A look back at a Baseball birthday party.

I'm starting to think ahead to planning Little Miss's first birthday party. I did a baseball theme for both of the boys. I like the theme so much I did it for Our Little Helper's 2nd birthday too, but that was before I started the blog. I decided to add them now. (Baby Boy's birthday is here.)

For his first birthday I just made white cupcakes decorated like baseballs, super easy. The second time around I decided to challenge myself by making another cake decorated like a catcher's mitt. It was chocolate cake with a chocolate frosting. I think I used a frosting recipe from the Tasha Tudor cookbook. I did a few sketches on paper to come up with the pattern for the 'stitching.' I used a tube of black store bought icing.

 And I used my Baseball plated from Fishes Eddy.

 I reused the birthday banner and left over baseball party hats, plates, napkins, and filled in with plain ones.

 I also bought a bunch of pinwheels in red and blue. I used these to line the walkway as well as used some for party favors. They looked so cute spinning in the breeze.

 A bucket of colored sunflowers by the front door.

 We did this as a very low key barbeque, and from the looks of this table I suspect that some of our family must have brought side dishes to share.  I don't think I was expecting that, but who are we to turn away food?

Shrove Tuesday

A short post for Shrove Tuesday, I made crepes for dinner, both savory and sweet. I used both versions of this recipe. It takes me a few crepes before I get the pan temperature and my flipping technique just right. The savory crepes were brie, procuitto, and arugula. For the sweet crepes I did both nutella with banana, and lemon curd sprinkled with powdered sugar. I forgot to add the powdered sugar dusting for the first round of dessert crepes. I was in a hurry trying to get everything served up before Mr. W and I went off to the tiki bar to meet my friends for drinks. I'm only giving up alcohol this year since I'm nursing. I'll add in going to stations of the cross once a week and praying the rosary daily.

St. Lucy's Day

This our first St. Lucy Day with Little Miss. In the future I hope to dress her up in the white nightgown, red sash, and illuminated crown. But for now I have my Star Boys to help me serve breakfast in bed. This year the celebration fell on the same day we are hosting a third birthday party. I took a few short cuts, like no pretty greenery or linens to decorate our breakfast tray. Our tray is beginning to get crammed with coffee, tea, and hot chocolates. If only I could find the box that has all our other serving trays!

I found this little St. Lucia doll in a catalog and just had to have it. I think she complements our breakfast tray nicely.

Another short cut this year was not making luscatore from scratch.  I had purchased these caramel rolls as part of a fundraiser for my mom's school district and decided they would be an easy baked good to prepare. Hopefully I'll have more time to make luscatore next year.

The breakfast tray in bed with 3 children is always a bit precarious.  We definitely end up with crumbs afterwards.

 I read aloud from A Surprise for Kirsten about celebrating St. Lucia Day in Sweden. This year the children actually paid some attention to the story.

 Baby Boy strips down to his birthday suit at nearly every opportunity and this was no different. He especially enjoyed the hot chocolate.

A Visit from St. Nicholas... and snow!

It is a little challenging doing St. Nicholas Day in the morning now that we have school age children. But I think it is worth it to keep this celebration separate from Christmas Day. Everyone heads down stairs bright and early to see what St. Nicholas has left in their stocking. 

Peeking through the portiere.

Baby Boy was mystified by what had happened to the cookies they left out.

"What happened?!?"

"It's a mystery...!" I was nearly cried from trying to stifle my giggles.

Meanwhile, Little Miss was content to play with her spinning toy.

Daddy got his traditional bottle of Samiclaus beer, which is only brewed once a year of St. Nicholas Day.

And the children got some movies in their stockings. Our Little Helper helped Little Miss with the contents of her stocking.

And as a special St. Nicholas Day miracle, it snowed!!!The boys were so excited to watch the snowflakes falling. It wasn't enough to have school canceled though.

Little Miss just loves to watch her big brothers.

getting all three of them to look at the camera at the same time to pose for a picture is an exercise in futility.

I also got my St. Nicholas needle point project back from the finisher in time to display with my collection. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Count down to the birthday party

After Thanksgiving most people are prematurely celebrating Christmas. But in this house we are all about the count down to the Rocket ship birthday party. This party theme is based entirely on the plates I bought a couple years ago at Target. Outer space decorations abound so it has been pretty simple to collect things we need over the last year. (Yes, I picked his 3rd birthday theme before I had his Sesame Street birthday last year.)

Michael's sells unfinished birdhouses shaped like rocket ships so I planed long ago to incorporate them into the centerpieces. In all my sleuthing online it seems like everyone else uses these little wooden rockets too. I've primed these and am beginning to paint them similarly to those on the plates.
 
My preliminary plan for invitations was stylized rocket ship stickers on stationery, basically what I always seem to do. But Our Little Helper is so artistic and loves to draw. He presented me with a drawing of a rocket ship in outer space which included an astronaut tethered to the ship. And he composed the drawing so wonderfully with a border with Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, and the moon. I fell in love with it and thought it would be the perfect artwork for the party invitations. Mr. W added the lettering.
 
With a December birthday we have to hold the party indoors so I try to make up for that with the decorations. I ordered paper lanterns in varying sizes here and we are going to add some paint and tissue paper to create some texture to make them look more planet-y.  I think my MIL sent this set of poster paints when Our Little Helper was 3 and I never really let him use it.  So today was a big event since they got to use ALL the paints!

 This one will be Saturn.

 This largest lantern will be Pluto.

 

So much paint!!

 

 

St. Andrew's Day

In honor of St. Andrew's Day I had a little afternoon tea party with my boys.  One of my great aunts had quite a collection of Scottish inspired linens and I ended up with them.

A couple of the luncheon size napkins, each is different but most have thistle, heather, or tartan ribbon.

I've also begun to collect some Lucky White Heather souvenirs. This small pitcher started my collection. I found it at an antique store in Eureka, California during a road trip. The footed dish I got on ebay and used as a sugar bowl.

The table square has thistles and sprigs of heather embroidered on it.

Oh how I love a cuppa tea. I just served store bought shortbread cookies with lemon curd. The boys had hot apple cider.

Mr. W read aloud from the book Wee Gilles, about a boy who learns to play the bag pipes. Our Little Helper has begun taking highland Dance classes this year. I was able to find a teacher who had another boy the same age starting at the same time. That has been immensely helpful in keeping my son motivated to participate. He does not like to be the only boy in any situation. He tells me he really enjoys it, what little boy wouldn't enjoy hoping around swords?  His teacher recommended we attend a dance competition recently, there were a few boys competing in that too. He's getting exposed to lots of Scottish heritage, mayhaps he'd be interested in learning to play bag pipes himself?

Later in the evening Mr. W had some friends over for a Scotch tasting. He did one a few years ago. I'm not a Scotch drinker myself so I have the opportunity to catch up on my Netflix movies.

He puts on a nice spread of cheeses, cured meats, pate and nuts. This year he ordered Scotch eggs to go from The Horse Brass and re heated them in the deep fryer. I made a baked brie which I filled with fig jam made from figs from our tree.

Thanksgiving

Mr. W and I have hosted Thanksgiving so many times now that we run like a well oiled machine.  Our menu doesn't change much:

• Cranberry daiquiris
• Appetizer of guest's choice
• Butternut squash soup w/ cornbread
• Barbequed turkey and gravy
• Mashed potatoes
• Corn
• Brussel's sprouts
• Gr Grandma's green beans
• Sweet potatoes
• Cranberry sauce
• Dinner rolls
• Candied nuts
• Stuffing of guest's choice
• Brandy pumpkin pie
• Pecan pie
• Apple pie
• Berry pie

In the interest of keeping people out of  the kitchen, I set up the cocktail station in the Drawing Room. My decorating theme this year was children's artwork, so hand turkeys and painted mini pumpkins abound.
 
We were having 15 for dinner, and rather than setting up an auxiliary table in the Parlor, we decided we could set up his and hers tables in the dining room so everyone could be together. This is Mr. W's table, two out of 3 little boys sat here.

 My table was longer and held all the older two generations. Wow, four generations in one room to celebrate the holiday. I have a lot for which to be thankful, in spite of all the loss.

 

 Nothing beats a boy in a bow tie.

 Mr. W, master griller.

 Continuing on a theme of meats without utensils...

This is as good of a photo as I'm going to get of a 6 yr old and nearly 3 yr old. I've got to learn to take these photos at the beginning of the party...before I give them desserts.