Party Menu (Chocolate Cake!)

Since this blog is/used to be? primarily about food I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't give you a quick recap of our birthday party menu along with the all-important cake recipe review.

As I've said, this was a small event and considering the guests of honor were 2 year-olds and that we had several house guests, we really wanted to keep the menu simple and easy to prepare.

The only munchies we set out before dinner were chips and fruit salad.  My little guys love fruit!  Last year, they chose watermelon over cake.  Not this year!

For dinner we made Mr Pear's amazing Pulled Pork which was amazing as usual.  We don't usually eat it with bbq sauce but we did provide a couple of different kinds for our guests along with some small soft rolls in case anyone wanted a sandwich.

The boys both love pulled pork but I wanted to make sure there was something super kid-friendly for our other small guests.  I decided to try this beefy mac and cheese and it was a huge hit!  I doubled the recipe and I'm so glad I did. This stuff was so good' we will definitely be making it around here often.

image from foodnetwork.com

The only other side we served was a simple coleslaw similar to this one.  Instead of  using all green cabbage I always use one green and one purple.  I also like to grate my veggies in the food processor along with half of a sweet onion.

Dessert was cake of course!  As I mentioned the other day, I decided to go with Pioneer Woman's Big Chocolate Birthday Cake recipe.  The recipe looked good and the cake looked very easy to make.  Another plus was that it was "Big" (she bakes hers in 4 nine inch round pans) which was great because I was going to be making an 11 x 15 inch sheet cake.

The cake was super simple to make and the instructions were very clear.  The only change I made was to stir 1 tablespoon of instant coffee granules into the chocolate after it had been melted in with the butter.  I think instant coffee really helps deepen the chocolate flavor and I promise you can't taste coffee in the cake!

I greased my cake pan with vegetable shortening instead of my usual butter, and floured it, and despite my huge fear of this big cake getting stuck in its big pan, it came right out!

I dyed a double batch of Wilton buttercream frosting light blue (though I didn't use nearly the amount of icing sugar called for in the recipe) and decorated the frosted cake with cherry flavored decorating candy string (also by Wilton, found in Target of all places) to make a railroad track in the shape of a 2.  A few train set props and we had our train cake!

Unfortunately I made one mistake.  I kept the cake in the refrigerator during the party (since it was still 100 degrees out) and the cake was cold.  Instead of being light and fluffy it felt a bit dense.  The flavor was still really good and the cake was more than edible, but it tasted even better the next day when I put the left overs on a covered cake plate on the kitchen counter.  Delicious and light and fluffy.  Arg.  Lesson learned, but thankfully, not the end of the world either.

So that is it!  The birthday is over, now on to a third great year with two great little boys.  :)

My babies are 2!

It is amazing how much my little boys have grown in the last year, developmentally as well as physically.  On their first birthday Alex was walking but Aaron wasn't; he walked a few weeks after.  Now they are both running, kicking a ball, jumping and learning to ride the tricycles their Grandparents got them for their birthday.  They both eat well and are pretty handy with their utensils.  They have even begun drinking from open cups without (much) spilling. They aren't very verbal yet but they are constantly communicating in some way, shape or form and they love to play together.  They are lovable and cuddly and they give great kisses and hugs. It has been a great year and I really think this third year is going to be even more fun.

Stats

Alex
birth- 6lbs 2 oz, 18 inches
1 year- 25lbs, 33 inches
2 years- 34lbs, 37 inches

Aaron
birth- 6 lbs 6 oz, 19 inches
1 year- 28 lbs, 33 inches
2 years- 34 lbs, 37 inches

The boys had quite the birthday weekend.  On Friday, which was their actual birthday, Daddy came home from work around 2pm so we could break out their birthday gift up after the kiddos got up from their nap.  They love their bounce house!

We had a very relaxed afternoon/evening opening presents and eating pizza and cupcakes.  And bouncing. :)

On Saturday more family arrived (along with more presents) so we had a nice time playing outside.  My poor cousin is trapped in this box...you can see her legs sticking out, lol!

And Sunday, of course, we had our little party.  A couple of our pint-sized guests were sick and couldn't make it so we were a small party indeed but we had a really great time.

We decorated with balloons, banners and crepe paper....

The boys' t-shirts came out great!!

We had lots of delicious food (some recipes I'll share soon!) but, uh, I didn't take any pictures of food, oops!

The kiddos bounced and played with trains, chalk, bubbles and crayons....

And we had cake!

It was all a lot of fun and I'm so glad the boys really enjoyed themselves the whole time.  We are really grateful, not only for our amazing little boys but also for our friends and family that were there to celebrate with us. :)

It's almost time for a Party!

Hard to believe, but the twins will be 2 years old on Friday. They are such great little boys and full of energy and fun these days.  We are really looking forward to throwing a little party for them on Sunday.  Two sets of Grandparents will be there (they have 3) and a couple of their friends.  We'll have two three-year-olds, a four year old and the birthday boys.  6 toddlers/preschoolers should make for a great time I'm sure! :)

Since the boys are young, and really still don't understand what a birthday even is, we won't be in full out party mode.  We asked that no one bring gifts and we won't be doing favors or party games but we will be eating some good food (and cake!) and playing our hearts out.

The party theme is Thomas the Train. The boys love all things transportation, especially Aaron, and they were so lucky to receive an enormous amount of trains and tracks and etc from their older nephews.  We'll have a train table (or two!) set up for the kids to play with indoors and for the rough and tumble outdoor crowd (that would be Alex) there will be a bounce house that we got them for their birthday. I am super excited about that bounce house because I am really hoping some bounce sessions will burn up some of the excess energy around here on a daily basis. :)

So here's a little of what I'm planning:

A few store-bought Thomas decorations and some fun straw cups

A "Mommy-made" Happy Birthday train banner

And, hopefully, some appliqued Thomas the Train "2" shirts for the boys

I say hopefully because although I've cut out my "twos" and added fusible web and pinned them to the shirts...I can not seem to get them sewed on.  I've got some backup coming over tonight to help me try to sort through my sewing machine issues but let's just say that just because you bought a sewing machine two months ago....it doesn't make you a seamstress, sigh.  I've got a long way to go on that.

Here is my cake inspiration from Pinterest....unfortunately the link to the original photo is broken.

I'm obviously going with a 2 shape, though I may not cut the cake into a two if I feel like we need the extra cake for eating. I may just do the train tracks in a two shape on the full sized rectangular cake, but I'm really just not sure yet.

So!  That is what I'm up to this week.  I'll be sure to share pictures of our little party next week along with recipes from our menu.  I am going to use this recipe from Pioneer Woman for the cake, I sure hope it comes out!

Party stuff aside it should be a really fun weekend filled with friends and family celebrating two special little guys who have made our life really wonderful these past two crazy years.  :)

This post is linked to Multiples Monday over on Capri +3