Chloé's First Birthday Bash

Gosh!  I feel like it was just yesterday that I was writing about Logan's first birthday party.  And here we are, a year and a half later, and I have another one year old.  How is that even possible?

Chloé, it feels like it was only yesterday that you were taking your very first peek at the world.  How can you possibly already be one???

And just yesterday that Logan was meeting his baby sister for the very first time:

And now, you've turned turned into a beautiful one year old.  It takes my breath away on a regular basis just how quickly you have turned into a real little person.  

 
Not a baby anymore.  

But a real little person.  

It all happened right in front of me.  And yet, somehow, I often feel like I've somehow missed the transformation.

But somehow, you're now one. 

Well, one and a day, to be exact.  Which makes Logan two.

And makes me feel old ;)

So, of course, we had to have a big party to celebrate.  I scoured Pinterest to get ideas for decorations.

Heather came over before the party to teach me how to make these beautiful poms.  (You can also use this youtube tutorial here, if you are inspired by these).

I made a collage of photos from Chloé's first year:

And recruited Ash and Eric to make this balloon banner that I had intended to make, but never quite got around to doing.  Who would have ever thought that my Uncle Rob is such a master balloon blower-upper?

  

Maddy particularly loved these:

For lunch, we served some sausages along with orzo salad, a lentil salad that I will post shortly, Willie's guacamole and some delicious sangria.  And Logan got right up there into the chips as quickly as he could:

And of course, what first birthday would be complete without shooters?  Milk shooters, that is.  (Well, I served chocolate milk shots, since we're dairy free).  And Armarula ones for the non-dairy free adults.  Got the idea for these nifty shot glasses here.

 
And clearly, every one year old needs a cake.  Unfortunately, I tested a few gluten-free cakes, and just couldn't find one that would hold up under fondant.  So I decided to make a cake pop cake instead.  I'll post a tutorial on this shortly.

Chloé enjoyed a sunbutter frosted cupcake instead.   

Plus, half of another one.

A huge thanks to all who made it to the party, particularly everyone who traveled down from Toronto.  We're so happy that you could be part of this special day with us.  And Scott, you were with us in spirit. 

Thanks also for all of the wonderful gifts.

I am immensely blessed to have both of my children and all of the joy that they bring to our lives.

We love you babykins.  Happy birthday! 

And on that note, I will leave you with more of my favourite shots from the photos we had done for Chloé's birthday.

  

   

Peanut Butter Frosting

I needed to send Logan to daycare with a gluten-free cupcake a couple of weeks back, as they were celebrating our daycare provider's son's birthday.  What better excuse than to make ourselves some cupcakes???  

I cheated and made one of the Betty Crocker gluten-free cake mixes that is new to Canada.  I am definitely not the "make a cake from a box" type.  But I'm cutting what corners I can these days, and this is one of them.  I didn't want to be wasting my time testing gf cakes that ended up not working.  And, as it turns out, these were actually pretty good.

I whipped up some of this delicious frosting to go on top of them.  I've made this with both peanut butter and sunbutter.  And since I'm a bit of a pb-aholic, I have to say that I preferred the peanut butter version.  But the sunbutter ones weren't too shabby either ;)

1 C creamy peanut butter
1/2 C margarine
2 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp. milk

Whisk or blend together all ingredients until smooth and creamy, adding more or less milk to achieve the desired consistency.  

This is super quick to make.  I whipped it up, dug out a bit of the cupcake with an apple corer,

and stuffed it full of this frosting.

Then I just piped some on top.  For instructions on how to pipe the icing, check out my lemon cupcakes here.

Difficulty level:  easy to make the icing, moderate to pipe it

For a dairy-free/vegan version, use Earth balance instead of the margarine and coconut or almond milk for milk.

For a nut-free version, use soy butter or sunbutter instead of the peanut butter.

September Cake Club: Thanksgiving Cookies

As Thanksgiving rolls around, I wanted to share our September hands-on project from my West Island Cake Club meeting.  Yay!!  Cake club is back!  So fun!!  This is a great project to make with your little ones this coming weekend.

This recipe is taken from Family Fun Magazine.  You can use their recipe for sugar cookies, found here.

sugar cookies
yellow crusting buttercream icing
dried corn husks
green fondant
Reese's Pieces

1.  Frost the cooled cookies with yellow crusting buttercream icing.

2.  Fill in the middle with candy kernels gently pressed into place.  Leave a small area at the base clear of candy so as to have a spot to attach husks.

3.  Roll out green fondant to a thin oval shape, double the length of your cookie.  Using corn husks, veining tool or even a toothpick, you can create definition to the "corn husks".

4.  Cut out an oval shape, pointed at each end, then cut in half horizontally to give you two leaves.  Split leaves if you wish to have more layers.

5.  Press the husks in place atop the cookie, curl the tips down a bit, letting the candy kernels show in between the leaves. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone (or at least all of you Canadians out there)!

Taken from: FamilyFun Magazine