Senin, 25 Maret 2013

Angry Birds Birthday Party Ideas

Eliana's FIFTH Birthday was last weekend and we celebrated Angry Birds Style!

If you follow me on Instagram you saw that David and I stayed up doing midnight crafts the night before Eliana's birthday.  We usually leave some sort of decoration for her to wake up to on her birthday. Last year we had rainbow streamers hanging from her door. This year her birthday party was going to be Angry Birds themed so we decided to do an Angry Birds theme!
This is how we decorated the wall right in front of her bedroom door-- so when she woke up and opened the door she would see this! David drew these by hand and I colored them. I emphasize that because I am always so impressed by his artistic abilities! But enough about our art project and on to the party! :)

As you've seen from her other birthday parties (see her Rainbow party here or her Ladybug Party here) I go with simple.  I know there are plenty of party ideas out there but I like simple and easy to do :) And I think we came up with some pretty fun and simple ideas that anyone can recreate!  Her party was between lunch and dinner so we had appetizers for everyone and of course cupcakes :)

For the party we wanted to have healthy appetizers, with a mix of fruit and vegetables for everyone to munch on.  For the fruit we had three bowls of fruit salad.  The fruit salad was a mix of watermelon, cantaloupe,  pineapple, strawberries, apples, grapes, blueberries and blackberries. I made four fruit Angry Birds; Red, Black, Yellow and Blue.
For the red Angry Bird we filled up a bowl with the fruit salad.  I kept the pineapple and the watermelon separate and layered them on top by hand to resemble the Red Angry Bird. I started by making the circle with the pineapple and then filled the circle with sliced watermelon.  The face is made from blackberries (eyebrows), apples and blueberries (eyes) and cantaloupe (beak). To keep the apples from browning I dipped them in lemon juice.
For the Black Angry Bird I topped the fruit salad with blackberries for his body.  The eyebrows are watermelon, his beak is cantaloupe.  His eyes are apples with mini chocolate chips on top.
For the yellow Angry Bird I used watermelon and pineapple on top of the fruit salad. His eyebrows are watermelon, his beak is cantaloupe and his eyes are apple slices with blueberries.
For the blue Angry Bird I had three mini bowls of blueberries for people to add to their fruit salads if they wished (In the game this bird splits into three birds while flying). I used apple slices topped with mini chocolate chips for the eyes and cantaloupe for the beaks. These were probably the hardest to make, mostly due to my lack of patience. The blueberries were very uneven and I was running out of time before everyone arrived for the party so their faces weren't as nicely done as the other birds. Sorry blue birds!

For the vegetable appetizers we went with a vegetable platter and some side cucumbers.
We made our own vegetable platter with baby carrots, celery, bell peppers and broccoli. We put another Angry Bird in the dip! The white Angry Bird is the veggie ranch dip. Red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, baby carrots and blueberries were used to make his face :)
And what Angry Birds Party would be complete without some Angry Pigs?! For the pigs we had cucumber "pig noses". The noses were made with a large straw and actually make a really simple yet cute lunch accent for an Angry Birds Lunch! For an example you can see my Angry Birds Bento Lunch :)

I don't think I even got pictures of the complete set up! We had some 7 layer dip and some tortilla chips and more decor on the table, but for the most part this is how we set it up:
We bought only one set of the Angry Birds party decorations mostly for decor, and set them on top of plain white plates/bowls and napkins :) All of the Angry Birds decor I found at Target, iParty and online.  We also had a bunch of Angry Bird Tattoos cut up for the kids to decorate themselves if they wanted :) The kids also played the Angry Birds game too! :)
I snapped this picture after the party began..You can see the red angry and white Angry Birds were attacked first!!

For dessert the birthday girl asked for cupcakes :) Specifically vanilla cupcakes with chocolate chip frosting. So I made her vanilla bean cupcakes with chocolate chip cookie swiss meringue buttercream (I took some chocolate chip cookies and pulverized them in my magic bullet and then added them into the buttercream) :) They were so yummy!!
Angry Bird Cupcake Rings provided by All Things For Sale.
I went with these black polka dot cupcake liners mainly because I already had them and didn't want to go out and buy new ones ;) I used a Wilton 1M Star decorating tip with the buttercream.  Because I was all about simple for this party I topped each cupcake with an Angry Birds Cupcake Ring.  I have no sculpting skills at all and there was no way I was going to try to attempt to make Angry Birds myself or take the time and/money to have someone else do it! Plus everyone got a ring with their dessert! :) I have to give a shout out to All Things For Sale-- Thank you for providing the cupcake rings! Everyone loved them, but me especially. And you'll see why I loved them even more below.

Now let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, on the day of an Angry Birds Party for a very special 5 year old, Her mommy, papi and family members were busy decorating the house... The table was all decorated, everything was set and I was loading all the cupcakes, all freshly frosted with their yummy buttercream, onto my cupcake stand. And it broke. One of the tiers of the cupcake stand broke and most of the 24 cupcakes fell over, frosting face down, onto the table. I simply could not even hold it in.. I burst out into tears. It is so hard to see something you work on completely destroyed in seconds. This was minutes before the party and I had barely any time to swipe off the frosting and redecorate them (one of the perks of swiss meringue buttercream and a piping tip). 

So my hubby, brother and mom figured out how to put the cupcake stand together again, minus the broken tier, and put the rest of the cupcakes on the table surrounding it while I recomposed myself and got a picture of this ONE cupcake.  Because you can't see the damage from the pictures above or from far away I got no pictures of all 24 cupcakes all close up together because the frosting was all busted on most of them. It was such a sad moment for me. However, good news is they tasted amazing! And no one at the party cared about how they looked (expect for me of course.. ) And these cupcake rings saved me. Seriously. With the ring on top of the frosting most people's attention went to the ring, not to my horrible (yes horrible. yes I'm being slightly dramatic) smooshed frosting. Without those cupcake rings I would have HAD to repipe the frosting, even with no time and the party starting in minutes. So that is why I love these cupcake rings. The end :)
Here is a picture of Eliana eating her cupcake-- she clearly didn't care as much about the frosting mishap as I did! She took her cupcake away from everyone, found a seat and proceeded to lick the frosting off first before devouring the rest of the cupcake! 
As long as she loved them it makes it all worth it! Even the tears! ;)
We all had such a good time! :) Eliana has loved Angry Birds for quite some time now and I'm glad we could all join in on the fun for one day! :) I can't wait to see what this next year holds for us! And I still can't believe my baby is FIVE! :)

Some of the decor we used for our party:


Linking up this post here :)

Kamis, 21 Maret 2013

Angry Birds Bento

Angry Birds for Lunch today!
Eliana asked for an Angry Birds Lunch today so I whipped this bento up really quick.  Eliana LOVES Angry Birds. I've posted a few Angry Birds lunches before like this Angry Birds Lunch this Red Angry Bird Lunch.  Those lunches however are much more time involved and I wanted something simple.  With fresh washed strawberries and cucumbers in the fridge already I was able to put this together in less than five minutes. Simple and quick!
In her Angry Birds Bentobox, Eliana has a Wowbutterand honey half sandwich.  On top of her sandwich are two bread Angry Birds cut with these Angry Birds Cookie Cutter Stamps. She has some cucumber "pig noses" (made with a large straw) and some strawberries.  I put an Angry Bird cupcake ring in for decoration.  And that was it! Eliana loved it and ate it all up! :) 

Sometimes I like to take more time and make more complicated lunches, but usually I'm a fan of simple, easy lunches. We'll be making something similar again soon (especially since Eliana asked for another one tomorrow!)


Linking up here :)

Selasa, 19 Maret 2013

Rice Krispies PEEPS and over 20 PEEPS ideas!

PEEPS PEEPS Glorious PEEPS! What says spring more than PEEPS? For me PEEPS is to Easter/Spring like Conversation Heart Candy is to Valentine's Day.

When Michelle of Sugar Swings! Serve Some and Christi of Love from the Oven asked if I wanted to join in on a celebration of PEEPS with a blog hop and a giveaway I was so excited!!! Plus it is the 60th anniversary of PEEPS! 

So to celebrate I went straight to BJ's and bought a ginormous pack of PEEPS. 
 But what to do with all these PEEPS?! Seriously. There were over 40 PEEPS in that package. So I finally came up with the idea to make Rice Krispies PEEPS! I felt like a genius! Before weighing them all out to try to figure out how many would be necessary to replace regular marshmallows I did some searching online-- because I figured I couldn't have been the first genius with this idea. And I wasn't ;) I found this recipe on Serious Eats and decided to try it out!

Rice Krispies PEEPS:
Ingredients:
3 TBSP butter
6 cups Rice Krispies Cereal

Directions:
1. In a large pot melt butter over low heat.

2. Take the PEEPS and put them in your saucepan. Continue to stir and let them melt. Don't mix the colors until you add the Rice Krispies, but do move the PEEPS around so they don't burn/stick to the bottom of the pan. Remove pot from heat once PEEPS are all melted. (I kind of jiggled them around in their own section to keep them from sticking to the pan)

3. Add Rice Krispies cereal and stir until well coated.

4. Press mixture into desired pan coated with cooking spray (I used a 13x9 inch pan)

5. Cool completely before cutting.
So I separated my PEEPS like this when melting. I kept them in their own section without mixing the colors before adding the Rice Krispies. The package of PEEPS I got from BJ's only came with these three colors, but you could use any colors you want! However I would keep it to only three colors of PEEPS. When I was mixing the Rice Krispies in I was very careful because I didn't want to get any brownish colors from overmixing (which did happen in a few areas).

What you'll get is something that looks like this:
Aren't they pretty!? I loved the mix of colors! And they look nothing like the bright neon colors of the PEEPS. My brother had thought I used Fruity Pebbles!
And look who's PEEPing behind these yummy treats! ;)
These were seriously SO easy to make and Eliana loved helping me make them!

Now Hop along and check out over 20+ PEEPS ideas from these amazing bloggers!! 
I am so thankful to be included among bloggers who I virtually stalk admire!

Ready for more fabulous PEEPS recipes and ideas???  Visit the following websites, each is sharing an amazing PEEPS post for you today, so hop on over and check them all out!   Don't forget to enter to win the fabulous PEEPS Prize Pack as well!  Happy Spring!
Would you like a chance to win some PEEPS? 
...because I know you are just dying to make some Rice Krispies PEEPS now ;) 
Well you're in luck! Enter below to win this PEEPS Prize Pack!!
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please remember it can be slow to load. Good luck!

Kamis, 14 Maret 2013

Birthday Bento Lunch!

It's Eliana's 5th birthday today!!! Happy Birthday cutie!! :)

We've done little fun things to celebrate all week but this was one of her (and mine) favorite lunches! We made a birthday bento lunch packed in our EasyLunchbox! :)

Using my Lunch Punch Sweet Set I made her a birthday cake sandwich. The "cake" was a chocolate soynut butter (peanut free and nut free spread) on whole wheat bread sandwich. I decorated the sandwich with cheese and confetti sprinkles. I used my edible food markers to draw the flames on the candles.

Eliana had raspberries with 5 candle picks for her 5th birthday! And she had some vanilla yogurt in a mini dipper (sitting inside a silicone cup).  I used confetti sprinkles to make a 5 for the FIVE year old girl!!! :) I can't believe my baby is FIVE years old! She is such a big girl now! 

Another cute birthday lunch would be this cupcake lunch we also made with our Lunch Punch:
This Saturday is Eliana's birthday party so I will be super busy these next few days. We all can't wait to celebrate with family and friends! Last year we did a rainbow birthday party and for her 3rd birthday we did ladybug themed :) I haven't been as organized this year and I don't even have any excuses! The last two years I was in grad school with millions of papers and I was better organized then. Maybe I work better under pressure? lol so I guess I better get on that and start planning!! :)


Oh and Happy Pi Day too!! :) 3.14 !! :)



 
Linking up here:)