Princess Party

Dorothy wanted to have a princess party with her friends for her birthday.  Last year, we waited until the day before everyone went back to school, and it was a long wait for her party, so this year we did it just three days after Christmas.  I wasn't sure how her friends' schedules would work out, but we had seven little princesses at the party, and that was just about the perfect number.

I had originally planned to order cupcakes from a local bakery and save myself the hassle, but that bakery closes between Christmas and New Years, so I was out of luck.  I told Dorothy that I would just make her some cupcakes instead, but she thought for a moment and said, "But I would really like a castle cake."  Um, what?  I'm not a decorative baker by any means and frosting just a regular layer cake is something I find challenging.  However, I looked at some pictures online for simple castle cakes, and I found a design I thought I might be able to replicate.  I had to borrow a double boiler to melt the chocolate, and it took forever to get it all decorated, but I was very pleased with how it came out.  It looks home-made, but it also looks like a castle, and is fun.

 I took pictures at home before attempting to move it.  My biggest fear was dropping it or having it fall over in the car on the way to the party.

 The turrets are made of stacked ice cream cones, covered in white chocolate.  I couldn't get it smooth, but it was fine.  The windows are arches I cut out of a sugar sheet (which I had no idea existed until I was at the store, looking for what might work for the windows and doors).  I used more chocolate to glue on the round sprinkles, which were left over from a failed gingerbread house.

 The door, and the purple pearl candies.  The purple balls are chocolate candies, and were really pretty with an iridescent shimmer.  They also his the small gaps in the layers of the cakes very well.

 View from the top, showing the sprinkles I put on the top layer.

 The castle made it to the party without incident.  I had extra batter when I baked the cakes, so I made cupcakes with the rest and added more of the purple pearls, sprinkles, and flags.  When it was time to have cake, the girls all wanted the cupcakes, but I cut the castle instead.  I didn't want to have to transport it again.  I did send cupcakes home with them though.

 While waiting for everyone to arrive, the girls colored a giant cardboard castle.

 I love all the details, like the sleeping dragon.

 There was plenty of room for them to all color at once, though they did often end up in little clusters.  At one point, I called them out of the castle, and it was like a clown car as they all came piling out.

 It was a good, all ages, activity, and I think they liked the castle the best out of anything else we did.

 Once everyone was there, we made bracelets.  There was some very serious concentration.

 The older girls had the easiest time of it.

 The younger ones had to work harder, but they managed, sometimes with a little help.

 After the bracelets, Kevin took the princesses on a scavenger hunt.  Here, he is reading the first clue and the rules.  He wrote all the clues himself, and did a really great job with it.

The stampede of princesses up to the front desk to find the next clue.

 They found the tiara prizes at the end of the scavenger hunt!

 Silly princesses.

 After a feast of hotdogs, pirate booty, yogurt, and fruit, it was finally time for cake.

 It took a few tries to get all the candles blown out.

 Once they were nicely sugared up, we played a rousing game of freeze dance.

 I really wish this had been in focus.  She's belting out "Let it Go!"  I had fun stopping the music right when the girls were singing the loudest.

 More singing, and less dancing.

 Lastly, it was present time.

 Her little friends were so cute and excited for her to open what they brought.

 It helps to have older friends who can read the cards for you.

 The other girls went back to dancing and coloring, but these were a couple of pooped princesses.

It was a fun party, but now I need a nap.

Dorothy's 5th Birthday

Happy 5th birthday, Dorothy!  I didn't think having a birthday on Christmas Eve was a good thing, but I'm starting to really like it.  There are some positive things about being born on that day after all. 

 The birthday girl gets to open presents (nearly) first thing in the morning.

 She often has a bit of big brother "help."

 She got two Lego sets this year and the entire morning was spent building.  Malcolm helped (lots) and Dorothy took a couple of breaks to play with some new dolls too.

We all went out to lunch after a morning of playing hard.

 After lunch, we came back to have ice cream cake.  Culver's has discontinued their cakes, so we had to get her cake someplace else this year.  She chose triple chocolate, with chocolate cake, ice cream, and frosting.  Yum!

 Dreaming of eating cake, while we sing "Happy Birthday."

 It took a few tries to get all the candles blown out.  They were spread out, and not all the same height, so it was a little difficult.

 Eating cake is serious business.

 Her main gift from us this year was a new "big girl bike."  She's a little nervous to try it out, but I imagine that by Spring she will take off on it.  We had the bike next to her birthday tree (small Christmas tree where we put her birthday presents) and the first thing she said this morning was, "What is that bike doing here?"

It is a really cool bike, and I admit to sort of wanting one for myself, even though I just bought a new bike for me a couple of years ago.

Happy birthday, my big five year old!  I guess I really don't have any babies or little kids anymore.

Holiday Card Outtakes

Every year, I try to take some sort of decent picture for our holiday cards, and every year I end up with some pretty funny outtakes.  The outtakes might actually be some of my favorite photos.  It finally warmed up a little, so we braved the threat of rain to try to get a few pictures in.  The kids were full of silliness, so it was a challenging year.  I think I have enough to work with for a cute card, but here are some of the "failures."

Dorothy has been well documented to be either crying or pouting during Christmas pictures, while Malcolm is smiling away.  We didn't have any tears this year but we did have some other expressions:

 This is one of her "smiles."  She just looks evil.

 I have an entire series of photos of her with her tongue sticking out.  I would have thought her tongue would have gotten cold.

 Then there is this.  I have no idea what this craziness is.

 Malcolm is not above the craziness himself.

 When you sister won't cooperate, put her in a choke hold.

 We were taking pictures in front of this door, with him standing behind her, then Malcolm had a "great idea" for a picture, and wanted to pick her up.  Naturally, Dorothy decided it was the perfect time to work on her straddle jump.


 There was a lot of silliness that involved hugging and kissing each other, which was sweet, and I encouraged in the hopes of catching a sweet moment.  Here, they both turned at the same time to kiss on the cheek and planted one right on the lips.

 And this was the immediate aftermath:

Dorothy was frantically wiping her mouth, and Malcolm made this face while saying, "Blech!" several times.  I wish he was in focus because these two pictures in a row just crack me up.


I think I can come up with a good card from the nicer photos.  While we were taking some of the pictures, Malcolm's teacher happened to drive by.  It was a nice surprise to see her, and the kids were a bit better behaved while she was there.

Happy Halloween!

This was going to be the year that I took decent pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes.  Usually, I wait until was are headed out, and it is too dark, and the kids won't hold still because they just want to finally get to go trick-or-treating.  Malcolm only had a half day of school, so we planned to head to the park to get some decent shots of their costumes.  Well, it was freezing cold, windy, and has snowed on and off all day.  I left the car running, had one kid jump out, took the quickest pictures I could, then switched and did the other one.  The photos are not what I imagined, but they are were the best I could do since they didn't want to be outside without a coat for more than a minute or two (and I can't blame them).

 Malcolm is Gene Kelly from "Singin' in the Rain".  The base of this lamp post was too vertical for him to be able to stand on, so he had to just stand next to it.

 He knows several of the dance moves from the movie.

 He was too cold to sing for me, but he knows he song and is adorable singing it.

 He makes a pretty handsome Gene Kelly.

 Dorothy is Rapunzel from the movie "Tangled."  We even had a green chameleon puppet that I pinned to her shoulder to be Pascal, from the movie.

 You get the full effect of the hair braid in the back.  She loves the long hair in theory, but has been taking if off after a short time because it is heavy and gets in the way.

 I told her to twirl in a circle.  You can see that it was just a little breezy.  Good thing Pascal is pinned on.  Malcolm's hat kept blowing away.

This is closer to what I had in mind for a "twirling" shot.

She loves her dress so much.  When we were trying it on for the first time, she kept saying, "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!"  It is easily the fanciest thing she owns.

 Because turnabout is fair play, the kids took some pictures of me as Minnie Mouse.  They took their pictures from the warmth of the car, and the angles are terrible.  Malcolm took these two.  They don't show my fun yellow shoes, but they are better than Dorothy's.  She did get my shoes, but my head is chopped off in almost all of them.

My eyes are closed, but he didn't do too badly for a seven year old.  I honestly didn't expect for any of their pictures of me to turn out at all.