Adventure Is Out There!

Asher's "Up" themed birthday party was awesome. My mother offered her beautiful home for us, which is lakefront with a very kid-friendly beach. The weather cooperated (thankfully!), the kids had a blast, and everything looked (and tasted) amazing.

For starters, I got ahold of the "Up" soundtrack (which is fantastic!), and we used that as party music throughout the day. We bought a cardboard playhouse from this website, which I painted with some regular tempera paints. We also went ahead and got some helium balloon kits, which worked wonderfully! We ended up having more helium than we needed for the balloons, so I recommend buying extra just in case. The end result:

For food, we made fresh lemonade with lemon slices, some little pretzel bites (Pillsbury bread sticks with kosher salt and Italian cheese, with marinara for dipping), and rainbow cupcakes with icing "clouds" on top, and little "Up" houses in the clouds. The cupcake recipe is courtesy of these lovely people, except I just used a standard French Vanilla cake mix (butter instead of vegetable oil), cream cheese icing, and for the houses: airheads with Dum-Dums (dipped in sugar glaze and then rolled in those little circular sprinkles). You can stick the little houses to the lollipop stick so they hold together easily on top of the cupcake.

Note: don't make these if you're worried about sugar intake. I mean, it's almost entirely made of sugar. But you know, it was a treat. That was the point. And the kids friggin loved them! A lot of them just wanted the candy on top and left the rainbow cupcakes behind! But that was ok, I ate about four of those abandoned little gems.

All in all, the kids had an amazing time and everything worked out. My little man was one happy birthday boy.

Love!!!