Lyla's Moana Birthday Party

I'm proud of myself for actually writing a post without letting three months pass by ;).  Right now I'm working on planning Ana's 1st birthday party.  I can't believe that she turns one in less than a month! Since I've got birthdays on my mind I thought I would write a post on the Moana party that we had for Lyla's 3rd birthday.  One thing that I have definitely loved about being a mom is planning and throwing birthday parties.  It is so much fun! And this year was especially fun because this was the first year that Lyla was able to pick her own theme.  She loves the movie Moana-she wants to watch it all the time.  I don't mind because I love the movie and especially love the music. 

I created this invite in my Pixelmator software.  I bought this Moana clipart from here. It came with that cute background on the invite too.  You'll see this clipart used again later on.

I'm going to start with the games because that was the first thing that we did at the party.  The main game was an Moana obstacle course that I created.

1st the kids slid down the slide.

Next the kids had to crawl or weave through the seaweed tunnel.  I made this obstacle by sticking bamboo skewers in the ground an then slipping the pool noodles over them to create an arch.  Then I added green streamers for the seaweed.

Next they had to jump on the trampoline.  I used to jump on this little trampoline when I was a little girl.  It belonged to my grandmother and I love that Lyla gets to jump on it too!  The 4th obstacle was to crab walk or crawl from the trampoline to the patio.  I figured that most toddlers wouldn't be able to crab walk yet. 

The next obstacle was to "paddle your boat."  I drew a line on the concrete with sidewalk chalk and the kids had to follow the line while holding the "paddle."  We used Lyla's toy shovel for the paddle.  If I would of had more time I would of made a paddle out of some sort of handle and cardboard.

I was originally going to have coconut bowling be a separate activity but we had a couple of pins that were permanently deflated so I decided to incorporate it as an obstacle instead.  This blow up bowling set was a present from Lyla's Aunt for her 2nd birthday.  I found these sea decorations at the dollar store and just taped them to the pins.  I sent my husband out the day of the party to find this coconut.  I called this obstacle "breaking the sea wall." 

Finally the kids had to carry the heart of Te Fiti to Te Fiti.  I had some little stones and I taped some heart of Te Fiti's that I had printed and cut out on card stock to them.  I just found the clip art by doing a google search and it was free.  Then I put them on spoons and the kids had to carry them to the Te Fiti backdrop that I made.

I originally drew out Te Fiti in my dining room with it taped to the wall.  I used painters tape to give my self a line to reference for where to put the facial features.  Unfortunately it ended up ripping the tablecloth which was just a cheap dollar store one when I took it off.  I didn't want to draw the face again to I just put the other tablecloth I had bought behind it.  I drew hear face on with a green sharpie.  The heart is just a bigger version of the one I made for the obstacle course.  I used dollar store grass stuff and a garland from Oriental Trading Company to create her hair.  I bought some leis from Party City for guests to wear while taking pictures. 

The only other activity I had was the water table.  You can read more about how I made this in this post.  This was a big hit at both her 2nd birthday party and this one.  Little sister loved it to and got soaking wet!

Inside I had a happy birthday banner that was a free printable from Catch My Party and you can find them here.  I also used the little tented cards to label the food and the You're Welcome sign which I taped to the front door.  I made the leaf garland with my Silhouette Portrait.  I found the tropical leaves in the design store and cut them out on different shades of green card stock.  Then I punch holes in each leaf and strung them onto some bakers twine.  I hung them up with some push pins in the ceiling.  I wish I had taken a better picture of it and I had plenty of opportunities since it was up for a month after the party!  I decorated with some leis on the table and these cute Kakamora pirates that I made using coconut cups from Oriental Trading Company, craft acrylic paint, and mod podge.  Here's the tutorial that I used to make these. 

I didn't do a good job of taking pictures of the food but I served sandwich meat and cheese and crab salad with Kings Hawaiian hoagie buns (and the regular size Kings Hawaiian rolls for the little ones).  I had a veggie tray with ranch dip and made a little island in the dip with half a red potato with a carrot stuck in it for the trunk of a palm tree and a green pepper cut for the palm leaves.  You can see it in the picture above (it was the only picture I got!).  We also had chips and pineapple.

I made a this lime sherbet punch and called it Heart of Te Fiti punch.

Of course the crowning glory of it all was the cake!  I was so pleased with how it turned out.  You can find a bunch of examples of similar cakes to this on Pinterest.  For the cake I used this recipe for chocolate cake and this recipe for mock chocolate mousse filling.  The filling was so good!  I made three layers of the cake.  I used this buttercream recipe.  I crumb coated the cake with white frosting after filling and stacking the layers.  Then I used a spatula with the blue frosting to give it the wavy texture.  I used a piping bag with a grass decorating tip for the grass.  I bought the little flowers at Joann Fabric.  The bamboo is made with Pepperidge Farm Pirouette Cookies.  I found the Moana set with canoe at Target.  I can't believe I made this cake!

Finally the favor bags contained one of the Kakamora coconut cups with a bamboo straw, a bag with shark, octopus, and fish gummies, and Moana temporary tattoos.  I made the bag toppers with my Silhouette Portrait and the same clip art as the invite.  The font is a free Moana font.  The tattoos were made using my Silhouette Portrait and the special tattoo paper that they make.  I used this clipart and I especially liked the Maui ones that look like his tattoos.

Lyla has been a big fan of tattoos lately so she loved these. I seriously loved planning and throwing this party.  I hope this post gives you some inspiration! 

Pumpkin Spice Lactation Muffins

Happy February!  It is crazy to me that it is February already and that my littlest one just turned 4 months about a week ago.  The last few days before she turned 4 months were not very fun as the stomach flu hit our house pretty hard.  The girls and I both had it and it was a pretty nasty strain of it.  No matter how much water I try to drink when I have the stomach flu I still tend to experience a little bit of a dip in my milk supply and this time was no different.  When Lyla was a baby I came across these delicious pumpkin lactation muffins and made batches upon batches of them.  I struggled a lot more with my milk supply in general with her.  When Ana was born I decided to make a batch of these right away but was dismayed to see that the recipe and post no longer existed.

I found a couple of other recipes for pumpkin lactation muffins but they just weren't the same.  So I decided to see if I could recreate the recipe myself and I am happy to say that I was successful.  I am writing this post more for myself to preserve the recipe but they are quite tasty so I'm sure others will appreciate this recipe as well.  Now I am not a food blogger so my pictures leave a lot to be desired.

Trust me they are much better than my not so great photos lead you to believe.  These muffins are perfect.  They taste like good pumpkin bread and are so moist.  I love to load them up with dark chocolate chips and walnuts.  They are seriously my favorite and if you leave out the brewer's yeast and flax they could be some tasty regular old muffins as well.

Here is a link to the recipe if you want to print it.  Next up for the blog: I have a few sewing projects, another idea for non candy homemade Valentines, and someday I will finally share all of the updates to out living room because it has come a long way from the dark purple room from when we moved in.

Baptism Brunch + Welding Text with Silhouette Software

This past Sunday was my daughter's baptism and we decided to throw a little brunch party at our house for our families and Lyla's godparents afterwards. I wanted a simple celebration but I also wanted it to look pretty.  I decided to go with burlap, lace, and vintage elements for my decor.  Of course I am generally obsessed with those things anyway but I was inspired by Lyla's baptism gown made by her father's grandmother that her father wore when he was baptized.  

For the decor I borrowed two lace tablecloths from my mom and covered the table and part of our kitchen counter with them.  I made a "God Bless Lyla" center piece out of cardstock with my Silhouette Portrait which I will get to later in this post.  I found burlap and lace ribbon at Hobby Lobby and Michaels and used it to decorate jars that I had on hand.  I put baby's breath and pink roses in the jars. I found a cute thing at Michael's for the plates and napkins and I put the spoons for the yogurt in the creamer portion of a vintage silver tea service.  I also used a vintage teacup to hold the chocolate chips in the yogurt bar.  The decor was really simple but it looked so pretty.

I decided to go with brunch food because so many things can be made ahead of time. Here is what I served:

Baptism Brunch Menu

•  Orange Juice Punch
• Sausage Biscuit Egg Bake-I made two but in the second one I subbed mushrooms for the sausage
• Pioneer Woman's Baked French Toast 
• A Yogurt Parfait Bar
• Cherry Almond Vanilla Cupcakes

I love a cute make-your-own bar idea like my hot chocolate bar at our New Year's Eve Party so I thought a yogurt parfait bar would be a fun and easy addition to the brunch.

I bought some plastic cups for the yogurt and three large containers of vanilla yogurt.  For the add-ins for the parfaits I had blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, almonds, walnuts, mini chocolate chips and three types of granola which I picked up in the bulk foods section at the grocery store.  I made some cute signs for the granola as well as a "yogurt parfait bar" sign with the Silhouette Design software and made it into a print and cut design.  If you missed my last post on making print and cut custom wine labels with the Silhouette Portrait then click here to see it.

I arranged the cupcakes into a cross shape.  I loved this recipe because the frosting was a lovely pink shade from the 3 tablespoons of maraschino cherry juice in the recipe.

Also the cupcakes were so delicious.  It is some of the best frosting that I have ever had and I am not a big frosting person.

Alright, now on to the tutorial portion of this post.  The weld option in the Silhouette software is a very useful tool especially when cutting script text.  I wanted to make a centerpiece for the table that said "God Bless Lyla" using glitter card stock and I wanted it to be all one piece.

I started by finding a font I wanted.  I used the font Lavanderia which was a free font that I downloaded. After typing my text (I made sure the words were 3 separate objects) I selected the word.

I needed the capital letters to touch the lowercase letters otherwise they wouldn't be welded together. In order to do this I had to ungroup the letters.

Once I ungrouped them I was able to move the capital "G" so that it was just slightly overlapping the "o."

After selecting all 3 letters in the word, I went to the object menu, then modify and clicked weld from the modify window.

Now you can see that the letters are all connected.

I did the same thing with the other two words.  Once they were welded, I put the 3 words together so that they were overlapping in at least one place and then welded the words together.  

I now had one connected piece.

Next I rotated the words 90 degrees and enlarged them to fill almost the entire area.

I cut the design out on glitter card stock.  I find it easier to cut out designs on the glitter card stock when I have the non-glittered side facing up on the Silhouette mat.  Because of this I had to mirror the design vertically.

Now the design was ready to cut.

To finish of the centerpiece I glued two wooden skewers to the back of the card stock.  Then I put some floral foam surrounded by moss into two jars and stuck the wooden skewers into the floral foam.  I glued pieces of the burlap and lace ribbon around the jars.  

It was such a fun little celebration of a big moment in our daughter's life.  I loved how everything fit so well with the vision that I had in my head for the day.  I still have more posts for you during this lovely month of October including my daughter's adorable diy Halloween costume so please visit my blog again to check it out.