The Bright and Cheerful Woodland-Foresty-Garden Birthday Party!

A glistening gumdrop cake with a little nature mixed in.  Why not!

The owl took center stage.

Chalkboards with their ages written on.  They sat in the two chairs there behind the cake to blow out their candles, and the chalkboards were a fun addition to their photo's together.  I will also not have any problem guessing which birthday it was!

So, this is the table centerpiece.

 The larger view - the bugs remain in the chandelier from Easter.

Place settings.  The garden  markers worked out really well for name tags.  Names were written in chalk.  After the party I just wiped the names off with a damp cloth.   They are ready to be used again and again.

 

I sat half of the kids out at the deck table and half inside.  The weather was too nice to not be outside.  Michigan has been so cold and we are back to cold and rainy again - this was the one sunny and warm day.  All of the kids even ended up swimming in the super chilly pool.

The menu was simple:

Pizza from one of our favorite pizza shops

Antipasto salad

Veggies and dip

Strawberry Pretzel dish

cake and cupcakes

chocolate and/or vanilla ice cream with a bowl of bananas and peaches cut up small for topping

To make the cake topper I used a flat razor blade knife to free the owls feet from the camp sign.  

I then hot glued the owl to a stick I found on our back steps.

Next, I attached the owl to a green polka dot paper and tulle medallion.  After that I covered a very long sucker stick with butchers twine.  A little hot glue at the top and bottom of the stick held the twine in place very neatly.  Then I just hot glued the stick to the back of the medallion.  After the party it happily went home with my sweet little niece Bella.

Martha Stewart paper borders were wrapped around jelly jars just to dress them up a bit.

  Little woodland stickers were added to the ice cream cups.

I forgot to take photo's of that!

I also made some cupcakes from the babycakes cookbook.  The cakes were good - the frosting couldn't even be qualified as frosting - I followed directions to the letter so I have no idea what happened!  I had to run out last minute, and I was really happy to find some sugar free frosting.  I think it was new from Pillsbury and it was really quite good!  Has anyone else made anything from the babycakes cookbook?  I'm curious as to how your baked goods turned out.

SO MANY candles !!!

The boys enjoy the smoke after they blow out the flames.  

Luckily the owl didn't catch on fire!

Hopefully everyone is having a relaxing holiday weekend.

We have been busy - but good busy.

I saw the movie Bridesmaids, and laughed so hard I cried.  The character played by Melissa McCarthy was my favorite.  My goodness was she funny!

Noah has played some baseball - the boys in my house went to the Tiger's game while I was at the movies.  Josh's official birthday is also this weekend.

All is good - I just haven't taken any chances I have had to use the computer.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!