Birthday Breakfast...Angry Birds Battle for Breakfast!

THIS little guy turned 4 last week!

How cute is he?!

As per family tradition I planned a fun birthday breakfast for him.  One of Brittons favorite things to do is play Angry Birds on my phone, so picking out the theme of his breakfast was pretty simple ;)

Of course, we had to have a fun activity to go with it, so we came up with the Angry Birds Battle for Breakfast!

This was what Britton woke up to on the morning of his birthday.  I always have the table set and all the yummy breakfast food out.  I bought lanterns at our local party store and then printed of the birds face templates HERE to make our very own Angry Birds.  Britton really loved them...in fact they are still hanging up today ;)

This time though, when Britton came down to eat....there was NO FOOD!!  

 

After closer inspection, we found this note from the Pigs!

So to get his yummy Birthday Breakfast, Britton was going to have to use his Angry Birds to Battle for Breakfast!

Over in the corner King Pig had all of our breakfast hostage, and Britton was going to have to battle to get them back.

I found these pig paper plates and on the back of each I wrote one breakfast item like muffins, chocolate milk, cereal, yogurt, etc.

Then I taped them up on the sliding glass door, gave Britton his favorite Angry Bird and sling, and let him go at it!  Every time he hit a pig we would take it off the window, and he could choose that item from the basket to eat.

By the time he was done he and his Angry Bird had won the Battle for Breakfast!!

Not only did my guy get a yummy breakfast, but he had a LOT of fun getting it too :)

I love my sweet little guy, and I hope he loved his Angry Birds Breakfast too :)  If you want some more  Birthday Breakfast inspiration check out our Build-Your-Own Breakfast Sundaes and stay tuned for more fun ideas...its birthday month at our house!!

Build-your-own Breakfast Sundae's!!

 Wow!  Could I be a little LESS consistent with my blogging?! :)  I have always struggled with balance...I am always all or nothing...you can tell the blogging has been leaning towards the nothing lately ;)

I did want to share a really fun breakfast we did for my daughter, Skylar, on her birthday.  Every year I try and do something really fun for the kids breakfast to show them how much I love them and to start the day off right!  I know this may be unheard of in blog land...but I'm really not into birthday parties.  I used to be...when I had one or two kids.  Now that I have 4 (and 3 of them have birthdays within a 3 week period!) it is just not realistic to throw huge bashes for every birthday.  As much as I LOVE the darling tables, party favors and all the teeny details that go into those amazing parties...they just don't work for me and my family right now.  Instead I try to do a fun, themed breakfast for my kids.  So far they have all been major successes!  If you want, feel free to check out our Princess Birthday Breakfast Bash, A Dora Birthday Breakfast Adventure, Skylar's Smoothie Shop and Birthday Breakfast at Tianna's Place :)

One thing that Skylar and I both share is a passion for ice cream :)  Seriously...we LOVE it!  I thought it would be perfect to create a Build-your-own Breakfast Sundae Bar where Skylar could make a delicious Breakfast Sundae to kick-off her special day!

Now, lest you think I am completely irresponsible...we did not have ice cream sundae's for breakfast :)  Instead of ice cream I got 3 different flavors of yogurt and used that in its place.  The kids got to choose between vanilla, strawberry, or peach yogurt that we put in waffle cone cups.

Once they had that all ready to go they went CRAZY with their toppings! :)

We had strawberries, bananas, Cookie Crisp cereal, crushed Oreo cookies, sprinkles, white chocolate chips, coconut, milk chocolate chips and Nilla Wafers.

Oh yeah...it was delicous!

Here is the beautiful birthday girl herself...my big 7 year old!  

So if you have a special birthday coming up in your home, but a huge bash is just not realistic with your time or money...try something like this!  Your kids will LOVE it...but mostly they will know just how much you love THEM.  

Thanks so much for coming by Blue Skies Ahead today!!

Birthday Breakfast at Tiana's Place!

My stubborn, sassy, bubble-gum loving, swimsuit-wearing, obsessed with lipgloss little girl turned 4 today! She has brought me so much joy, lots of exasperation, and makes me laugh every single day.

For 2 years now she has loved EVERYTHING Princess and the Frog. Anytime there is any choice of princesses, you know she is going to choose Tiana. Since I love to do something special for breakfast on the kids' birthdays I thought it would be perfect to create our own version of "Tiana's Place"!

When Kendall came down this morning I had the soundtrack to Princess and the Frog playing and the table all set up and ready to go. Again...please ignore the crappy pictures...it really was cute! :)

This was the sign I made, just punched holes all the way around and threaded sparkly green tulle and finished it off with a big bow.

If you have never made pom-poms before you must! These were so simple...all you need is some string and tissue paper. These are just too cute and add so much to the table.

I always try to do these breakfasts on a budget...to add a little something special I punched holes in a regular paper plate and tied tulle through them. I thought it added some flair :)

These little containers I filled with Hershey Kisses....you know...frog kisses ;) The kids LOVED having a little chocolate with their breakfast :)

Here is the birthday girl herself, 4 years old!!

And it wouldn't truly be breakfast at "Tiana's Place" if you didn't have some of her famous man-catching beignets!! :) I would LOVE to lie and say I made beignets from scratch....didn't happen. I had to be up at 4:30 this morning and just didn't think I could get them ready in time for breakfast. SO....I simply thawed some frozen rolls, fried them in hot oil, and then once they drained off a little sprinkled a generous amount of powdered sugar on top. Guess what? They looked just like the beignets in the movie and tasted delicious!!

We all loved them!! :)

Happy happy birthday to my precious Kendall! I hope your day is as special as you are and I hope you loved every minute of your breakfast at Tiana's Place!!

Skylar's Smoothie Shop

For my kids I always try to do something fun for breakfast on the morning of their actual birthday. Last year we did a fun princess theme for Skylar you can see HERE and a cute Dora breakfast adventure for Kendall you can see HERE. This year I tried to think of what type of things Skylar was really into and it came to me!! (There is a plus to being wide awake with a baby at 2 in the morning...lots of good thinking time!) Skylar is crazy about smoothies. She asks me every day if we can go to Jamba Juice and get a smoothie. So for her special day I created Skylar's Smoothie Shop with fun flavors to choose from and her very own menu.

I didn't get a good picture of them, but in the frames are the different choices the kids had for smoothies. We had "Blues"Berries and Cream, Garfields Grand Berry Mix, Strawberry's Banana Berry Bash, and Princess Peachy Pleasure. I just chose some of Skylar's favorite characters and scrapbooked a page for each flavor of smoothie.

This is the little sign I had hanging up when Skylar came downstairs. She was SO excited and couldn't wait to order her smoothie! :)

Here is the darling birthday girl herself!

And these are the menus I made. Once again I just scrapbooked the different choices including smoothies and muffin options, then printed them out and laminated them. Then I gave the kids dry erase markers and they circled what they wanted. I think their favorite part was that I wore an apron and pretended to be a waitress while I took their orders :)

Just a side note: As I was at the store trying to get all the ingredients for 4 different choices of smoothies I found Yoplait Smoothie Mixes. All you have to do is add milk and WALAHH!! The truly awesome thing was they had 4 different kinds and they just happened to be the 4 flavors I was already planning on making. SO, that made it much easier to make about a million smoothies (Skylar loved that the smoothie shop was open all day!)

Skylar's Smoothie Shop was a hit! It is so fun to try and find something that is special to your child and incorporate it into their special day. Now I just hope I can think of something to do for her next year....:)

Some fun birthday ideas for the little artist in your life

Just two days ago my Skylar turned 6 years old! I cannot believe it has already been 6 years since I held my little 4 pound baby for the first time. Now she is preparing for her Kindergarten graduation, reading everything she can get her hands on, performing in dance and trying out soccer for the first time, and being the best big sister and helper I could ever ask for.

Once again her birthday came RIGHT after the birth of our newest baby so we decided to just do a little something at our monthly family dinner. Skylar LOVES her cousins and was so excited to celebrate her special day with them.

For the last few months Skylar has become obsessed with coloring! She will sit at the table for hours just coloring away. I have loved seeing her develop this interest, and we thought it would make the perfect theme for her little party.

For the cupcakes we went very simple (remember....one week old baby here!:) I just made some yellow cake cupcakes and we frosted them in all different colors. Then just because Skylar and I thought they needed a little something more we stuck a crayon in each one. Sidenote: I found spray on food coloring at the store....LOVE IT!! It was SO much faster than using food coloring to color 6 different batches of frosting. This way I frosted all the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and then quickly sprayed them whatever color I wanted.



For the activity at the party I found the coolest website that will allow you to upload any pictures that you have and it turns them into coloring pages! I simply uploaded pictures of all of the children and then printed out their very own coloring page. This is Skylar's...isn't it cute?! Just go to THIS website to get started on your very own personalized coloring pages.

Finally we made these adorable crayon treats for the little gift bags. You simply take pretzel rods, break them in half, then dip each end in melted white chocolate chips. Now, originally the directions tell you to color the chocolate...we had to improvise. Apparently the gel food coloring makes the melted chocolate harden instantly! Skylar saved the day when she suggested we just cover the melted chocolate with sprinkles! I actually think it turned out even cuter this way....the girls a genius I tell you! :)

THIS awesome site is where I found the directions for the crayons and the free printable crayon wrappers.

Then we wrapped four crayons in a cellophane bag, attached little name tags I made with my digital scrapbooking program and tied them all up with a ribbon. I think they turned out adorable and I am thinking these will have to be an annual back to school treat or teacher gift...they are just too cute! :)

Skylar LOVED her coloring party....it was bright and fun just like she is! Stay tuned for another fun birthday breakfast idea and cute baby pictures!! :)

A Dora Birthday Breakfast Adventure!!

This post is also a little late, but hey, you do the best you can :) Several weeks ago was my daughter Kendall's 3rd birthday, and I knew I was going to have to get a little creative to make it special. We are still staying with Paul's parents so I knew a big party was out of the question. I finally came up with something a little bit similar to our Princess Breakfast Birthday Bash we did a few months ago, and I am please to say this one was just as fun!!

If you have ever seen Dora, you know every time they go on an adventure they have to go to different places before they reach the end...I tried to use this theme for our breakfast :)

First up the kids had to make it through the Fields of Fruit! I just printed out pictures of Dora and all her friends and then cut them out and taped them all around the table.

Our next stop was the Juicy River!!

Then finally we made it to Cereal Mountain....but oh no!! Is that Swiper I see?? Swiper no swipee!! (That was my kids favorite part :)

After we finished our breakfast Kendall got her Dora paper doll book, and we all sang, "We did, we did it, we did it, YAY!" SO cheesy, I know. But the kids had a ball, and afterwards Kendall said, "Who did this for me mommy?" I said that I had, and she gave me a huge hug :) Thats about as affectionate as you are going to get for that sassy little one.

I hope this sparked some ideas of things you can do that don't break the bank to make your little ones bday a little bit special!

And don't forget about our giveaway going on HERE. You still have two more days to enter!!

A little more birthday fun!

Since we were already having our monthly family dinner with Paul's side on Skylar's birthday, I decided to throw a little something together for Skylar and her cousins so she didn't feel like she got TOTALLY jipped on a birthday party :)

It was so lovely to not have to do invitations, tons of food, and get my house spotless, but to let Skylar celebrate her special day with her cousins. This is just worked out a lot better with our crazy life right now :) Ok, I am no professional or anything, but I thought this all came together pretty cute and was very simple:

The first thing I love to think about is the cake! I usually go with cupcakes and this time was no different. Skylar LOVES the Disney movie Princess and the Frog, so I decided to go with that for a theme. It also worked out nicely because its not TOO princess-y for the boys :) So I made half the cupcakes frogs and the other half were purple with Tiana cupcake toppers. The toppers didn't turn out that great, but hey, you get what you get :) I loved the frog cupcakes and was surprised at how easy they were. You simply frost your cupcakes with green frosting and then sprinke with green sugar. Then cut a marshmallow in half and dip the tops of the halves in water. After you have done that roll the top in green sugar to create the eyelids and then stick in a chocolate chip! I used toothpicks to keep the eyes steady and pink frosting for the mouths.

For a fun simple game I borrowed my friend Krista's darling idea :) I had Paul draw a big frog (isn't he talented?!) and then I cute out a bunch of big lips. The kids then played Pin the Kiss on the Frog. It was a hit that even the younger kids could participate in.

Finally, the party favors! I gotta say, I thought these turned out pretty cute and SO simple! I got some Princess and the Frog stickers, placed them in a cellophane bag with Haribo green gummy frogs and you guessed it....Hershey Kisses!! Get it?? :) Tied up with purple and green ribbon and there you have it!!

We had a lot of fun and Skylar felt very special :) I love my big girl and cannot believe my baby is 5! This next year is going to be so exciting for her with so many opportunities for learning and growth, I love you Skylee-Boo!!

Cutting the Chaos, Week 6!

Hello everyone!! This weeks project is a little different, but turned out SO fun and cut out a lot of chaos at our house this week. My darling little Skylar had her 5th birthday yesterday!! For ever she has been dreaming up a grand birthday party with every kid she has ever met, piles of presents and cake and treats as far as the eye can see.

Well, thats great in theory, but when I really started trying to plan it, the timing was not great. We are moving in 3 weeks, trying to save every penny that we can, and in general just trying to simplify until we get into our new place. But here was the problem: How could I still do something special for my little darling without breaking the bank and throwing me into a nervous breakdown? ;)

This is where a stroke of genius came into play :) You may remember a recent post where I talked about how we eliminated enriched flour and high fructose corn syrup from our home, well the hardest thing for my kids to let go has been their breakfast cereal! They LOVE all the sugary stuff, and have been pretty sad to see it go. This is where I came up with the idea for our very own Princess Cereal Birthday Bash!! When Skylar woke up on Sunday morning this is what she saw....

I simply chose 4 of her favorite cereals, incorporated 4 of her favorite princess, and WALAHHH! A breakfast fit for a princess :)

Ariel's Underwater Treasures (Lucky Charms)

Jasmine's Royal Jewels (Trix)

Princess Aurora Puffs (Cocoa Puffs)

Cinderella's Glass Slipper Squares ( Cinnamon Toast Crunch)

Add fun glass jars, cute ribbon, and adorable chipboard cutouts of princess and there you have it!

Skylar had such a fun morning trying out all her favorite princess cereals :) She also kept saying, "Mommy, this is the best birthday ever!"

So if you are ever feeling like me and a birthday party is just too overwhelming, try something like this! Just find something simple that your child loves, tweak it to fit their personality, and instantly you have a hit!

In the coming weeks I have a feeling I will be overtaken by CHAOS!! You can expect a few posts on packing and organizing, and definitely dejunking :) Hope you're all having a wonderful week, and getting closer to being more organized so we can all enjoy the fun things in our lives!! :)