Saturday, January 10, 2009

cupcake cake mold Childrens Birthday Parties Lets Tone It Down

We've all heard the stories of the parents who hired the pony rides and the clown and the juggler, and, well, they practically hired the whole darned circus to entertain everyone at her son's birthday party. Sure, all the kids had a great time, they loved it! Unless this is the norm for this family, you can be sure that their wallets took a major hit, and let's face it, the pressure it puts on everyone else to keep up can be very difficult to ignore.





I've hosted my share of children's birthday parties and if I've learned one thing it's this; keep is simple. You'll save your sanity, your budget and the neighbors won't hate you. As a matter of fact, I've had more than one parent thank me for not going over the top.





Start by setting a time limit. For the 4 to 8 year old crowd, two hours is plenty. I always had my kids do their own invitations, which does wonders in keeping the guest list down to the 'must haves', and eliminated the need for me to put a limit on the number of children they could invite.





Rather than having a traditional birthday cake, we were the family that had cupcake decorating contests! I'd bake at two or three cupcakes per child, depending on age. Each child would get one vanilla cupcake and one chocolate cupcake to start.





I'd go to the local bulk food store and purchase small bags of edible decorations like gummy worms and gummy bears, different colored sprinkles, broken Smarties, and whatever else caught my eye. Variety is the key here!





I'd use vanilla icing and have four or five bowls of it on the table, each colored with different food colorings. The brighter the better!





The kids absolutely love this! Of course it's messy, but that's half the fun.





I usually planned at least two activities. Since my son's birthday is at the end of May, I usually chose an outdoor activity, but always had a backup in case of bad weather.





The year my son turned five was the year that Super Soakers were all the rage, so I had each child bring their favorite water pistol and a bathing suit or other appropriate clothing. We had a target shooting contest (knock the can off the fence post) that was very popular and finished off with an all out water pistol fight. It was a great way for the kids to burn off all that sugar!





For one of my daughter's parties, when she and her friends were simply too cool for pin the tail on the donkey, I created Pin the Shorts on the Hunk. I took a roll of paper and drew an outline of a guy, and added lots of abs and pecs. Then I drew a pair of shorts and voila! Screams of laughter from the 11 year olds confirmed that this was a good choice!





A good old fashioned game of tag or hide 'n seek is always popular. And it's a sad fact that some children have never played these games before. I remember being stunned into near speechlessness when one little girl at my son's 7th birthday told me she didn't want to play because she didn't know how! She sure does now.





So keep it simple, set a time limit and most of all, let go and have fun.


This article was written by Shawn Wilson, a member of the customer support team at Datepad, where internet dating is always free. Datepad has a massive directory of informative dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on their dating blog.

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cupcake cake mold Halloween Fright Spooks And Giggles

"Tomb it may concern", it is time for fright, spooks and giggles.





When the spirits were living among us, Halloween was born. It was over 2,000 years ago and the Celts wore masks to avoid being recognized by the fall spirits. Bowls of food, the first Halloween candy, were placed outside to keep the ghosts happy. Today on Halloween parents encourage their own little ghosts and goblins to haunt the neighborhood. It is time to get disguised.





The best costumes are home made and do not have to be the traditional ghost or goblin. It is always fun to be a cultural icon like Colonel Sanders. Get a white suit, white goatee and grab a bucket of Kentucky Fried chicken. Or be a head roast. Get a box, put a silver roast pan on it and decorate the top of the box like a dinner table. Glue some plastic candlesticks, some salt and pepper shakers. Then, cut a hole in the roast pan and box for your head. Be sure to add some potatoes and tomatoes to garnish. Beware of your friends because youll be a perfectly ghoulish meal. My favorite costume is baby sushi. Cut a hole in the top of a white stuffed pillow case for the head. Paint a vertical egg colored rectangle. Then wrap seaweed colored fabric horizontally around the pillow and glue it. If you have a dog, he can go as green wasabi mustard to accompany the baby. Take an old dog sweater. Cover it with quilting bunting and spray it all lime green.





Be sure to live it up all week? Wear your costumes before Halloween. Turn your home eating area into a casketerai. Put tombstones around. Make boo-loney and stake sandwiches. Tell those lazy bones kids to help. Take some old sheets and dress the kids like ghosts and go for a boo-cruise. Be sure to tell them to wear their sheet belts in the car. They will love the reactions to their ghostly costumes.





Halloween would not be memorable without fun treats. A favorite in our house is Spider Web Cupcakes. Squeeze white icing into the shape of a spider web on a flat surface such as black cardboard. Make cupcakes with black baking paper and dark cake mix and frosting. Cut licorice for legs and insert eight legs into each cupcake. Make scouring red eyes with cinnamon Red Hots or any other red candies. For the fangs, create marshmallow fangs with scissors and insert them right below the mouth.





BANG! Eeek! Bwahahaha! Wishing you a spooktakular Halloween!


Doozycards is an online Ecards and Greeting cards company for every occasion. For a vast selection of our spooktacular cards visit Halloween e cards

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