Luke and Grace’s birthdays happen to be 20 days apart and fall right after the holidays so we decided to combine their big party (for everyone’s sake!) I tried to encourage Grace to help me choose a theme but the first 12 or so ideas that she threw out just weren’t gonna fly. Finally she said ‘hearts’ and I said ‘done!’
I decided to offset the hearts with a few stripes to ‘boy’ it up a little for Luke. Hearts and Stripes – not too shabby.
Given our hectic schedule these days this party’s theme was not incorporated throughout the entire house as I’ve done in the past. But I couldn’t pass up doing a dessert table with The Cupcake Tower of course.
Pinterest gave me most of my inspiration such as these DIY ombre candy hearts. They seemed easy enough so I purposefully ordered their cakes to be a blank canvas and added the hearts myself.
(Recipe for hearts at the bottom of the post)
Knowing that he would be covered in it by the end of the day, I wanted to keep Luke’s cake ‘plain’, so I just made a little “1” topper.
I found the idea for the streamer backdrop on Pinterest – perfect for ‘stripes’! The striped napkins from Party City…
The cupcakes and cakes were from Bliss Cupcakes and were amazing. I think just about everyone made a comment on how delicious they were. Highly recommend!! Remember the days when I used to do all the baking myself? Yeah, I traded in my Martha Stewart title for a 3rd child 🙂 No regrets here.
The kids ranged in age form itty bitty to full blown teenager so we thought cookies would be universally appealing for the gift bags. Grace helped decorate each one, our little artist. We spruced up the paper bag with a tag and a note saying ‘made with love’ and ‘thank you’ (blank tags from groopdealz). I clipped them on with clothespins that I bought at the grocery store. I used washi tape (also from groopdealz) to add some cuteness to the clothespins.
I like to serve fruits and veggies at kids parties. Its easy, colorful and everyone loves it. Besides strawberries and blueberries (not pictured) I set out cuties, apple sandwiches and grape tomatoes with mozzarella in the shape of a heart (a valentines idea from parenting.com).
Back to the apple sandwiches, these are crazy good. Found on Pinterest, I served these at Jack’s party last spring and they were gone before I even turned around. They were intended for the kids but um, well I’m not sure anyone under 5′ tall actually even saw them. Just core an apple, slice into rings and spread peanut butter on each slice. On half of the slices put some granola and chocolate chips then top with the other slice. Done.
Yum.
Here’s Grace with her sweet little friend and some props (Oriental Trading).
Goofy girls.
We sang to Grace first
Then moved into the dining room for the show. You can almost see in this first picture that he’s kicking his legs in anticipation.
Is this really all mine?
Right at about this point I took the cake away (meltdown ensued) and sliced off a piece to put on a plate for him.
He literally licked the plate clean
Um, excuse me…can’t you see my plate is empty people!!!
His cousins and big brother didn’t do too bad themselves
We had so much fun. Thanks to everyone who helped make their day so special!
Candy Hearts Recipe: You just start with 1/2 C sugar and a few drops of food coloring. Mix well until the color is evenly distributed. Add egg white one teaspoon at a time mixing well each time to check for consistency, you’re going for ‘wet sand’. Roll the mixture onto wax paper and cut out your shapes and put them on a cookie sheet (I used wax paper on the cookie sheet too). If the shape sticks in the cutter just tap gently until it comes out.
Put your remaining sugar back into the bowl and 1/2 C at a time add more sugar until you achieve your next lightest color. Repeat with the egg white. Repeat 1-3 more times until you have all of the shades you want (I did 3). I used frosting to ‘stick’ them to the cake and had enough that I could use for her cupcake toppers too.
For more details and photos go here
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