a Thanksgiving Dinner

When it comes to planning and prepping for a Thanksgiving dinner with all of the fixings, I get an almost three week head start on most people. My daughter was fortunate enough to be born in November and since when Thanksgiving rolls around, it is generally just the four of us, so every year for her birthday party, I make a full Thanksgiving spread.

Planning the meal is an important aspect of a successful meal. I start by looking at my menu a couple of weeks ahead of time. The menu is mostly the same from year to year, but I like to try new things from time to time. The attendees are similar from year to year, but there is slight fluctuation in the numbers - fewer people generally just equates to more leftovers for me!

Here is what we had this year:
Oven Roasted Turkey
Dressing (not stuffing, because it doesn't go in the bird)
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli and Cauliflower Casserole
Spinach or Romaine Salad with homemade dressing
Brown and Serve Rolls
Vegetables and Dip
Fruit Salad

Of course, since it is a birthday party, we skip the pies in favor of birthday cake:

As you can see, Hello Kitty was our theme this year. The cake was modeled off one of my daughter's dresses. It's hard to see, but the cupcake "skirt" is covered in tulle. As you might have guessed, I start planning the cake a few weeks ahead of time too.

As we get closer to the party, I start to watch the ads and pick up the items I will need when they are on sale. I then do a shopping trip the week of the party to pick up the fresh produce and the other items that I hadn't yet purchased.

I generally am using a frozen turkey, so I pull that out of the freezer about 3 - 4 days before cooking and allow it to thaw in the refrigerator. Be sure to check your turkey's weight and recommended thaw time - the two are very related.

Using some tricks that my Grandma used and my family still uses today, I prep a lot of my items the day before the party. It makes the day of less hectic and less messy.

The turkey is one of those items. Grandma always roasted her turkey the day before the big event. This does a couple of things - it allows the turkey to set long enough after cooking to reabsorb all of the juices and it frees up a lot of space in the oven the day of the event. I prep my turkey for roasting by removing the bag and neck from the turkey and then rinsing it inside and out. I core an apple and place it in the body cavity along with a couple of bay leaves, some thyme, sage and rosemary. I cut up a stick of butter and tuck it between the skin and meat where possible and between the wings/legs and body. I prep my turkey bag and place the turkey inside. Then, it cooks. I used to not use a bag for cooking my turkey and that was just a mess! First, without the bag, you have to baste the turkey. This wasn't that big of a deal, except have you ever noticed how the hot fluid sort of drips out of the baster even when you are not squeezing? Second, I managed to make a big mess in my oven as a result. Now, I put it in the oven, set the timer and go about my other preparation tasks. Once it is done, I let it set until it has cooled slightly. This allows times for the juices to be reabsorbed and keeps me from burning my fingers while I am trying to carve. Using my baster, I pull out the drippings and set them in a container for making gravy the next day. Then, I carve the bird, saving the carcass and the hard to get pieces of turkey for making delicious turkey soup (recipe here). The meat all goes into a 9x13 covered dish (including the wings for my mom) and I add a little bit of the drippings over top. I cover it with foil and then the pans lid and place it in the refrigerator.

I make my mashed potatoes ahead of time too and oddly the recipe is called Next Day Mashed Potatoes. I boil the potatoes and mash them with cream cheese and milk and put them in 9x13 covered dish and they go in the refrigerator. I also make my sweet potatoes in a casserole (recipe here) the day before, but I wait to add the crumb top until I am ready to put it in the oven. For my stuffing (again, not actually stuffed) I use the neck and giblets from the turkey to make a broth and include a little bit of the meat as well. This recipe was from Dad's Mom and makes what I consider to be yummy stuffing. I prep this the day before and set it in the refrigerator.

The last thing I make the day ahead is the dip for my vegetables. I make a Dill Weed Dip, which seems to improve on flavor with time. I usually cut up all of my vegetables the day ahead too. It helps that I am already pulling out the celery to be in the stuffing and once I have the cutting board out, I have momentum and keep on chopping. I bake my cake the night before the party, but wait to frost.

The day of the party, I prep the broccoli and cauliflower casserole, make the vinaigrette for the salad and cut up all of the fruit for the fruit salad (don't want the bananas or apples going brown!). I also decorate my cake the morning of the party.

Having everything ready ahead of time, allows me to simply turn on the oven and put everything in about 1 - 1 1/2 hours before we want to eat. This way, I can focus on visiting with my guests (okay, my guests may tell you this isn't entirely true - I tend to visit with them while I worry about what else needs to be done.)

Then, we all sit down together, as together as we can be sitting in three or four rooms, and enjoy an early Thanksgiving meal. Makes Thanksgiving itself a rather quiet day by comparison, but it is certainly an easy meal for me. I typically make a Jennie-O Turkey Roast, some mashed potatoes, some sweet potatoes, corn and rolls. I will make either a pie or a cheesecake for dessert.

How do you prepare for your holiday meal? If you have turkey questions as you prepare, you can always head over to Jennie-O for answers to your turkey questions.

You can also find place setting and centerpiece ideas for the holiday from their test kitchen editor on Hormel Foods Recipe site.

My kids made the turkeys pictured at the top at a family night at my son's school. We used some round votive cup holders, some Mod Podge and torn pieces of tissue paper to decorate the body and then folded tissue paper for the tail feathers and for the beak. The head is a small craft ball (flat on one side), which we attached with a hot glue gun. Add a little black paint for the eyes and a turkey you have. There are tea lights inside, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to light those with all of that tissue paper - maybe I can find the little electric flicker candles instead. We also made a placemat at the same event. Using fabric paint and stencils, they decorated a plain beige placemat turning it into a Thanksgiving placemat.

And, remember don't stress yourself out, your guests will understand if you pick up some already prepped food and add your own touch. Hormel Country Crock side dishes like Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Cinnamon Apples and Homestyle stuffing can help you save some time and energy. Or, if your house is like mine, I run out of sides first, so you could use already prepped product to be the sides on the second serving of Thanksgiving.

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are mine or those of my family. I am completing this post as a participant in the Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger program. Hormel Foods provided some of the information for this post.

Harry Potter Birthday Party

Most years we keep the kids birthdays simple at our house. We have a big family-style gathering at our house. For my son, who was lucky enough to be born in the summer, typically it means grilling out and the slip'n slide. For my daughter, with a fall birthday, it is generally a roasted turkey and the all the tastes of Thanksgiving. We invite our family and then we invite friends and their families. There is usually at least a few kids close to their age that are there to celebrate. Occasionally, we will plan an all kids party - but certainly not every year (that can really add up!)

Even though our birthday parties are more family focused, doesn't mean that we don't go all out on the theme. The kids select a theme, together my husband and I come up with a plan for the invitations and he puts his creativity and computer skills behind creating the themed invitation. I pick up cake plates and napkins that fit the theme. Sometimes, this means bright colors (for the Wiggles) and other times, it means plates and napkins printed with the theme. I usually try to find a giveaway for the kids in attendance in the theme of the party. This has varied from books (Curious George's Birthday for the Monkey Theme) to Princess Dress Up Clothes (for our Princess Theme). At last, but certainly not least, I come up with a plan for a themed birthday cake and make it. You can see some past examples (like Space, Star Wars, Phineas and Ferb and Princess) here.

This year, my son chose Harry Potter. This was my biggest challenge to date. You see, not only have I not read the books, but I haven't seen any of the movies either. In fact, you may remember my asking for help with cake ideas.

For our invitation, my husband put together a letter of acceptance to the guest to be part of the Hogwart's School. We had to go online, but we found a great deal on plates and napkins from Birthday Direct. Since shipping was flat rate, we also added on some reusable cups that we could fill with candy as a gift to the kids in attendance. Then, came the cake. After some searching, I decided that the way to do it was to make a book cake and decorate it with magical things.

I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. I simply used a Wilton Cake pan in the shape of a book, which my mom happened to have from when I was a little girl (saved me $$ on buying a pan). I frosted the cake with a basic butter cream frosting that I made. A little dyed butter cream served for the words and the edging on the cake. Then, I made up a batch of Marshmallow Fondant and using different dyes, created the decorations for the book. To give the bag some form, I filled it with mini-marshmallows. The colors for the scarf were a little difficult. I think I kept tweaking the maroon for a good 15 minutes before it looked right. The glasses were by far the hardest things to make. My son definitely liked his Harry Potter cake (as did one of my friends at work who is a HUGE Harry Potter fan). I had a lot of fun making the cake and saved a good amount over what a bakery cake would have cost.

This post shared at Frugal Friday.

Birthday Cake Round-up

It's that time of the year again. Time to share the birthday cakes that I have made, and follow the links on Life As Mom to get inspiration for this year's cakes. I really enjoy making cakes for my kids. I have such fun coming up with the idea and executing on the theme. Normally, I know the theme well in advance, but this year seems to be an exception, the kids have had a few ideas, but I'm not sure that we have decided on a final theme for either one yet.

We had some good birthday themes this past year. My son chose Phineas and Ferb. I had a lot of fun recreating their images in fondant on top of a sheet cake. I think I did a pretty good job!

Phineas and Ferb Cake:


My daughter wanted a princess theme. Last year was Abby Caddaby and we did a Magic Wand cake, so this year for princess, we decided (by we, I mean I) to go with a Doll Cake. I found a "dressed" ballerina Barbie that allowed me to focus on the dress. I wrapped a bowl cake in a fondant and added some flowers to the skirt. Again, I got lots of happy smiles from my daughter, meaning this was a successful cake.

Princess Doll Cake:

Abby Caddaby Magic Wand Cake:


Some past favorites can be found below:

Dueling Light Saber Cake:

Outer Space Cake (or should I say cakes):

Elephants cake (big cake/smash cake):

Wiggles Big Red Car Cake:

Blue's Clues Cake:

Airplane Cake:

Cars - Lightnin' McQueen cake:




You can see all of my birthday cake posts here):
, or click on the link by the image to learn more about how I made some of these cakes.
This post shared at the Ultimate Recipe Swap Birthday Cake Roundup.

Princess Party

I'm clearly a few months behind in some of my planned posts. Back in November, we celebrated my daughter's fourth birthday. This year, her request for a theme was to have a Princess Party. I thought that this sounded like a wonderful theme. For during the party entertainment, I picked up some dresses and tutus, as well as some Prince crowns and capes from MyPrincessPartytoGo.com. I figured the kids could dress up during the party and then have an outfit to take home with them after the party. The cake was not a hard decision for me, I always thought it would be fun to make one of those princess doll cakes, and that is what I set out to do.

I had a vision in my head of what the cake would look like. I was a little uncertain on exactly how I would decorate the cake. I finally decided that fondant would be a great way to get a flowy looking ball gown for the princess cake.

I was able to find a ballerina Barbie doll, that had a bodice that was painted on. I figured that not having to make a top would make decorating the cake easier. Fortunately, there was one available in purple - my daughter's favorite color and the planned color for our Princess Doll Cake.

I started by making two cake mixes. I made one mix in an oven proof glass bowl and the other one in two 9" round cake pans. Because I prefer to offer both chocolate and white (or yellow) cake, I made one of each. After baking the cakes and allowing them to cool. I used a small glass to cut a round hole in the middle of each of the layers - this would be where I could place the doll when I was done decorating. Then, using a thin layer of frosting (I make a homemade butter cream), I stacked the cakes. Then, I frosted the cake with a thin layer of frosting. I took my marshmallow fondant from the refrigerator and kneaded in purple frosting color. (It's a bit of an arm workout to knead it in to refrigerated fondant and get an even color). I rolled it into a rectangle of sorts.

I removed the skirt from the ballerina and wrapped her lower body in plastic wrap, to keep her from getting covered in frosting. I dropped a spoonful of frosting into the bottom of the hole in the center of the cake, to hold the doll up. Then, I lifted my fondant and draped it around the cake. To finish the edges, I piped some purple frosting along the top edge and then, to accent the dress, created a bunch of small purple flowers on her dress.

Here was the result:

When my daughter saw her cake for the first time, her eyes just lit up. It was wonderful.

I enjoy making cakes for my kids - the best part is seeing their reaction when they see the cake.

You can see the cakes that I have made over the years here:

Blue's Clues
Airplane
Cars - Lightnin' McQueen cake
Space - Solar System cake
Elephants
Wiggles - Big Red Car cake
Abby Caddaby - Princess Wand cake
Star Wars - Dueling Light Sabers cake
Phineas & Ferb

This post shared at Works for Me Wednesday and the Ultimate Recipe Swap Birthday Cake Roundup.

Birthdays!

I love birthdays! Always have, even my own. When I became a mom, birthdays became even more special to me, especially my children's birthdays. I want for their birthday to be a special occasion for them. Each year, they get to choose their theme and we build the party around their choice. For the most part, birthday parties are held on the weekend and include family and family friends. This year, we did have a party with his friends for my son at the local minor league ballpark, but that isn't something that we will do every year to be certain.

One of the challenges of throwing a party (of any sort really, not just birthday) is incorporating the theme and keeping things on budget. I do my best to balance the cost with the experience.

We typically design and print our own invitations (or occasionally e-mail them). This allows us to customize them to fit our theme without having to pay licensed product costs for the initiations. When we did an airplane theme, we created mock boarding passes for each guest and housed the party details in the flight details section of the ticket. When we did the Wiggles theme, we put together concert tickets for the event. My husband is in charge of the creative part, but I usually try to provide ideas (or challenges) for him. The airline ticket was my idea, the concert ticket was his, but the execution was all him.

The next thing that I do to keep expenses low is to throw the birthday party at my house. As our kids are older and our family and friends have more children and they get older, our house is starting to feel a little tight at birthday parties, but then we just spread out. In the summer, for my son's birthday, we take advantage of the weather and open the party up to the outdoors - eating on the deck and playing in the yard. In the winter, for my daughter's birthday, we have to rely on sending the kids off to play in the playroom in the basement (which works now that they are older and we don't have to monitor their every move).

Another thing that I do to keep expenses low is to cook for my own party. Catering might be quick and easy, but it comes with a price tag. It may be boring, but for my son's birthday, we center our meal around hot dogs and hamburgers. It includes picnic fare and more. For my daughter's birthday, we have a roasted turkey with all the trimmings. We are able to feed a lot of people for a reasonable price.

When it comes to partyware, I make a balance between themed and unthemed partyware. This year, despite the plates and napkins not being available until sometime in October, I was able to find reasonably priced Phineas and Ferb paper goods on eBay. (I actually contacted Hallmark to find out where to purchase locally. I could tell from the stickers in the eBay pictures that the products were Hallmark. They were the ones that told me that they weren't yet available and there was no way to get any to me - for purchase or review (I asked, since they don't actually sell consumer direct by phone and was wondering how else to get them) because they wouldn't be available until October. If so, why were there no fewer than 20 people selling them on eBay?) As I was saying though, I balance between themed and unthemed. For Phineas and Ferb, I bought a couple packs of plates and some napkins that had Phineas and Ferb on them. Then I bought yellow napkins and plates (and used plain old white for dinner - which I'm thinking I'd like to move to something more green, more on that later). I stacked my napkins in an alternating pattern. Not everyone through the line got a Phineas and Ferb napkin, but everyone got a plate when it was cake time. Sometimes, I have to make my partyware fit a theme, because we seem to choose themes that don't yet have partyware. The best and easiest example was the Wiggles party we had a few years ago - we simply bought bright red, blue, yellow and purple plates and napkins. Easy Peasy! In general though, I go for dessert plates in my theme and napkins in my theme and combine them with solid napkins and with plain plates for dinner.

One other thing that we do to save money (and make it more memorable for the kids - I hope) is to make our own cakes. I've mentioned before that this is my creative outlet. I'm not an overly creative or crafty person, but something about the challenge of a themed cake - I love. I think because it is more problem solving than anything and as an engineer, that was what I was taught. Here is a picture of my Phineas and Ferb cake (you can see past examples here):
(turned out pretty okay if you want my opinion!) I made a regular cake in a 9x13 pan and then some cupcakes (which weren't originally part of my plan, but I was glad to have when the logo didn't fit). I frosted the cake in a solid yellow color (matched my napkins nicely). I took my marshmallow fondant experience that I gained last year in doing the Dueling Light Saber Cake, and applied it to the decorations. The Phineas and Ferb were inspired by nice pictures that I found on a folder in the back to school section. It was nice to have them at a scale that was similar for what I needed on the cake. The best thing about making a themed cake is seeing your child's eyes light up when they look at it. It makes it all worthwhile.

This approach works for me and allows us to create a special party experience for the kids without the price tag that might be expected.

This post shared at Works for Me Wednesday.

Birthday Cake Roundup

It's that time of year again over at Life As Mom - Birthday Cake Round Up - a chance to share creative birthday cakes from the last year. As always, I had a lot of fun with the birthday cakes for my kids this year.

My son's birthday theme was Star Wars. I debated for a while on what to do for a cake for a Star Wars theme. Finally, I decided to do dueling light sabers. My son was very excited by the idea for this cake and couldn't wait for me to make it. I got to learn some new techniques with this cake. I needed to find a way to make the sabre and finally decided to try fondant. This was my first adventure with fondant - I made a simple marshmallow fondant from a recipe I found online. The handles were cake with a butter cream frosting and the sabers were Rice Krispie treats covered in the colored fondant.


For my daughter's birthday, the theme this year was Abby Cadabby. For the cake, I made a magic wand. I used a star shaped pan for the cake and used chocolate covered pretzels to form the wand itself. As an accompaniment, I made star shaped cookies on a stick to mimic the wand and decorated them in a pink frosting - they were a hit with all of the little fairy princesses in training at the party.


For more kid's birthday cake ideas, you can check out my post from last year, with the following assorted themes:
Blue's Clues
Airplane
Cars: Lightnin' McQueen
Space
Elephants
Wiggles

For other themed cakes, check out the Birthday Cake Roundup over at Life As Mom.

Another round-up, summer edition: Birthday Cake Roundup.

A Fairy Princess Birthday

My little lady turned three last week. Since about February, she couldn't stop talking about her Abby Cadabby birthday party. With each passing holiday or birthday, she would ask and then comes my Abby party? We purchased Abby Cadabby invitations (unusual for us, as we normally make our own, but they were on clearance), a table cover, napkins and a birthday hat. That part was easy.

It took me a while to figure out what to do with the cake. Sure there was an Abby Cadabby pan available from Wilton, but I'm not that sure in my cake decorating skills (although I have done some cool cakes - here and here for past cakes) that I was ready to undertake it.

Then, when my Mother-in-Law came out for our son's birthday, she brought a magic wand for our daughter. It was then I had a spark, I knew what I was going to make for her birthday cake - a wand. After all, Abby is a fairy in training and any fairy worth her salt has to have a magic wand. The wand that my daughter got was a star, so I figured I would buy a star pan to make the cake. When I went shopping, I found these great lollipop pans and one was a star. I thought to myself, wand cookies - so of course, I had to buy it.

I am happy to say that my cake turned out lovely (in my humble opinion). I searched high and low for rainbow colored shoe string licorice, hoping that I might make the wand more of a "poof" like Abby's but alas, even though I found the licorice, I couldn't get the effect I was after, so I had to abandon that idea. I did use edible glitter to give it some sparkle and decorated it in a fabulous girly girl pink. I even tied curling ribbons around the handle (white chocolate dipped pretzel rods), to complete the look.


My daughter was thrilled and her friends enjoyed eating the magic wand cookies as well. For me, throwing a party at home and playing up the theme is a great way to do a kid's party on a budget. We tend to only purchased themed accessories and go with standard party ware for the rest. You pay quite a premium for themed plates, napkins, cups and more. We find that if you purchase the character napkins, you can use coordinated solid colored plates and save money over character ones. Some years, we don't even do themed party ware, with the Wiggles party last year, we simply used primary color plates and napkins.

Making my own cake is a huge savings as well. I picked up my pan with a 50% of Michael's coupon (and might turn around and sell it like we've done in the past or since it is just a star, might find a future use for the pan) and the cake mix/frosting cost me just over $2. Surely, ordering a cake could have cost me upwards of $30 for the size party we had. In addition, by cooking at home, you can save money over going somewhere to host a party and having it catered or ordering in pizza, etc.

Last year, after her Wiggle's birthday party (cake posted here), my daughter couldn't stop talking about the party. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to think that I helped create such a wonderful memorable party for her. I know I can remember my mom making our cakes when we were younger, and that is a great memory to have.

For more of what works, check out Works For Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family.

For other frugal ideas, check out Frugal Fridays.

Star War's Birthday

We had a busy weekend last weekend at our house. It was my son's birthday and we hosted a Star Wars party. I think that hosting a home party and catering it yourself, including the cake is a great way to save money on a birthday party. Not only that, but it allows me a great creative outlet.

We started with a homemade invitation. This area is my husband's department. He took a picture of my son with a Light Saber and dropped it on a black background. Then, using a really cool "font" he found, he built a movie poster to serve as the invite. The font that he found allowed him to get an authentic movie poster look to his text. We did print a few, but many were sent via e-mail to save us on both printing and postage.

Then, to accessorize the party, we kept it simple. We purchased a few dessert plates and some napkins with a Star Wars theme. The rest of our plates were standard luncheon plates that I had picked up for free during a Kmart Super Double Event. We also picked up two balloons the day of the party, a Mylar Star Wars balloon and a complimentary latex balloon. When we have a summer party, most of it takes place outside, so spending time or money decorating inside certainly doesn't make sense.

When it comes to the menu, we keep it simple and use a lot of seasonal produce that is less expensive. We did burgers and hot dogs on the grill with baked beans, corn on the cob (12 ears for $3), watermelon ($2.98 for a seedless whole melon), and assorted chips. My oops this time was that I had Spinach Salad, Macaroni Salad, and Potato Salad that I somehow overlooked putting out - that was not a great economic oversight. We wound up not eating all of it after the party, causing us to waste food.

But, the highlight of the party for me, is the cake. I have so much fun planning and preparing the cake for the kids' parties. They always are so excited about seeing the cake. It makes me feel good. The Star Wars theme was one that I struggled with for a little while and then decided on a Light Saber. My son upped the ante by asking for dueling light sabers. I agreed and then set to work to figure it out. I wound up creating my own template for the handles, by stacking rectangles in a graphics program. I baked a standard cake and then carved it into two handles using my template. I made my own butter cream frosting and colored it gray for the handles. I wanted to find a black decorator icing to trim the handles, but the local grocery and Walmart did not carry such a thing, so I went with blue. Then, the next challenge was the light portion. I went through a number of iterations in my mind before landing on Rice Krispies Treats covered in fondant. This was a new experience for me. I had never made or used fondant before. I found an easy recipe and some tutorial here. I made the fondant and then colored half red and half blue (you have to have the good and evil in the battle, so I had to do some homework to make sure I had the right colors). I made Rice Krispies treats and with buttered hands, rolled the mixture into two long cylinders. I let them sit out to firm up. Then, I rolled out the fondant and covered the two cylinders. I assembled and here is what I got:

To get a themed cake from a baker would have cost a lot more.

With a little bit of work, you can host a birthday party for family and friends without breaking the bank. For more Frugal ideas, check out Frugal Friday over at Life As Mom.

Birthday Cake Roundup

Jessica over at Life As Mom is hosting another Birthday Cake Round-up. I haven't actually made a decorated birthday cake since the last round-up.

Last time, I featured pictures of the cakes that I had done over the past few years for our assorted themes:
Blue's Clues
Airplane
Cars: Lightnin' McQueen
Space
Elephants
Wiggles

This year, our themes will be - Star Wars and Abby Cadabby. For Star Wars, I was thinking of doing a Light Saber, but not 100% yet on that execution. For Abby, I was debating taking the easy way out and using the Wilton cake pan. Any thoughts on how you would do a Star Wars or Abby cake? Please share!

Normally, I just prepare a standard cake mix or two. But, earlier this year, I had the opportunity to try a cake out of the Cake Mix Doctor cookbook and I think I might try using that to make my cake. I always use a standard Buttercream Frosting (perhaps it is a Wilton recipe? I got it from a friend). How do you make the cake for your decorated cakes? I always have heard that "real bakers" who use mixes doctor them to make them better for decorating and eating. Any secrets or suggestions?

For more cakes and ideas, check out the Ultimate Recipe Swap - Cake Roundup Edition at Life As Mom.

Kid's Themed Birthday Cakes

One thing I remember from growing up is my mom making and decorating cakes. She had a shirt cake pan that she used to make a cake for the soccer team my dad coached. I remember her making some sort of a super hero cake - perhaps Batman, for my youngest brother.

When I grew up, I always wanted to take a cake decorating class, but still to this day, have yet to find a class that works for me and my schedule. But, that hasn't stopped me from baking cakes for my kids. Each year, we chose a theme for the party. When the kids were younger, we would choose for them. As they get older we offer an either or choice for them.

Once the theme is chosen, the next two challenges are the invitations (you can read more about the invitations here, as well as keeping costs in line) and the cake.

When it comes to the cake, I explore the web looking for thoughts on what others have done and go from there. I have made two cakes using Wilton pans - the Lightnin' McQueen and the Wiggles car both started with a shaped pan. The others were a combination of pans, trimming and stacking.

So, here are the cakes for our themes from the past few years:

Blue's Clues cake:


Airplane cake:


Cars - Lightnin' McQueen cake:


Elephants cake (big cake/smash cake):


Space cake:


Wiggles cake:

I really enjoy making the kid's birthday cake. First, I find it a great creative outlet for me and I am very proud of my creations. I love seeing their faces light up when they see the completed cake. My youngest, still talks about her Wiggles Cake, 3 months past her birthday. Second, it really is a more cost effective way to do birthdays. Most of the cakes I have made use a single cake mix, although some required two. I make my own butter cream frosting, but you could easily use a couple of tubs of frosting. In comparison to what a bakery or professional would charge, it is inexpensive. Granted, it does take time and planning, but to me it is worth it.

Find out what works for others over at Works For Me Wednesday over at Rocks In My Dryer. Be sure to stop by Life as Mom for her Birthday Cake Roundup on Thursday as well.