robot cupcake toppers from Amazon.com, totally before the party. Like, entire days before the party. Like I wasn’t waiting, clenching my teeth, praying they would arrive in time for the party, at all. Nope. Not me.

Nope.

What could be better for a two year old birthday than confetti cupcakes arranged as a robot army right?!

Using the display tree made them appear a bit more peaceful and ready to party.

Although, up close they still looked pretty serious.

And look what else Llany got as gifts…

Another robot shirt…

Robot pajamas…

An actual robot…

A robot Super Why…

This guy is really cool. When you push the button on his chest, his cape flies behind him while he talks. He was almost the favorite present of the birthday boy, but…

This robot Mickey Mouse Club birthday card was hands down Llany’s favorite gift.

I call it a robot card because it’s one of those that sings a song when you open it. Llany already knows the old school Mickey Mouse Club theme song, because I sing it to him often during diaper changes. A few other old school and out of date diaper change song selections I provide my children are, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, “How Much is that Doggy in the Window?”, “Rise and Shine”, and the “Bear in the Big Blue House” theme song.

He opened this card first and we thought we would never get to any of the other presents. He just wanted to keep reopening the card and replaying the  song.

“Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me, M-I-C-K-E-Y… M-O-U-S-E….”

Even after all the presents were open, Llany left them at the table and went marching all around the living room singing and dancing with this birthday card. He was still doing that very thing with the card today in our school room.

Llany also received these robot dinosaurs. This was unquestionably my favorite gift of the night.

These dinosaurs are AMAZING!!!

They’re from the PBS kids show, “Dinosaur Train.” What’s amazing about these particular dinosaurs is that if you have more than one of them, and you set them near each other, they begin a dialogue back and forth. Each of these dinosaurs individually says over fifty different things. And the conversations they have are so educational. An example of some of what I’ve heard between the two of them goes something like this,

“Hey Borris, I’m Morris.”

“Hey Morris, I’m Borris.”

“Hey Borris, what do you eat?”

“I’m an herbavore which means I only eat plants.”

“Whoa, cool. I’m a carnivore which means I eat meat.”

“I weigh seven tons, how much do you weigh?”

“When I’m full grown, I’ll weigh seven tons.”

They go on and on, and on, back and forth. Sometimes they ask each other questions, and sometimes they say things together.

Someone out there has got to take this technology and create some talking Tea Party friends. Can you picture it?

“Trixie, it’s fine weather we’ve been having.”

“Oh yes Pixie, I just adore the Spring.”

“Trixie would you pass the sugar please?”

“Of course, do you prefer one lump or two?”

To any toy manufacturers out there reading this, you can email me about where to send the royalty check, and… you’re welcome.

There are more ideas where that one came from people. Lots of  ’em!

Just ask me about the machine idea I have that will revolutionize the laundry dilemma… oh yes… there are sketches available.

So, that was my weekend.

What did you do?

Have you read these other posts yet?

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What kid doesn’t like pudding right?!

Heck… what PERSON doesn’t like pudding?! I love it!

So, last week the kids and I had our first go at making homemade pudding pops.

At my house there are far more fans of Vanilla than Chocolate, but we mixed up a batch of both flavors to experiment with.

And for this activity the Vanilla is certainly much more fun to work with because…

You can add food coloring to it and make all kinds of fun colors.

Except for purple.

See that cup in the bottom right hand corner?

That was supposed to be purple, but no matter what ratio of blue and red food coloring I tried, I just couldn’t get the shade I was striving for. I guess because of the original yellowy base, the end result stayed far more in the realm of a weird taupe brown color, than a purple.

Oh well.

I’m not a huge fan of purple anyway.

It would have nicely completed our rainbow of colors though.

Next time I might try this with a White Chocolate pudding so I can start with a white base.

Anyhow… moving on…

My original intent was to make beautiful stripey pudding pops like this which I’ve seen on a few different websites and blogs.

This one was intended to be patriotic, but again… no white pudding.

Because of the lack of white in this one, it actually reminds me more of Dr. Seuss than our flag.

Which is fine… I like Dr. Suess.

I like him A LOT.

(I just watched Dumb and Dumber on TV last night. I totally said that statement in my head as I typed it, just like Jim Carey… in case you care.)

The Rainbow Pop.

See now in this picture the purple does actually look purple.

Not too bad.

This is cute, but it really is trickier than it looks to create these lines.

It takes a very steady purposeful hand not to drip and slop and accidentally ding your spoon against the insides of the cup.

This was my 8 year old son’s effort to make a rainbow pop.

It really is pretty tricky and it takes more patience and focus than you plan for as you begin.

This one would have looked really cool if we had swirled it a little with a toothpick and gave it more of a tie-dyed look.

And instead of topping his with purple, he went for a stripe of chocolate.

Good decision.

It turns out that Vanilla pudding pops are not as delicious as Vanilla pudding. The taste gets a bit dull when frozen and really needs some chocolate with it to make it worth eating. In fact I recommend a lot more chocolate mixed in to each pop than just the stripe seen above.

But that’s also just my adult opinion.

The kids could care less.

They loved these things.

But kids taste buds and food interests are weird. Anything bright and colorful and sweet excites them. My kids like to eat ice cream cones topped with magical marshmallows.

When we try this again I think I’ll do it with food coloring and Vanilla Ice Cream instead of pudding. We already know how good ice cream tastes frozen.

So after we realized how tricky creating smooth lines was, the rest of the pops went something more like this.

Little bit of this, little bit of that, glob here, splat there, spoonful of some more here.

The kids didn’t care about the stripes. They just loved all the colors and getting to play with their food.

We all really had a lot of fun doing this together.

And you’ll notice once again, I do let my kids get messy with food… but I demand it takes place outside.

That’s just how I roll.

We had a variety.

Popped in the sticks…

Put a cookie sheet full of pops in the freezer…

And the next day there was a fun fight about who got to eat my perfect looking rainbow one.

For more amazing, fun, creative popsicle ideas, you and your kids can enjoy this summer, and for years to come, check out this neat popsicle book.

And tell me…

How has your summer been going?

What kind of fun have you and your family been having?

Please… link your Summer Family Fun posts below.

If you’re new, you can check out these guidelines first.

I can’t wait to see what everyone has been up to!

Linked to: I’m Lovin’ It Fridays @ TidyMom, Check Me Out Saturday, Weekend Wrap Up PartyCraft School Sunday

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