Boys' "Have A Ball" Homemade Valentines

With a son who deals with diabetes and celiac disease, we avoid Valentine treats involving candy or any other type of food.  I asked the boys this year if they wanted to make Valentine cards featuring glow sticks or bouncy balls.  They unanimously chose bouncy balls.

So I ordered them each a bag of bouncy balls from Oriental Trading, along with some small, clear plastic bags.

 And I made some Valentine cards using Photoshop Elements featuring the requisite Valentine cheesy saying.

All they had to do is fill out the names of their classmates, stick a card and a ball in each bag, fold over and staple.  All done!

 

 

(I apologize in advance to their teachers who will probably have to deal with seeing these fly all over the classroom during the Valentine party.)

To see last year's homemade Pokemon Valentines, click here.

Decorating Red & Black Valentine Heart Cookies

Red and pink is too girly for my all-boy household.  Red and white is nice but a little too sweet sometimes.  But red + black = perfect!

 

These cookies look fancy, but are really quite easy to make.

 

Outline heart shapes with black royal icing. (It's sometimes difficult to achieve a truly black icing.   I use Americolor gel paste in Super Black for great color results without the funky taste.)

 

While the outline is drying a bit, prepare thinned red and black royal icing to flood the hearts.  You'll want to have both colors loaded in squeeze bottles before you start.  (Again, a true red is hard to achieve and I recommend Americolor gel paste in Super Red.) 

 

Working three or four cookies at a time, flood the hearts completely with the red icing.  While the red is still wet, place some black dots around the perimeter of the heart.

 

While the red and the black dots are still wet, gently drag a toothpick through the black dots around the edge of the cookie.  This dragging motion is what creates that pretty design.

 

Of course, these would look great with other color combinations, too.  I liked the red and black so much I did the whole Valentine's table to match.  With young boys in the house, I opted for the plastic table cloth and the paper plates.  That made the evening "special" without worrying about breaking anything - or having to do dishes!

 

 

You might also like my post about trying Martha Stewart's recipe for shortbread cookies with white chocolate icing.  Those cookies look like conversation hearts.  Sweet!

New Year's Eve Cookies

It's New Year's Eve! The last day of 2012.

 

How do you spend New Year's Eve?  I usually curl up on my couch and watch "When Harry Met Sally" and go to bed by 10.  But this year, I'm going to attempt to stay up ALL NIGHT with the teens from my church.  I made these cookies for their party.  Maybe the bright colors will keep me awake.  Or maybe the sugar will.

Skylanders Tenth Birthday Party

My son had some friends over to celebrate his 10th birthday Skylander-style!

 

When the boys arrived, they started out by making their own bag clips using shrink plastic.  We set out some Skylander books and posters for them to trace, or they could design their own.

 

The boys really got into this activity!  After the charms were shrunk, we added the carabiners so they could be used as bag clips on the boys' backpacks.  I think they turned out super cute!

 

 

The bag clips went into their favor bags.  I found blue lunch sacks and stuck a label on them to make the favor bags.  The label says "Skylanders: Aaron's Adventure" which matched the invitations and the banner.  The bags also contained some gold coin candy, a pencil, a bouncy ball and some Starburst candies. (To see my post about making the birthday banner, click here.)

 

The boys then went downstairs to play some games.  I didn't get many pictures of the games but I'll try to describe them.

1. Wrecking Ball's Tongue - I purchased some Skylander's trading cards and some sticky hands party favors at Target.  We scattered the cards on the floor and the boys tried to pick them up using the sticky hands.  They got to keep the cards as party favors.

2.  Trigger Happy's Target Practice - We lined up some stuffed balls and the boys took turns shooting at them with a nerf gun.

3.  SkyStones - We made our own version of the Sky Stones mini game in the Skylanders video game.  My husband cut some wood blocks and drew arrows on them with a sharpie.  He drew a grid on some paper for the playing surface and they used different colored chips to indicate which stones they had won.

After the games, it was time for cake!

 

Of course, I had to attempt a Portal of Power cake since it was a Skylanders party.  I personally think fondant tastes terrible, so I used buttercreme icing  and made a cake that was more "suggestive" of a Portal of Power rather than an exact representation.  The boys knew what it was and it tasted good!

 

To see my post on Skylander sheep cupcakes, click here.

 To see my post on Skylanders Elements sugar cookies, click here.

That Crazy Elf - part 2

Our Elf on the Shelf *usually* remembered to do something silly each night.  Here's where we found him on the days leading up to Christmas.

 

 

On the ceiling fan

Having a spa day in the shower

Swinging on the tree on a SPI-belt (Spencer's insulin pump pack)

In the nut bowl with a sign that says "I'm nuts!"

Packing Spencer's lunch box with an onion, olives, bouillon, and spicy sauce

Roasting a mini marshmallow on the mantle

Riding Toothless the dragon outside

 

 

Then on Christmas Eve, he was sitting by our nativity set reading the account of Jesus' birth from Luke 2.

 

The Elf is fun, but the reason we celebrate Christmas is to remember Christ's birth.  You may notice there's no baby Jesus in the manger in the above photo.  That's because he's wrapped in a gift box.  The first present our kids open on Christmas morning is the one containing the baby Jesus figurine.  We like to take a moment to remember that He's the best gift of all.

 

(To see what else the Elf has been up to this year, click here.)

Sheep Cupcakes for Skylander Party

One of the funny parts of the Skylanders video game is the sheep.  They get in your way and you can squash them or torch them or whatever you feel like.  So for Aaron's Skylander-themed birthday, I thought it would be cute to make sheep cupcakes for the family.

 

 

They came together quite quickly.  Here's what you need: white (or yellow) cupcakes, white buttercream frosting, and chocolate cake balls.  I had some chocolate cupcakes leftover from something in my freezer, so I mashed up 4 of them with some chocolate canned frosting to make the cake balls that would become the sheep heads.  (1 chocolate cupcake made 3 heads.) Then I made a dozen white cupcakes from my favorite box mix. (We're gluten-free here so I used Betty Crocker's gluten free yellow cake mix.)  I use the buttercream frosting recipe from Wilton.

 

Step 1: Load the frosting in a piping bag with a #7 tip and pipe small dots around the rim of the cupcake.

Step 2:  Form the cake ball into an oblong shape and stick it on top the cupcake.

Step 3:  Pipe some more small dots around the head to help it stay in place.

Step 4:  Finish piping dots to fill in the rest of the sheep.  Then pipe two dots on the head for eyes.

(I tried to buy the frosting eyes from Michaels, but they were all out.)

 

Here's the birthday boy with a sheep cupcake!

 

To view my post on Skylander Elements cookies and party decorations, click here.

To see my post on Skylander Portal of Power cake plus party games & activities, click here.

 

That Crazy Elf

 

Here is what our Elf has been up to so far this year.

 

Watching his favorite movie

Decorating the antlers to look like a reindeer

Hiding in a glass in the cupboard

Riding the chicken on top the kitchen cupboards

Playing with baby cousin's toys

Sleeping in the Kleenex box in the bathroom

Trying to look like Santa Claus

 

What has your elf been doing?

 

(To see what else our Elf has done this year, click here.)