Surprise Macaron Tower

It is very rare that I am able to surprise Mike. Usually when I have a surprise planned for him I end up not being able to contain myself or I forget to cover my tracks well enough (Actually, I’ve been like this for many years…just ask my brother and sister) But this year for his birthday I am proud to say that I was able to pull one off! When it comes to celebrating his birthday, Mike often prefers to celebrate with pie instead of cake. Pie is one of his favorite desserts (particularly peach pie or pecan pie) so for the past few years I’ve always made him a peach pie instead of cake for his birthday. This year, however, he developed a fondness for a new dessert…French macarons! Our church ended up moving last year one street away from a French bakery that specializes in French macarons. So almost every Sunday after service we stop by and treat ourselves each to a macaron.

I decided for Mike’s birthday this year that I would surprise him and make macaron tower with candles on top instead of the typical birthday pie. The kids were super excited to make a “cookie tower” for their dad. First I purchased a foam cone from Michaels, some toothpicks, and then I needed to purchase 32 macarons. I grossly underestimating how many macarons I would need to cover the foam cone, because I ended up needing to drive to the French bakery twice! Luckily, I had Flo Rider (his music) in the car to keep me upbeat from being annoyed at myself.

That afternoon when the boys and I sat down to construct covering the cone in macarons, we discovered that they were quite delicate. And let me just say that “delicate” cookies, plus boys, plus toothpicks do not go well together…. Luckily, after 3 crumbled macarons and some toothpick sword fights, the boys figured out how to gently handle the macarons to finish the tower (Caleb called it a “cookie rocket”).

When daddy came home from work later that evening, we asked him to leave the room while we turned down the lights and lit the candles on top of the marcaron tower. After Mike blew out the candles we asked if he was surprise. He smiled and said that he was surprised that not only had we actually made the macaron tower ourselves, but that Mommy had put the candles to say he was 38 again instead of 39 years old. At first I thought he was joking, because I’ve always known that we were 8 years apart and I am 30. But as the math slowly “clicked” that I hadn’t had my birthday yet (I stink at math….) I realized he was right (Man, was he smiling big at watching this dawn on me!). Feeling a bit silly, I haughtily smiled back and replied that I was planning to remain 30 forever so I had been nice enough to keep him at 38 this year, Ha! Mike of course laughed and said this was definitely one of his best birthdays and that Mommy was full of surprises that even she didn’t know about.

Our New House!

It’s already been a little over a week since we officially moved into our new home! Even though our new home seems to have come with a never-ending list of to-do’s, it has been an exciting and happy time for our family. Without a doubt, the boys have two favorite areas where they enjoy playing at our new house: in their treehouse and bedroom.

When we were house hunting , one thing that Mike and I decided that we would not compromise  on in a house was having a backyard with trees for the boys. Once we found our home with a “woodsy” backyard, we could not resist getting a treehouse built for our boys. Luckily, we were blessed to find a treehouse contractor as soon as we moved in who was willing to work within our budget and build us everything we dreamed of in a treehouse for the boys (As it turned out, we ended up being this treehouse contractor’s last project for a while because he was moving out of state the following weekend). He did an amazing job, and the boys have been having a lot of fun out in the backyard finding sticks for swords and creating adventures in their treehouse. 

 

Even though we let the boys know that they could each have their own room when we moved into our new home, they told us that they still wanted to share a room together (awww….). Their only request was that they could finally have a bunk bed. Unfortunately, the only room large enough for them to share with a bunk bed clearly had a girl previously in it. The carpet was pink, the closets were pink, and a little chandelier hung from the ceiling. When we let the boys know that this was the only room big enough for them to share they both gagged and declared that no boy should have to sleep in that girlie room.  They then ran across the hall to our master bedroom and said that this next big bedroom would be perfect for them (Ha, ha! No way!). So once we closed on the house, Mike and I quickly redid the “pink bedroom”. We changed the carpet, switched out the chandelier for a ceiling fan, painted the walls blue, and put in a bunk bed.  The first night in their new bedroom the boys behaved like it was Christmas morning (which made it a bit difficult to get them to sleep right away…), they could not stop sliding down their bunk bed, diving into the tent, and rolling around in the new carpet. 

After they fell asleep, Mike and I went to our room and collapsed on our air mattress for the night.
The next day both boys started their first day of school! Aidan into 1^st grade and Caleb into the Three’s class.   

So even though we still have a garage crowded with stuff that needs to be stored or donated and many projects to be done, with the boys feeling happy and settled at home and at school, it is impossible for us not to feel the same way .

Caleb's Toy Story Birthday Party

The last installment for Caleb’s 3^rd birthday was his birthday party at the house. Since Caleb had already celebrated his birthday at preschool with his friends, we decided to keep this party on the small side with family and the rest of his friends that he plays with outside of preschool. Caleb has recently been obsessed with watching the movie Toy Story, I think this video proves my point:

So because he is such a fan of the movie, we decided to throw him a Toy Story birthday party.

In addition to the party being Toy Story themed, we were also very excited to surprise Caleb with a pony ride and baby piglets coming to the party.

Since there was no way that the pony and the piglets were going to entertain the kids inside the house, this party obviously had to be an outdoor one. Usually I try to avoid planning outdoor parties because it drives me crazy that I can’t be in control of the weather. So during the week of the party date, Mike and I were checking the weather more than once every day as if it was the stock market or something. Luckily, even though there was a 30% chance of rain that day, we lucked out with sunshine and warm weather. I was so relieved (Can’t imagine what I would’ve been like if I had planned our wedding to be an outdoor one…scary!). Most of the birthday parties we have thrown for the kids have been on the big side, so it was really nice to have a party at the house this time that was small and laid-back where we could just let the kids play and have fun at the different party stations set-up in the backyard.

The piglets definitely out-shined the pony at the party.

Even though all the kids enjoyed going on as many pony rides as they wanted, they all loved interacting with the piglets more (Caleb refused to ride the pony more than twice, because when it trotted it felt rather fast and uncomfortably bumpy for him).

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The piglets were only 5 weeks old, and Aidan was thrilled to find out that piglets are hypo-allergenic animals (Aidan is allergic to animal dander). He happily announced to his dad and I that he would like to earn a pet piglet of his own. It was really sweet to see how Aidan was able to get even the squirmiest piglet, Columbus (named because he’s curious and likes to explore), to stay on his lap and play.

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Next, came eating at Pizza Planet down in the basement while watching the movie Toy Story. Aidan and Caleb had been watching me slowly decorate the basement into Pizza Planet during the week and were super excited for everyone to see how our basement had transformed!

After the movie, we all went upstairs for cake! And since it was a small party, we were able to surprise the kids with “Swag bags” instead of goody bags. Definitely a cute party for our cute 3^rd old!

Cat in the Hat Cake for Caleb

On Wednesday our Caleb officially turned 3 years old! Since Caleb didn’t have preschool on his birthday, I got the joy of getting to spend good ‘ol quality time with the birthday boy. In addition to opening and playing with presents, we also spent the morning chalking some artwork on the driveway. I was pretty impressed how Caleb was able to imitate my chalk drawing of a sun!

To celebrate his birthday I decided to bake him a “Cat in the Hat” Red Velvet birthday cake. Caleb loves to watch the show “The Cat in the Hat”, and since the Cat’s hat is red and white, a Red Velvet cake seemed like a perfect fit! I chose this recipe because it was similar to the Waldorf Astoria’s Red Velvet Cake recipe, but not as complicated:

http://pinchmysalt.com/red-velvet-cake-recipe/

The only change I made to this recipe was that I baked the cake in a 9 X 13 inch pan (instead of the round pans) for 20 min. at 345 degrees. Then during Caleb’s naptime, I cut the cooled cake into 2 layers (carefully!), frosted it with cream cheese frosting, and topped it with a “Cat in the Hat” fondant topper I bought from Etsy.com on sale. Later in the afternoon while he was playing with Aidan in the backyard, I piped blue cream cheese frosting for the border and lettering of the cake and had Aidan decorate the sides with red M&M’s while Caleb was looking for big sticks in the backyard.

After dinner, we surprised Caleb with his special “Cat in the Hat” birthday hat and ushered him to his birthday cake at the table. When Caleb saw his birthday cake he exclaimed, “The Cat in the Hat!” and did a little dance in his chair while Aidan proudly told everyone, “I put on the M&M’s”. Happy Birthday Caleb! We love you!

Caleb's Cupcakes

This week our Caleb is turning 3 years old! It is crazy to think that three wonderful years have already gone by since we brought him home from the hospital….Probably what is more crazy is the fact that he is having 3 little celebrations this week for his birthday. The first one is with his class at preschool during lunch time. For this little party I decided to bake chocolate-chocolate chip miniature cupcakes, with a vanilla buttercream frosting, topped with mini M&M’s.

When it comes to cakes, both my boys always choose chocolate cake. I spent some time looking at different chocolate cake recipes on the internet and finally settled on this one for the chocolate cupcakes for Caleb’s preschool: 

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dessert/the-best-chocolate-cake.html 

After sampling one of the cupcakes, I felt like only 1 cup of mini chocolate chips would have been sufficient for the recipe in order to achieve a chocolate-chip taste for the cupcakes (even ½ cup if you are going for only a hint of meltly chocolate chips within the cupcakes).  For the frosting I chose this recipe:

http://www.thekitchenmagpie.com/how-to-make-the-best-butter-cream-icing

I ended up only using 3 cups of powdered sugar instead of 4 though (I’m a big fan of Italian meringue frostings thanks to CakeLove cupcakes, so when it comes to any kind of frosting I prefer that it doesn’t taste too sweet). The frosting was definitely good! Light, mildly sweet, and whippy.

Once the cupcakes were frosted, I topped them with some mini M&M’s and headed off to Caleb’s preschool. When Caleb saw me walk in with the cupcakes, he exclaimed, “Mommy, you brought my birthday!” So cute!

The only problem I realized I had today was that there were only 12 kids in Caleb’s class and I made 48 mini cupcakes! Luckily, I managed to give a lot of them away to friends and family, so now we are only left with 17 mini cupcakes to finish before I bake Caleb’s "Cat in the Hat" birthday cake on Wednesday (for his actual birthday). I’m pretty sure I’ll be sick of cake by the end of this week…

2012 Valentine's Day Prep

Preparation for Valentine’s Day was in FULL swing this year! First, Valentine cards. Aidan wanted to pass out Angry Bird Valentines with Angry Bird tattoos to his Kindergarten class this year, and Caleb wanted to pass out Valentines with Dum Dum lollipops attached. Since Aidan is in Kindergarten now, he was required to write his name and the names of each of his classmates on the Valentines. Caleb, on the other hand, was required to cut out a picture of each of his classmates and glue it to each of his Valentines (I thought this was a great idea that his teacher came up with since he and the kids in his class can’t read yet).  In addition, we also put little mailboxes outside of the boys’ bedroom and a Valentine card-making station in the playroom so that anyone during the first few days of February could make a Valentine and put it in either of their mailboxes.

The boys really enjoyed making Valentines for each other! I remember going downstairs one day wondering why they were so quiet in the playroom and seeing them hard at work at the Valentine card-making station making Valentine after Valentine for each other along with some for me and Mike. It was an endearing thing to watch.

 

Next, Valentine treats! Over Christmas break, Aidan’s cousins KC and Kristen spoiled us by making chocolate-dipped pretzels as an occasional treat throughout the week. On one of those days, the girls ran out of pretzel rods and ended up using pretzel crisps instead. Aidan and I thought the pretzel crisps ended up tasting way better! So when it was time to go home, Aidan made me promise that one day we would make KC and Kristen’s chocolate-dipped pretzel crisps again. Well, Valentine’s Day seemed like the perfect opportunity to make such a delicious treat. So the weekend before Valentine’s Day, the boys made chocolate-dipped pretzel crisps for our relatives that live nearby in Maryland.

  We boxed them up, wrote some labels, and handed them out on the day! The boys were so proud of the treats they made, and Aidan also reminded me to take pictures so that KC and Kristen would know that we were thinking of them!