Hiiiiiiiii-YA!

So the boys started Taekwondo last week.  Today was their second class and Master Ivan had their kit ready for them (still learning the terminology - I think its called a dobok).  Cue very excited boys and grinning mother and father as their two big-little boys ninja-ed their way around the mats for an hour.  LOVE IT!  

Now if only we could figure out a way for them not to practice on each other at home....

William at the ready. Owen already in full swing in the background.

Owen was particularly pleased with himself this lesson and kept giving us smug thumbs up signs every time he completed a punch or a kick and went to the back of the line.  Mark and I were laughing so hard at the end we were almost crying.  It was very cute.

Will and Owen standing at cha ryuht (attention)

In fighting stance with serious faces, as directed by Master Ivan

Bowing to mummy in a rare show of respect.

And then all hell breaks loose.

The Party

So the theme for Elly's 2nd birthday was Teddy Bear's Picnic.  Of course the first thing I did was head to the interwebs for inspiration and blew my mind a little with all the possibilities.  Then Mark gave me a stern Johnson look and told me to scale back, so I did somewhat and then spent a month planning and glue-gunning and cutting and colouring and....well, here's the end result

Let's start with the cupcakes, shall we?  Originally, I'd planned on making iheartcuppycakes' Gimme 'Smores Cupcakes, but like I said, Mark told me to calm down a bit, so I went with a basic french vanilla cupcake recipe that was then tweaked and repeated it with a chocolate recipe.  I used images from my trusty What's New, Cupcake cookbook and then went crazy making three different types of bears.    To make the bears, you need to use not only cupcakes but doughnut holes as well.  You can imagine how happy the kids were at this - not only were they getting cupcakes but doughnuts too!  Mummy's gone CRAZY!

So this is stage one - cupcakes frosted with icing with doughnuts plopped on top.  You then freeze them for 20 mins to make the doughnuts stay put.

Here are the chocolate cupcakes and doughnut holes awaiting their turn in the freezer. 

Once the vanilla cupcakes were firmly frozen to the doughnut holes, I then frosted the doughnuts with some more vanilla frosting and then rolled them in coconut flakes.  The chocolate cupcakes got frosted with chocolate frosting and were then rolled in oreo cookie crumbs or graham cracker crumbs.  It was at about this point that I looked at the clock and panicked realising I only had a couple of hours before guests were going to arrive and I made a desperate call to my friend Andrea to come save me.  She is a crafty lady, my dear Andrea, and she pretty much saved my bacon because there was no way I would have gotten the next stages done in time...At this point Mark is wandering around the house, dealing with three excited children, cleaning up their mess and muttering things like "didn't I say the words scale it back" and "party planning intervention" and "next year we hire a clown".  He's kidding about the clown.  I hope.  Clowns scare me.

Here are all the cupcakes waiting to be turned into teddy bears.  All Andrea and I needed to do was to add some ears, eyes, noses (no mouths, our bears were mute), and paws and we would be done.  This would be accomplished by using cheerios coated in coconut/oreo/graham crackers for ears, mini M&Ms for noses, icing for eyes and gumdrops or chocolate covered raisins with icing claws for paws.  Oh, and lots of swearing. 

And here are Andrea and I cursing away like sailors.  It was surprisingly fiddly.  And you can see my scrapbook-paper bunting on the windows as well.

Look at the concentration!

You rock, Andrea!

If you look closely, you can see the veins pulsing in my forehead.  It took so much longer than I thought it would!

But I was pretty pleased with the finished product.

And most importantly....

So was the birthday girl.

"Hello my furry friend.  I'm gonna eat you now."

Owen couldn't believe his luck...he got a cupcake.  And a doughnut hole.  And icing.  And chocolate covered raisins.  AND an M&M.  What exactly was I thinking?  Waaaaay too much sugar!

Abby didn't seem to mind.

Yup, seems to be going down okay for Peter too.

Mr. Miles and his mama Annie discuss which bits to eat next.

Do you love her dress?  Uncle David and Tatie Cecile sent it all the way from France and it arrived right in time for the party.

She seemed to be having a great time

And it just kept getting better - You mean I get presents?!  Woo-hoo!

Kid chaos as everyone has to help open them of course.

Elly was given a lovely tiara (I think she had a slightly more muted reaction than Amy Farah-Fowler aka Mayim Bialik in one of my favorite scenes from The Big Bang Theory) as well as two beautiful sets of butterfly/fairy wings.

Abby and Elly trying on the wings and playing with the accompanying ribbon wand)

Gran wanted a tiara too....

But of course, eventually, the sugar that mummy so lovingly slathered onto all of the cupcakes has to come crashing down at some point, right? 

 Its My Party And I'll....well, we all know the song

but finally the guests leave, the brothers head off to brush teeth and the birthday girl can have a quiet moment with her Gran to settle down (plus, doesn't my bunting look lovely?)

Sadly I didn't take photos of the brown-paper loots bags with a crayon outline of a teddy bear on them, or the teddy bear headbands I made for everyone that were in the loot bags, but imagine they were awesome, okay?  

All in all, it was a great party, just really fun to hang out with friends and family to celebrate two wonderful years of Elliot.  But next year I'll definitely scale back on the cupcakes.  Maybe.

 

Happy Second Birthday Elly-Belle!

Thank goodness for Elly.

The very thought of you makes me smile.

We're so lucky you came along to fill our home with joy.  Loud, chatterboxey, smiley, cuddly, strong-willed joy.

Happy birthday my sweet girl.