Poppy's Lorax Party

My daughter turned 7 last week and after much conversation we decided on a pizza and movie party with optional sleepover. The next question was which movie. I knew I needed a movie so I could figure out the theme of the cake and food. I was so happy when she decided on the Lorax. There was just so much colour and fun things to work with. So off we went and found some fun stuff for invitations. 

Then I searched the internet for ideas. I immediately found a beautiful cake that I knew I wanted to make... Pinterest of course. And a few other Pinterest finds. All in all it was a wonderful party and the girls had a fantastic time. 

I love how the cake turned out. The cotton candy/fairy floss didn't last long. It was a very hot day. 

I found these on pinterest. They were very popular with the girls and super easy to make. Just a marshmallow dipped in white chocolate and rolled in sprinkles. 

Poppy cookies for my Poppy. This is just a simple sugar cookie with lemon icing. 

Cucumber truffula trees

I found a mustache template by googling "Lorax Mustache" and then cut it out with an exacto knife. We used these on the straws and on popcorn bags and also on the goody bags.

These cake pops later became the candle holders. I was worried the fairy floss would catch fire so I decided to put the candles around the edge of the cake. 

The cake pops were a little fiddly but basically they were plain cake pops dipped in white chocolate. I was lucky enough to find these cool straws at the dollar store. I used the same mustache template just shrunk down. I then placed parchment over the template and piped white chocolate with yellow food colouring. The eyes were dots of white chocolate and I drew the pupils with a food writer pen. I just "glued everything in place with melted white chocolate.

I made the "save the trees" banner with cardboard triangles and letters I printed from a word document. I think the font was Baskerville 300pt. I punched holes and threaded it on string. And the tissue paper pompoms (I thought they looked like the tops of truffula trees) are dollar store finds. 

These goodie bags were just orange paper bags I found in the party store. I used a Lorax pumpkin carving template and just printed it the size I wanted on yellow paper. We added googly eyes for fun.

We decided to do a quick take home craft so I found these paper pots and put together this little poem from Lorax quotes and printed it to attach to the pots. The girls planted pompom marigolds and zinnias.

This is the aftermath of hours in the baby pool, planting seeds, pass the parcel, pizza making, dancing, a movie, popcorn, milk shakes, slushies and cake. These kids were wrecked.

All in all this was a great party. The next morning we had fruit and crepes with nutella. Out of 10 girls 5 slept over. Everyone was picked up on time and we were exhausted. What an experience. I think maybe we will leave the sleepovers until they are a little older but we are very lucky that these are all wonderful kids. 

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Party

My little man turned one recently and I love to throw a party. I felt inspired by the Hungry Caterpillar book and so here is what we came up with...

Cute invites

Obviously a Caterpillar cake was essential

Caterpillar food

Cookies for sure













And a few caterpillar decorations

So the garland is cheap paper plates I painted in the style of Eric Carle (meaning all splotchy and not very even) and I found a Happy Birthday sign at the $1 store so I pulled it apart and used the letters. I used construction paper for the facial features. This was a really fun project to do with my 5 yr old. She did some of the painting and glueing.
We got the paper for the table and the napkins and party hats from the Eric Carle museum. They were really cute.
On the table we had all the different pieces of fruit. 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums...
I made caterpillar sandwiches. You could put anything in them but I did ham and cheese so the grown ups had food too. The faces were a cherry tomato, with cucumber skin for the antennae and cucumber for the eyes I used the lid from a squeeze bottle for the cutter. HINT: the cucumber is difficult to stick to the tomato so they each either have to be very dry(difficult) or I used guacamole for glue. Use whatever is easiest.
We did fruit caterpillars with honeydew melon and watermelon.
The cookies were the goodie bag this time. It was a butterfly and a poppy. As for the cake well maybe that is another blog. But if I forget and you need instructions I would be happy to help. Just ask...

There was some grown up food and drinks because, well, one year olds don't care and 5 yr olds just want you to go away... hehe. So spinach pie, asparagus soup and salad. Oh and a few pink bubbles.
In truth you could really go a lot crazier than I did but he is only one so I kept it low key. But there is a Very Hungry Caterpillar board game that would be fun. We had a super cute craft planned but never got around to it. The craft was gluing really big pompoms together with giant googly eyes to make a caterpillar. You can also do it on a big craft stick (tongue depressor) for the little kids.



Kids are a gift and this is my way of telling mine I truly believe they are my jewels. It is a labor of love. And super fun! Love you P&A

feed the baby

For me it was a no brainer when Pop was ready for solids I made her food. I mean duh! Plus I tasted the jarred baby food and gagged. Why would you feed that to anyone. No wonder kids don't like veggies. So I jumped in with both feet. I didn't have to buy anything really because as many of my friends know I have every kitchen gadget known to man. The one thing I did buy was a cheap food mill. You do not need this but it does help create some different textures in the food. What you do need is a food processor (not a blender) some ice cube trays, lots of ziplock bags and a total lack of fear.
I feel like I got lucky because she was a good eater. She ate whatever I gave her. This kid would eat babaganoush! But that is not where we started.  We did as the experts advise and start off with rice cereal ... no go! She flat out hated it! So next roasted sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, spinach, pumpkin, broccoli, cauliflower then bananas, apples, pears, peaches etc. Now I know there are rules but I am terrible at following rules so I did put salt and pepper and butter. Yep butter. Why? Because it tastes good! I was not afraid to season the food. When I made carrots I put in ginger and a little agave nectar. Peas had s&p and butter and sometimes mint(yum!), sweet potato had cumin. It was yummy. So why do baby food manufacturers make the food so gross? When we started meat it was a little trickier because meat has such weird texture if it is all ground up in the food processor. I quickly discovered it will make your baby gag and choke. My solution was ground beef, chicken, lamb etc. Much better. One particular chicken dish has become a family favorite. I make it all the time. The best part about this dish is you can use it in a 1000 different ways. So make this...

1 lb of ground chicken (organic)
2 inch piece of fresh ginger
2 cloves of garlic
1 medium yellow onion
1 can water chestnuts
2 tbl fish sauce
1 tbl soy sauce
1 tbl raw sugar
juice of 1 lime
oil for frying

Peel the ginger and add it with the garlic and the onion to the food processor and chop finely. If you don't have a food processor then just chop as finely as possible or use a grater. Chop the water chestnuts finely.
Coat a wok or pan with oil. On medium heat add the onion mix. Cook for a few mins until soft. Add the chicken and brown. Add the rest of the ingredients and season with salt and pepper.
This recipe can be doubled.
I freeze this in a large ziplock bag. I flatten the whole thing out and then you can break pieces of it off for the baby.

We use this in the following ways.

Lettuce cups serve with rice
In soft tortillas with sauteed veggies(my hubby calls these chinesey tacos) and hoisin sauce
As a soup add chicken broth and greens(bok choy) or thicken the broth and serve over rice
Quesadillas
Wrapped into summer rolls with veggies and peanuts and noodles
For the baby mix with any veggie puree and rice

This dish is now in the family menu everyone loves it. I hope some of you out there will think about making your own baby food because it just isn't as difficult as you think. And the best part is you can start your baby off with a much more broad palate.

words and stuff

My friend KY has a list of words she hates and it has always made me laugh every time I here one of them. I won't list them all(as there are many) but top contenders are; skillet, moist, slacks(those last two should never be used together), ointment, davenport?... the list goes on. Why these words??? I will admit the word slacks is gross and they should be called pants or trousers but is it the way they sound or the picture they make in your mind? My language issues come from common sayings like, what is up with "I could care less"?? I don't get it. What I think it means is that you don't give a shit. That you simply don't care. So when you say "I could care less" that means there is an actual amount that you can care less than you do right now. So you are saying it wrong! In Australia people say "I couldn't care less" which makes sense... right. Because when you say that, it means you care so little about something there is no less to care. So why, why, why? I don't get it. And I shocking as this may seem it bugs the hell out of me! There is another one that irks me equally as much and is heavily used by my idol Martha "each and every one of you". Aarrrg what! Each of you means all of you and every one of you means all of you so isn't it kind of redundant. "Huge big", "very unique"and the list goes on. Oh and my personal favorite irregardless. NOT a word. Any way I am not sure why I got on this rampage but irregardless it is a huge big irritation to me each and every day but you could care less. So I am going to change my moist slacks before I need some ointment.