Peamite Bravo's 2nd Birthday

My little Peamite Bravo is getting to be such a big girl.  She's starting to talk in more complete sentences, and is very expressive of her feelings.  She also knows what a party is, and that we were having one for HER.  She would say, "my cake" and "my party."  Except it sounded like Eddie Murphy when he sings "Party All the Time."  Yeah, potty.  

We had a "nandy" (candy) birthday party for her.  Candy everywhere.  On the cake, on the cupcakes, and scattered about.  Even her dress had candy on it.  Her Aunt Emmy is the best shopper and finds the cutest outfits.  Look how adorable it is! 

Even the invitations were lollipops!  Kimberly Davion of www.gluepaperscissors.net designed the invites, favor tags, and cupcake wrappers.  Just look how adorable these are!  (Sorry, everything's adorable right now.)

 

Lollipop Invitation

The invitation swung open to show the party details!

cupcake wrappers gave extra color!

Sweet favor tags!

I looked and looked for inspiration for the birthday cake, but all of them were huge.  We didn't need a lot of cake.  Although, we did end up with way more than needed because half the people invited couldn't make it, but that's another rant.

I finally came up with this idea, and ran with it.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.  You can't really tell in the picture, but the whole cake was shimmery.  I airbrushed it with lustre dust.

Cake I made for Peamite Bravo's 2nd birthday

Lemon Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and Fondant

I also made cupcakes.  Kids love cupcakes.  It could be the same exact flavor as the cake (these were not) and they would still go for the cupcake.  I thought this to be true anyway, until we went to a friend's birthday party the next day, and one of the kids insisted on having a slice of cake instead of the cupcakes, which indeed was the same exact recipe for both.  I think she's a grown up in a 7 or 8 year old's body. 

Anyway...I made some cupcake toppers and used real candy as well for toppers and decoration.  Dressed in Kim's beautiful cupcake wrappers, the cupcakes were perfect.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

I even made sugar cookies to look like pieces of wrapped candy for the party favors.  

 Sugar Cookie Party Favors

Everything was very colorful and happy.  I couldn't find plates and napkins with a candy theme, so I just went for more color.  I think you can see them well enough in the picture.  Colorful dots!

  Party set up!

Peamite Bravo had a great time.  She was very excited to play with all her new toys, and couldn't wait to wear her new clothes and shoes.  I loved seeing her reaction to everything.  Like I said earlier, she's very expressive now.

Now I'll leave you with us singing "Happy Birthday" to her, and how she tries to blow out the candles.

At the end you can hear my mom tell Katie that she can blow them out now.  That's because we had to keep her from blowing out the candles as I was trying to light them before we sang! :) 

Chicken Dorito Casserole

I tell people about this casserole, and they look at me like, really?  Yes. Really.  It's delicious.  I have converted two non-casserole-eating-people with this recipe. My husband will get very excited when he finds out this is for dinner.  Even Peamite Alpha requests it by name.

My mom's been making this casserole for years now.  I have no idea where she got the recipe, but I'm sure glad she did.

So, get your ingredients together, or a grocery list started so we can make this deliciousness.

Chicken Dorito Casserole

4 chicken breasts

1 medium onion

1 regular size bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 can whole kernal corn

1 3/4 cup chicken broth (made from boiling chicken) 

1 can Cream of Chicken Soup

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes (I use Original, but put in whatever hotness you can stand!)

Boil the chicken until tender with the onion, salt, and pepper.  Cool.  Skin and debone (if necessary) and cut into bite size pieces.  Spread the chicken in the bottom of 11x13 in baking dish.  Crush the Doritos and spread over the chicken.  Next, spread the onions, corn, and cheese.

Heat the soups with the chicken broth and tomatoes.  Pour the mixture over the casserole.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes.

If there's any left, be glad, because it's even better the next day when all the flavors have melded together.  Enjoy!  Here's a picture of my little Peamite Bravo enjoying it:

How Do You Say?

How little kids say things are just so cute. The above video is of Peamite Bravo saying "lemonade."  I think she really likes the 'L' part of the word since she lalalalas every 'L' word she says.

We taught our kids from a very young age to say please and thank you.  In the next one, you can hear how PB says, "thank you" and "I love you, Dad."

Did you notice how she curled her tongue into a U shape at the beginning of the video?  Did you know that was genetic?  Yup, learned that in Biology - Thanks, Mrs. Webb!

Now, if there ever was a kid that loved popcorn, that would be mine.  She could eat the whole bag with no help.  You can even see how excited she gets about just at the mention of the word, as she calls it, "ca-corn"  I just noticed today that she pronounces a lot of 'P' words with a 'C'.  She loves pickles or "cickle".  She also loves black olives...which I discovered when I was picking the olives off of my Chicken Fajita pizza at Pizza Inn one day.  She was eating them off my plate as fast as I could get them to her.  When we go to the Inn now, we're sure to get her a little pile off of the salad bar to go along with her pizza.  Can you tell I don't have a picky eater?  Yay for that.

Think I'm gonna go pop some "ca-corn" now.

Living Room Tent

Peamite Alpha and Peamite Bravo were wanting to camp today.  PA had his backpack and a snack all ready to go.  PB was on his heels ready, too, although I'm sure she didn't have a clue as to what was going on, just wanted to play with brother.

While the kids were occupied, I set up a sheet tent for them.  It reminded me of my "fort" days with all the couch cushions, blankets and sheets arranged to make a fort for us to hide in.

It's been up all day, with the kids going in and out of it.  Here are the kids "camping" in their tent.

Peamite Alpha is telling me that he can see the TV through a little gap in the tent.  Peamite Bravo refuses to drink out of a sippy cup the correct way.  Notice how it's upside-down?  Yeah, that's my kid.

 

Peamite Alpha is saying "cheese" while holding a piece of cheese.  Peamite Bravo cutely scrunching up her face as she loudly cries, "CHEEEEESE."  

At least they're happy and occupied while I work on cakes for this week!

Springing

I guess that groundhog was right!  Spring is springing early!  Those tiny purple flowers are starting to pop up all over my yard.  That is one of my favorite parts of Spring...those adorable little flowers.  I also love that color green of brand new blades of grass peeking through the brown, dead grass.

Not only do I love Spring, but so do the kids.  The weather is so nice to play in.  Not too hot, not too cool.  The kids had fun running back and forth from the house to the trees.

 

I really love the action shot of the kids running.  It looks so fun!  Too bad it's not that enjoyable to me any more...I didn't have to worry about my abundant blessing when I was that young. ;)