The Party of the Century

So my BFF #1 (apart from all of you other BFF #1's too!) has an adorable one year old named Siena.  Siena doesn't understand it for one minute I'm sure, but she LOVES Sesame Street. She'll sit and watch it for hours!  (Well, Natalie is an amazing mother, so of course she doesn't LET her, right??) So, Natalie prepared an incredible First Birthday party for her, in a Sesame Street theme.

I told Natalie that although I have no clue how to use Jordan's camera, that I'd do the pictures....good thing I know a few things about Photoshop, since I could only use the darn thing on "auto."  I'll learn how to use his camera soon enough though...

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Siena Street?? :)

Natalie MADE this cake.  Can you believe her talents????

It was my idea to do pipe cleaners rather than fondant for the curls.  Let's simplify life, right??

Natalie really wishes the Sixlets would have stayed stuck to the cake...but it's GORGEOUS anyway, Nat!

Siena in all her cuteness!!  Should I have Photoshopped out the ketchup on her chin?  Maybe....maybe not.  It's authentic, right?

Candy galore!!

I painted that.  Very proud :)

There was a bouncy house (being the party of the year, and all!)  Notice how Claire has her "purse-o-panties" with her, her "Baby Jaguar" (You know, from "Go, Diego, Go!"), a plethora of necklaces, and another purse (behind the panties one) with Cinderella princess shoes.  She is also wearing some princess shoes.  Natalie and I decided that she is the epitome of a child-version of "The Bag Lady."  Sad!  LOL LOL

Just love this shot.  This is Natalie's niece, Brooke.

Love my cutie!!

Cutie :)  (I mean you, Nat!)

Kids got a goldfish and crayon for their "goodie bag." Natalie is so creative :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE little Eli with his super cute mom, Jenny

Natalie's sister, Alex, and her cute little girl, Bella

Such a cute picture!  (Next time I'll have to watch out for that harsh light!)

Leslie and her little monkey

Drake:  What a cutie! (And Amberly too :)

Jonny and his bundle of Sloane, I mean, Joy!

Rachy looks so cute in this picture!!

Sloane wouldn't cooperate but she's so gorgeous even when she is not wanting to be smiley in front of the camera!  Focus on her eyes would have been awesome, but I'm not that good :)  Oh well!!

ELMO visited.  Can you believe Natalie's mom wore that costume in JULY????  She's crazy!!  And awesome!

Autie Katie painted faces.  She's so good!

Just such a cute pic of Daxton.

Check out the tat on Claire! Cookie Monster rocks.

And check out the cute face painting (and all of Claire's necklaces and panties...sigh...)

More cute pics of Sloaney-Pants

Connor and Abbey.  Connor was in HEAVEN.  Abbey--can you tell she took out her clippie?? Naughty naughty!  Must have learned that from Anya, jk :)

Cooper and Sydney.  What a cute expression, Cooper!

Can you believe Natalie painted a frame with an S just for this occasion? That's dedication!

And of course, at the party of the year, there HAD to be a pinata!  This one, you take turns (in a single file line, as shown above...OK well supposedly shown above :) pulling on strings until one of the strings actually breaks it open.  Yeah, Claire got to her turn and grabbed a clump of 5 or 10 strings.  It was classic Claire. (It's like in Sacrament Meeting with the bread.  We keep having to tell her "just one!")

Like bees to honey...

Unsure at first...

...but she got into it soon enough.  They always do.

Happy Birthday Nenners!!!  Can you believe we were going to take a picture of her cute onesie Natalie made with Elmo on it...AFTER this?  What were we thinking....

Crazy Claire.

She is nuts.  Cute nuts.

Want to hear some things she's been saying lately?  They are pretty hilarious.

*  So, my friend, Natalie is in the car with Claire (waiting for me, surprise surprise) and Claire all of the sudden, looks over at a neighbor man or worker in the neighborhood and said:  "That's a handsome dude!"

*Also in Natalie's car, since I had gone back into the house so much for items I'd missed (again, surprise surprise)...Natalie taught her to say this to me when I returned:  "Mama, you're driving me NUTS!"  She enjoys saying it all the time now!  Awesome.

*  "Mama I hear the ambulance!  It takes the people to the doctors office because they're sick so they will feel better!"

*After going to the zoo and seeing the pathetic camel there, Auntie Jessica taught her a little about camels.  This is what she recites now every time we ask her where they live:  "Camels live in the hot desert."  How many humps they have:  "They have 2 humps."  And what their humps are for:  "Their humps are for storing water and drinking water."

*One day, Claire was playing with Jordan and started pulling out his leg hairs.  When he protested, she said, "Don't worry Daddy, you have more!"

*The other night, we were saying prayers and she repeated after me (Now, I don't know about your kids, but she kinda doesn't like to say prayers these days because it's the signal for "after this, you really do have to sleep" so generally now she doesn't repeat after me because she's protesting...but this time she did) when I said, "Please bless me to be happy."  But she said, "Please bless me to be grumpy!"  I couldn't help but laugh, which made her repeat everything I "blessed" from there on out with some sort of grumpy reference.  The little turkey.

*Claire is a funny sleeper.  She wakes up ALL THE TIME because she's been having pretty bad growing pains, or she will just wake up halfway due to a bad dream (about monkeys, elephants, princesses, bugs, flowers, etc.).  Anyway, so Jordan came home from work late the other night and went to kiss Claire "goodnight" while she was asleep.  Well, she woke up halfway, and I guess Jordan's hand was close to her face, and she took it and said softly, "Dada."  And he said, "Yes, sweetheart?"  "Your hands smell really yucky."
*The other day, Claire had been crying (over who knows what, since she's two!) and she got a dish towel and said matter-of-factly, wiping her eyes :  "Mama, I'm wiping my raindrops."

*Yesterday, Claire yelled over to me: "Look at me, Mama! I'm adorable!"  Pretty cute.  And would think she was full of herself, except she has no clue what "adorable" means actually.  I asked.

*So, we've been potty training, and Claire HAS TO have her purse full of all of her panties with her EVERYWHERE she goes.  She is obsessed.  More on this later in the potty-training saga post I will be doing soon.  Anyway, today, she was putting some panties in her purse panties in the purse, and said to them:  "Seriously, panties?  You need to go in there."

*So, she also has this awful habit of distracting Anya while she's nursing.  Today was no exception.  Claire is bugging Anya again, and so I threaten to go upstairs with Anya for some quiet nursing time, and have Claire stay downstairs watching Dora.  Claire says, "No Mama, I not fight with you anymore. I love you! Don't go upstairs!"  It was too cute.  I stayed.  And she didn't bug us.

And now for some interesting photos...

 *Claire is also obsessed (I know, I have a future OCD'er on my hands...don't remind me) with band-aids.  There are no "owies" underneath them.  But now they are all put up and she knows she only gets one if there's blood :)

 Yep, to the pool too.  And she freaks out when they start coming off.  Needless to say, I didn't need to put hardly any sunscreen on the left leg.

And yes, on her nose.  This one, though, was really painful to remove bc it was a "real" band-aid...the fabric good and stuck kind.  She cried, and had this red welt on her face for a few hours.  Again, no owie, but the band-aid actually ended up creating one!

Outings

It's been a while.

Need to post the week my mother in law took on Jen's kids.  We did a few things.  Two of the things we did were go to Jungle Jim's and the Zoo...

Had a few of the kids just driving around in circles. It was pretty hilarious.

Man, it's been so long since we did this (I've been a slacker at blogging!!) that I can't even remember anything for the captions.  Oh well!

 And here we are at the zoo!  As you can see, Zoorassic was in full swing!  It was so fun.

 Sam and Ava were a lot more interested in sitting in the stroller than my kids!  Haha

 Claire digging by the new construction area.  Next year, the zoo is going to be amazing!!

 Ava digging

 Giraffes!

 And the carousel is a MUST.

 So Claire is the size of a juvenile!

"Monkey bars".... They always seem to find those.

It was so fun!

Watch out Lady Gaga

"No Way, Jose!"

Man, it's been a while.  SO BUSY.  As of late, Anya likes to shake her head a lot.  Especially when you say, "No way, Jose!"  Claire loves telling her that and trying to get her to shake her head.

Coconut Cream Cupcakes

These were DIVINE.

Cupcake Ingredients

3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

5 extra-large eggs at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup buttermilk

14 ounces sweetened, shredded coconut

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in 7 ounces of coconut.
Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each liner to the top with batter. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.

Coconut Custard (for the filling)
(adapted from Bobby Flay's coconut custard recipe)

3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons cream of coconut
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Combine the milks and vanilla bean and seeds in a medium nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat. Whisk together the yolks, sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Slowly whisk the warm milk into the egg mixture then return the mixture to the pot over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking constantly, until thickened. Scrape the mixture into a bowl and whisk in the rum and vanilla extract. Let cool to room temperature then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, at least 2 hours.

To finish the filling, mix:
3/4 cup coconut custard (recipe above), cold
3/4 cup very cold heavy cream

Combine the custard and cream in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form.

Fill the cupcakes, and then frost with the best whipped cream frosting ever:

Frosting Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) package reduced-fat cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups heavy cream

Directions:

Combine the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract and almond extract in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Fit the mixer with the whisk attachment and mix on medium speed until smooth. While the mixture is still whipping, slowly pour in the heavy cream. Stop and scrape the bottom of the bowl a couple of times while you continue whipping until the cream can hold a stiff peak.