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!

Trick or Treat 2011

This year for trick-or-treating Mike had a surprise for our boys… Usually Mike and I don’t dress up for trick-or-treating with the kids, but this year Mike and I thought it would be funny if we surprised the boys by having him dress up as the King Pig from Angry Birds. So once the boys were all stuffed into their costumes, we had them go outside in front of the house for pictures. Then we had Mike open the door and surprise them dressed as the King Pig:

As we went trick-or-treating from house to house that night, Mike and I were amazed how popular the boys were in their costumes. Everywhere we went, we could hear kids calling out, “Look! Angry Birds!”, “Hi, Black Angry Bird!” Two people stopped us to ask if they could take a picture of Caleb, and a couple of kids randomly came up to Aidan and gave him high fives on his costume. Needless to say, the boys enjoyed the attention. I remember Aidan smiling at me and saying, “Mommy, everyone knows me!”

We also took note that Aidan has reached the age now where he knows that trick-or-treating for candy is all about speed – going from house to house as fast as those little legs would take him.  All night, Mike and I were calling to him to slow down and wait for us. I remember there was a bit of “trick-or-treat congestion” at this one house, and as Aidan was waiting near the end of the line, I heard him yell out in panic, “What’s taking so long? I need to get some candy!”  Even Caleb wouldn’t stop going from house to house when it was clear that he was getting tired and cold. I remember Mike was carrying him, and Caleb was saying, “More house. I want more candy!” So once the kids started handing us their trick-or-treat buckets to carry because they were getting too heavy from the weight of all the candy, that’s when Mike and I told them it was time to go home. Definitely a memorable Halloween night.

Caleb's Preschool Halloween Party 2011

Caleb’s Preschool Halloween parade and class party were held the morning of Halloween day. As it turned out, Aidan didn’t have school that day, so he got to come with us to Caleb’s preschool. I didn’t want to have to stuff two birds that morning (Hee, hee! That part sounded funny just writing it!), so I asked Aidan if he would be o.k. with waiting to wear his costume later that evening when we went trick-or-treating. Aidan said that it was fine with him, because he wanted to use his hands to play his Nintendo DS. When we got to Caleb’s preschool, I stuffed his costume full of packing peanuts to help it fit him better. Then he held Aidan’s hand as he and his class marched around the preschool parking lot (They looked so cute together!).

 
As Caleb marched around the parking lot with Aidan and his class, he started to get upset…Over the past few days Aidan had been telling him that when he wore his Halloween costume that people would be giving him lots of candy. So there he was for the first time in his costume, and there was no candy in sight being handed out. Caleb found this quite disappointing. Yin-Yin and I told him that even though there was no candy being handed out, that it was so special that he was part of a Halloween parade. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to pull Caleb out of his grumpy disappointment, so he whined to go back into the school and take off his costume. Luckily, his class’s Halloween party came next and Caleb’s spirits were quickly lifted as he enjoyed the Halloween themed craft project, food, and songs. And then at the end of the party, all the kids sat in a circle and passed out Halloween party favors and treats to each other! This was definitely the part of the party that Caleb enjoyed the most!

Aidan's Kindergarten Halloween

Of course, during the month of October we can’t forget about the Halloween class parties and school parades. Aidan’s Halloween class party and school parade was held during Caleb’s naptime, so while Caleb napped I went to Aidan’s school to help him into his black Angry Bird costume.  Both Aidan and Caleb’s Angry Bird costumes turned out fitting a bit big on them this year (they were made to be worn by children ages 8 -12 years). Aidan, however, refused to be anything else for Halloween and Caleb always wants to copy his brother, so… to help the costumes fit we bought a lot of packing peanuts to stuff them with to improve the fit.  I showed up early at Aidan’s school to help stuff him into his costume.

He looked really cute, and loved showing his “Angry Bird face” for the class picture.

I didn’t realize how stuffed he was though in his costume until his teacher called out to the students, “Boys and Girls, if you can hear me then clap your hands three times!” I then heard Aidan cry out to his teacher, “I can’t clap my hands together!” It was pretty funny! His costume was so stuffed with the packing peanuts that he literally could not bring his hands together to clap. And when the teacher asked the kids to have a seat on the floor, it turned out that he was also so stuffed that he could not easily sit down either! So while the rest of the class sat on the floor, Aidan’s teacher let him sit in a chair while they waited to get ready to line-up for the Halloween school parade.

Aidan’s class along with the other grades marched around the school.

Then they sat in the grass for pictures and to watch the rest of the other grades march by.  It was pretty funny to watch Aidan basically fall backwards in order to achieve sitting in the grass. After the parade came the Halloween class party.
 

I took Aidan out of his costume during the class party so that he could use his hands to eat the snacks and do the Halloween arts and crafts project. Once the class party was finished, both Aidan and I were excited because instead of needing to ride the bus home, he was allowed to come home with me. Yay!

Kindergarten Pumpkin Patch Field Trip 2011

I was lucky enough this year to rearrange my teaching schedule so that I could be a volunteer on Aidan’s Kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch at Butler’s Orchard. This definitely was one of craziest field trips that I have volunteered for… First of all, the buses were 45 minutes late arriving to Butler’s Orchard. So once the kids were unloaded off the bus, they only had a little over an hour to play at various activity stations, get a hayride to the pumpkin patch, pick a pumpkin, get a hayride back, and eat lunch. Aidan and I were paired up with his friend Maya (she is so sweet!). We quickly decided that the two important stations that we wanted to try were the potato sack slides and then the rope spider web. Then it was time to make a bee-line and run to stand in line for the hayride to the pumpkin patch (it was long, as we were not the only school visiting the Orchard that day). After the hayride, I basically told both kids that they had 5 minutes to find their pumpkin and stand back in line to catch the hayride back for a quick lunch. It was a miracle that we were able to do all this in such a short amount of time, but we did (running helped)! As hectic as the field trip turned out though, it was great getting to hang out with my boy and his school friend during their field trip and see their happy faces.