Back to School

Both of the children are now back in school full time (Grace started a day before Harris but it was a half-day) and I sort of can't believe that just like that, the summer is over.  I now have a 7th grader and a 4th grader!  Boy, that makes me feel old considering that when I started this blog Grace was going into 1st grade!  What a difference from then and now in how big they look and how they handle getting their stuff together and bags packed by themselves instead of me doing it all for them!

We had our traditional "back to school dinner" of alphabet soup and alphabet breadsticks.  I asked the children if they would like to mix it up and have different food since they are well past the alphabet stage but they chose to stay with our old tradition!

This year I made a pencil cake which I thought turned out very cute.  It's clearly not even close to perfect but no one seemed to care.  I literally decorated the cake while the soup was simmering and while making breadsticks- it was that easy (my Mom place the points on each pencil!).

Grace started off dinner by making a very cute and funny speech that she had prepared and typed up.

And this happened.  Bryce took matters into his own hands and cut Harris' fro hair.  I waited till the last minute to schedule a haircut and there were no appointments before school started.  Harris really wanted a trim so Bryce went for it.  I must say, he did a great job!

P.S.  Please note that Grace wore a dress to school!

A Mustache Cake

Grace had a lovely birthday spent with her family!  In two weeks time, she is having two of her best friends over for a sleepover to celebrate, but we celebrated her actual birthday with family joining us for dinner and a mustache cake!  As you may remember, Grace loves mustaches so it was a natural choice to make her cake in the shape of one.  This was the first year that Bryce and I didn't stay up late into the night making Grace's cake!  Instead, I made it during the day and Grace was around to watch it get iced.  However, it didn't get finished until after the sun went down so I'm pretty unhappy with the pictures.  Natural light just can't be beat.

It was an easy cake to put together since it only required one cut down the middle of a round cake.  We chose to pipe on the dark chocolate buttercream, but it could easily be "combed" with a fork.  I had every intention of mixing in sprinkles to make a "funfetti" type of cake, but I completely forgot to add them to the batter!

To help liven up the cake, we used cute Happy Birthday candles that I found at Target.  I word of warning though- they melt really quickly and there is a good chance that by the time you finish lighting them all, the first few letters will have already disappeared!

An Olympic Gathering

It's been well documented our love for the Olympics.  So when we had a school event to go to on Friday evening, during the opening ceremonies, we were a tad disappointed.  Instead of missing out we just recorded and watched Saturday evening.  Our friends joined us since it wouldn't be a Winter Olympics without them!

(how great is Ron's vintage sweater and Elliot's vintage hat?)

I went with a winter sports theme for the night!  I saw these adorable drink stirrers on Oh, Happy Day and just had to make them.  I went with plastic dowels, that Bryce cut in half, instead of wooden dowels, and I glued the little HO scale figures directly to the top.  They are high on the cute scale!  Everyone enjoyed picking out their sportsperson for the night.

The children drank Sprite with Olympic rings on the bottom (aka: lifesavers).

Gretchen brought an around the world cheese plate with cheese from different countries- complete with appropriate flags!

For dinner, we had Shepherd's Pie because that's all I could think of that had a "snowy" surface.  I think it turned out so cute, my favorite part being that the "snow" is groomed with a fork!   It's the details that make me happy!

We also had a salad with mini mozzarella snowballs.

For dessert, I made a downhill skiing cake that I spotted on You are My Fave.  I followed her instructions to the T and it turned out adorable.

We don't have laurel growing in the back yard but we do have ivy!  Grace made us ivy wreaths for the occasion!

A Magic Birthday Party

Harris' birthday party was super fun and it was made all the more fun by the fact that it was super easy to put together!  We went ahead and splurged on hiring a magician to come to our home and it was well worth it.  He was no more expensive than going to a venue for a party and the boys absolutely loved his show.  It made it a lot easier to have 12 eight and nine year old boys in the house when they were occupied and intent on what the magician was doing!

The food was simple since the party was after lunch.  We served a card cake, magic wands and top hats with bunny ears.

Since Harris' interest in magic has really been centered around card tricks we made a sheet cake to look like a 9 of spades.

 

 

The magic wands were pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate.

I tried to make sugar cookie bunny ears to stick in the chocolate muffins but they were a complete failure.  Therefore, I just printed and cut bunny ears out.  They looked way neater and cuter than the cookies would have.

Bryce and I made the light up magic sign!

For the favors we gave each child a brand new deck of cards and candy sticks. Simple.

Our family with the birthday boy!

Grace Hosts a Halloween Party

Grace has wanted to plan and host a family Halloween party ever since last year.   She made it happen this weekend and I couldn't be more proud of the job she did!  It turns out that my girl is quite the party planner!  She was organized and well prepared by the time the party got here (which I cannot always say about myself!), and though she handled the majority of the planning and preparing herself, I so enjoyed spending this time with her as we shopped, cooked and prepped together.

Invitations

She made the invitations herself.

The Food

Grace chose the menu with minimal help from me.  She also made the food with the exception of the main course.

Moldy Cheese Plate

Mini Mummies and Eyeball salad

Rotten Pumpkin and Squid In Pasta with Bone Breadsticks

Ghostly Cake

The Drinks

Grace made ice cubes with worms and critters to serve with Sprite at dinner.  

To serve with the Ghostly Cake she painted the inside of glasses with melted chocolate and then poured milk in them.

We also had a few adult drinks but Grace didn't plan those!

Activities

Grace also planned several party activities.  Using various candies, our candy bin came in handy, they made Halloween monsters.  This was a super fun activity and the monsters turned out darling super scary!

We also played Halloween Bingo!

Favors and Thank You

As the party wrapped up, Grace gave everyone party favors and a thank you note!