You are my Sunshine themed Birthday | Mihika turns 1 and Manav turns 6!

P.S: This post was long due. Its 2018 now, but I'm sharing one of our biggest birthday parties of July 2017 for our little ones...hope you enjoy the details just as much as we did putting it together!

Our little bundle of joy, our baby girl Mihika turned 1 year old last July 16^th, 2017.  Her name, Mihika means ‘the Mist’ or ‘Dew drops’ and we call her Mihi baby or Mihi at home. Her older brother Manav (Appu), simply adores her and she’s the first person he asks for when he doesn’t see her around. 
Mihi baby's first words were 'Appu chetta', so i know they both are meant for each other :-) She gets super excited when Appu chetta is around and at times gets annoyed when he runs around and she cannot catch up.


Both Manav and Mihika share July birthdays and although Manav had his own little Pokémon themed 6^th birthday party, we decided to combine both of their birthdays and throw a grand birthday bash last year.  

I remember thinking of a Sunshine themed party when Appu was 1 year old, but later went for a Rainbow themed party instead, which was just as colorful and fun.

‘You are my Sunshine’ is a wonderful theme for little girls and boys and can be customized as per our wish. As I wanted to highlight our baby girl’s 1^st birthday, I used some pink color in the décor apart from lots of Yellow and White. Appu did not care for the colors used in the décor, his interest was in the cake cutting, magic show and piñata that was planned as part of the celebrations. He kept telling everyone he has a sunshine birthday coming up and was really looking forward to it.

This party took several months of brainstorming and planning and I want to discuss each detail of the party one by one :-) Long post ahead, so I've tried dividing each category and added lots of pictures to enjoy the details.

Sunshine Decorations 

Big colorful backdrop, sunshine cutouts, giant Sunflowers and lots of balloons and other decorations in the shades of yellow, white, pink and grey formed the main base. 

A lot of the decorations were bought from Walmart, Party City or Dollar store or ordered online from Amazon. Plenty were handmade. It was a whole lot of effort to get the exact items we needed whether store-bought or home-made. 

The entire ceiling was decorated with hanging ball and honeycomb lanterns and it looked beautiful :-)

Pinwheels and fancy Balloon Arch Backdrop

I have always wanted to try a backdrop with Pinwheels and I absolutely love Balloon arches, especially fancy balloon arches, not the usual U shaped ones.  
After going over millions of party backdrop pictures on Pinterest, I decided to do one that included the best of both, so Pinwheels on one side and a giant Balloon arch on the other side with a white backdrop which would allow the colors to pop out. 

After making a rough sketch on my laptop with the colors I had in mind, we decided this is exactly how it should look and it was the template for our backdrop. 

sketch done for an idea of our backdrop on MS paint!

As the color for the décor was mostly Yellow, White and Pink, we bought Pinwheels in those shade and some metallic ones for a burst of color. 

For the balloons, the colors ranged from sunshine yellow to golden, light pink to sparkly pink, clear transparent ones and some blue. The backdrop was a sequined white curtain and the pinwheels were places to the left and balloon arch to the right. 

We bought the frame and put up this entire backdrop ourselves and it took Manish, my dad and several other friends help with blowing balloons, cutting tape, using a fishing line to set up the balloon arch and all kinds of other small details to put this up.  We were mighty proud of the end result…what do you think?


Cake table Decor

Several details went on the cake table. There was the cake ofcourse....but lots of other cute details. We used tulle table skirt to match with Mihi baby's tulle frock.
Daddy was a huge help for all the preparations. Almost all the different sunshine cutouts, number cutouts and several other mini decorations some of which never made it to the party were done by him over several days.

We bought the 'You are my Sunshine' lettered block frame (which was perfect for the table) from Walmart.

The sunflower ball on top the the pink vase was fully handmade by pressing sunflower heads onto a round thermocol ball. It wasn't easy to get so many similar plastic sunflower plants.

Another thing I've always wanted to do : Chalkboard's :-)
We got black foam boards for this and each one had a special chalkboard to themselves. Apart from the writing, we stuck some 3d stickers for some fun effect. I don't remember the last time i drew with chalk and it was so much fun to do this.

A separate table was arranged with both Manav and Mihika's photographs and some fun details like wooden blocks that spell their names, sunshine cutouts and standing number 1 and 6 frames that were actually cardboard frames over which my dad cut and stuck shimmery yellow cardstock sheet. 

For the kids photo-table, I wanted to create a large sunshine backdrop and got cardboard and yellow paper shreds for the same. Again, my awesome daddy cut and stuck the whole thing and brought it to life. It formed a beautiful backdrop for the table along with some giant Sunflowers.

A large frame with Mihi baby's picture was kept at the photo-table for guests to write a wish or note for her on her 1st birthday. We had done the same for Appu's 1st birthday and it's a nice little souvenir for them to look at later. 

Sunshine themed snacks and treats

A separate table for snacks and small eats were set up, mainly for the kids.
I decorated some Lemon Oreo thins to look like sunshines, made Mango mousse cups, Pink and Yellow Cake pops and Yellow cardamom flavored Macarons which I used as part of the Strawberry-macron tower. 
There was also potato chips, mini chocolate treats , fruit salad, veggie salad and CapriSUN juice as part of the snack table.

And yes! I made macarons for the very first time. It was my second try ideally and although it wasn't a perfect batter (had small lumps), they formed feet and looked quite good. Some of them were hollow but tasted good nevertheless. 
They were cardamom flavored macarons tinted yellow (to go with our Sunshine theme) filled with sweet vanilla buttercream. 

I also prepared some  chocolate coated Strawberries and used them to form a Strawberry-Macaron tower with pink and yellow roses. They formed a pretty centerpiece on either side of the cake on the cake table. 

The Cake 

For the Cake, I was toggling between whether to keep 2 cakes as it was for two birthdays or one large tiered cake. After lots of confusion and brain storming, we decided to keep just 1 large cake as Appu had already had his own special birthday cake.

Top Tier: Yellow cake with Mango Mousse filling decorated with whipped cream rosettes
Middle Tier: Strawberry  cake with Mango Mousse filling, decorated with pink whipped cream dots
Bottom Tier: Yellow cake with Mango Mousse filling, decorated to look like sunflowers with an Oreo cookie center.

 A glittery Happy Birthday topper and a cute smiling sunshine cutout added the final touches.
We used 2 golden candles numbered 1 and 6 to represent each birthday kid before they cut their cake.

Cake Cutting

Cake cutting was really fun. All the guests had arrived on time and Mihi baby was in a good mood. We first placed a number 1 candle and Mihi baby cut her 1^st Birthday cake…woohoo!! She had just eaten a bowlful of khichdi , so she wasn’t very hungry to take a bite.

Next, the number 6 candle was placed and Appu insisted on cutting the cake himself. He did a great job and took a big bite as always.

My beautiful sunshine princess was all dressed up in a gorgeous sunshine yellow tulle frock. The dress was custom made, very comfortable and she wore it throughout the length of the party.  To try and match my little princess I decided to wear a yellow tulle floor length gown.

Appu wore a suit for the first time and although a bit hesitant at first he agreed to wear his suit and shoes as long as his dada also wore one. So they wore matching gray suits with mild yellow shirts and looked a handsome pair. And the color combo went very well with the song, ‘You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine. You make me happy, when the skies are Gray!’

Grandma and Grandpa also wore shades of Yellow, so in all we were all in sync with the theme. They both made sure the birthday girl was eating and drinking as per her schedule, which really helped as she was very calm and composed during the party although very curious and kept watching everyone as she was seeing a large crowd of people for the first time. We even requested the guests to come dressed up in their most fancy outfits in shades of Yellow, White or Pink.


Magic show & Face painting

Cake cutting was followed by a fun Magic and Clown show for the kids and they also did balloon twisting and face painting. 
Appu as usual got his face painted like spider-man and I have to say he looked like Spider-man in a suit :-D 
My mom and myself got some sunshine tattoos. I did not get one for Mihi as she has very sensitive skin...my little darling.


Sunshine Piñata

Our next fun activity was the Sunshine Piñata. This wasn’t a pull-string piñata, so Appu made sure he did not forget to take a baseball bat and a plastic rod from home to hit open the piñata. All the kids took turns and finally ripped open the Pinata filled with lots of goodies. Mihi baby watched the whole thing and was so excited. I bet she wanted to just swoop down and take a strike at the piñata herself.

Food & Drinks

The food for the guests were all catered from a good Indian restaurant. 
Appetizers:
Chicken Majestic
Chilli Chicken 
Chilli Paneer

Main dishes:
Chicken Biriyani
Veg Biriyani

Chicken Curry
Paneer Tikka masala
Papad and Raita

Dessert:
Rasmalai
Mango mousse (homemade)

In all the birthday party was a lot of fun. The party hall was amazing with a beautiful outdoor view of the lake. There was also a playarea where the kids could run out and play. We had music and laughter and I want to assume everyone had a great time. The entire planning, purchasing and setup of the backdrop and other details did take us a long time and I sincerely thank my parents, Manish and all our friends who came forward to help. 

These two babies of ours are our Sunshines. I always want them to smile and be happy and wish all good things in life for them. 

I could go on and on describing the details from the party but I guess I've covered most of it. So let me end this post by saying once again hope you enjoyed all the details of the party as much as we did :-) 
Reading your comments are the best part about blogging, so feel free to share your comments and thoughts on this party. 

-Manju

Pokémon themed birthday | Manav turns 6!

Hello dear all. The blog’s been still and inactive for a while now. I humbly apologize for the lack of activity here. Getting back to work plus, getting used to school routines and having a baby at home could be some valid reasons, but if I remember correctly I started this blog back in Oct 2011 when my firstborn was just 3 months old, mainly take some time out for myself, make new friends, express my feelings and views on the things happening around me and ofcourse to ramble on about the dishes that I tried and I wasn't very free to start with even then, but I still did blog a lot. 

I’ve had plenty of help from my in-laws and parents for over the past year after Mihi baby was born and yet I’ve just not been able to spare some time to this space, which is my virtual diary. I don’t like to make promises I can’t keep, but still I will try to atleast share 1-2 posts per month going forward and slowly get back into the rhythm of sharing my world with you all. Thank you for being so patient.

I wanted to share a fun and simple birthday party we had for my handsome first born, Manav...commonly referred to as Appu (at home) or lil’Appu (here on the blog). Not so little now I would say as he celebrated his 6^th birthday on July 11^th.  Am I a bit too late to even share this? :-D

He's been watching and playing a lot of Pokémon cartoons and games all summer long and so obviously wanted a Pokémon themed birthday. Although we had made separate plans to keep a bigger combined birthday party for Mihi and Appu a few weeks later, we decided to keep a small party in our backyard with just his friends from our community.

I decided to make the easiest Pokémon themed cake, which ofcourse was this Pikachu cake. It was a 5” tall delicious rich Chocolate Cake with Chocolate buttercream for my all-time chocolate loving boy. The outside was frosted with yellow colored vanilla buttercream. Pikachu’s facial features and ears were done with fondant.

To add to the theme we got some standing Pikachu and Charmander cutouts, Pokémon themed plates and blowouts from party city and some balloons in colors of red, yellow and black.

My lovely friend Swati, sent us some decorations, all the way from Minnesota which she made herself for her own son’s Pokemon themed birthday party…friends should be like her…Muah! We couldn’t use everything she sent, but I used the Pokeball shaped paper fans. There were also pokeball name tags and other decorations, which we couldn’t put up as it was too windy in the backyard.

Food was kept very simple and as per the birthday boys request of items, there were Chips, Lemonade, Fruits and Cake of course. I managed to arrange the fruits to look like a pokeball using strawberries, bananas and grapes (idea from Pinterest).

We had invited most of Appu's friends from our community to stop by for cake and snacks. The birthday boy was very happy and behaved like a good little 6 year old.  Mihi baby, just a week short of being a 1 year old was in good spirit too. Ofcourse she made good use of the opportunity to pull my hair...Lol!

Though it was a small and quick party everyone had fun. Kids enjoyed being goofy with the blowouts and smaller kids played with the balloons. Our basement is like a toy store, having a big collection of toys from all of Appu's previous birthdays..... so the kids had fun with those. Some of his friends stayed over longer and they played to their hearts content. So in all both Appu and his friends had a great time.

Mihi baby's favorite part was pulling her Appu chetta’s hair while we posed for some family pics and having grandparents here made the birthday even more special. My sister Maya sent him the Pokemon Tshirt and he was so happy to wear it.

And that, my dear all was our birthday boy's fun little Pokemon birthday. It was put together without much planning but Appu still remembers the details and that's what counts.

Our baby girl's birthday was next and it was the big 1 year old party....that's what is coming up next on the blog and I can't wait to share the details with you all.

Have a god day you all!

-Manju

Thomas the train and Friends Cake for a little boy's birthday!

I love making theme cakes. My friend 'S' had suggested that I make her son's 4th b'day cake almost a year before and it must be mentioned that she had never tasted any of my cakes when she gave me the opportunity! Just few glances at the cakes on my blog and that was enough for her.... :-)

Initially there was a slight confusion whether to keep a 'Cars' themed party or 'Thomas the Train' themed one, but Sanav is a huge fan of Thomas the Train and everytime we asked him for his choice he came back to his favorite train...so finally that's what the theme was decided to be.

Sanav loves Chocolate Cake with Chocolate buttercream, so the cake flavor was set.
As the decorations were left to me I started thinking of suitable color combos...I basically wanted a spring-summery look, with the trains running over grassy lands with bright blue skies and hills and trees etc. And ofcourse a tunnel is a very cute and important addition for train themed cakes - all trains will pass through atleast one tunnel wherever they go right :-)

I baked the chocolate cakes and frosted them with homemade chocolate buttercream, then made my own marshmallow fondant and used Grass Green gel color for the bottom tier fondant and Royal blue gel color for the top tier fondant. The cakes were 10"x4" and 8"x4" each.

Some of the details on the cake included :
The pretty balloons in a cute little basket to symbolize the birthday celebrations....trust me, the kids were just behind me to give them a slice with these balloons and finally I had to give each individual balloon to individual kids so that they don't fight...Lol!

The black tunnel with a red brick wall, the number 4 symbolizing the b'day boys age. The train tracks interlocking from both ends to merge into one track that goes into the tunnel

Railway crossing sign boards on both sides of the tunnel. I also included a tunnel with a stone wall that was shut-down on bottom tier.

Then there were bushes, trees with red fruit, small mountains and some black birds....

And our Thomas Train on top watching his friends speed away and the clouds and the handsome Sun smiling on him. I wrote Happy Birthday and Sanav's name on the clouds.

Thomas and his train friends are toys (I'm not good at modeling figurines), rest everything on the cake is edible. And this was the first time I painted some of the cut outs with gel colors for a more vibrant look.

May I humbly say, the cake was a super-hit. Everyone loved the cake and it was totally worth the sleepless nights I had to finish this cake despite not keeping too well that week.

Here's the happy and smiley b'day boy totally enjoying his cake cutting!!

And soon I was busy with cake slicing and serving...hehe! Actually I was surrounded by kids waiting for a slice with a tree or balloon or tunnel or train track ;-)

Making a cake is always fun and a lot of work....Lol! But it's so worth it in the end....
It was such a fun b'day party and I'm glad I could make this cake and the happy faces around me makes me do this more and more.

Lots more to share in upcoming posts, so keep coming back.

Until next time...take care and have fun!

-Manju

Funfetti Cake for Appu's best bud's birthday!

The month of May had been busy…super busy and for all good reasons. Which is why I hardly ever got much time to share recipes except for Instagram pics shared every now and then on Facebook and Twitter.  But we’ve been eating…yes , a lot! And I’ve been taking snaps…again A LOT! So a lot of recipes are coming your way!!

It was back to back weekend outings, friend's gatherings and lots of fun and food. One of the outings were organized by our good friends whose son was turning 2 and they wanted to have a fun celebration along with a fun trip. And I happily volunteered to get the b'day cake.  
I had a lot of ideas in mind and as usual went crazy deciding on what to make and finally decided on a colorful Funfetti cake. This cake is  super fun , very colorful and really easy to 'make from scratch'.  I think this is one of America’s top cake choice for children’s birthdays from what I've read and I'm so glad it turned out great!

He is my Lil’Appu’s best bud from 6 months of age, they both went to same daycare while we were at our old apartment and are literally chaddi buddy’s in every way  ;-P and almost behaves like twins! They copy everything each other does and it's a true delight to watch them play and they definitely had a hell lot of fun. 

As we had planned to start on our trip on a Friday evening after work, I had to make the cake on Thursday night, pack it up tightly without any frosting and take it with us to the cabin resort,  where we were gonna spend the weekend. The birthday wasn’t until Sunday, so I refrigerated the cake until then (we had made sure in advance that the resort had a fridge :-) )

I baked two 9x2" cakes so that the cake would be tall. A simple Whipped cream frosting was the easiest choice and all I had to do was take some whipping cream, powdered sugar and my electric hand mixer with me, also some sprinkles for decoration. 

On Saturday night, after a super fun day at the water park and once everyone had gone off to sleep, the ladies got down to the business of decorating the cake (it was almost midnight by then). I made the whipped cream and covered it over the cake and my friends (the b’day boy’s mommy and her friend) helped eagerly in decorating the cake with the colorful sprinkles and chocolate sprinkles.

And guess what , I had totally forgotten about writing over the cake and Avyay’s mom came up with a brilliant idea, use Bournvitta mixed in some whipped cream to form a Chocolate colored cream to write the name with. So I sifted some bournvita into a little bit of the whipped cream until I got the deep chocolate color I wanted and poured that into a Ziploc bag and snipped off the end and wrote the lil’ guys name on the cake! Genius idea I'd say...

The B'day boy was so excited seeing his colorful cake the next day that he immediately dug his lil'finger into the chocolate sprinkles and licked it all up, even before we cut the cake...can you see a tiny dent in the chocolate sprinkles? ;-) The extra candles were just to add some extra light and color!

And both lil’Appu and his lil friend were totally interested in the colorful sprinkles on the cake and kept going back again and again to lick up the cream and eat the sprinkles, giving me a tough time to take a pic ;-) But I'm so glad that the cake had the effect I was hoping it would have and the boys were stuck on to it like bees on a flower!!

And for a few minutes after the cake cutting the only scene in the room was everyone licking their fingers ;-)

The cake was moist, crumbly, flavorful and slightly dense (but I guess the denseness was  due to being refrigerated for almost 2 days before we cut the cake) , but that never affected the taste of the cake. So this a good cake to make ahead. 

Happy B’day once again dear Lil’Avyay and may you and lil’Appu remain friends all life long and hope you will remember and enjoy these moments in your life someday through these pictures and stories. 

Speaking of birthdays my Lil'Appu is turning 2 next month....and I'm as usual confused with all the ideas I have in mind. I'm just crazy about fun colorful themes for kid's b'days but I already did a colorful Rainbow B'day party last year for the champ...Any ideas anyone?? 

Funfetti Cake - made from scratch!

Recipe source:  Sally's Baking Addiction
(Recipe makes One 9" x 2" cake - I doubled it for above cake)

You’ll need

All-purpose flour - 1 and 2/3 cup

Baking Powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Baking Soda - 1/4 teaspoon

Salt – a pinch or 1/4 teaspoon

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Light Brown Sugar - 1/4 cup

Unsalted Butter, melted - 1/2 cup (1 stick)

Large Egg - 1

Yogurt - 1/4 cup (plain or vanilla; or greek yogurt; or sour cream)

Milk - 3/4 cup  (cow's milk; or soy milk; or almond milk)

Vanilla extract - 1 Tablespoon

Sprinkles - 2/3 cup (I used 1/3 cup colorful sprinkles + 1/3  cup chocolate sprinkles)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Spray a 9-inch springform or baking pan (round or square) with nonstick spray. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt butter in the microwave. Whisk in the sugars vigorously getting out any brown sugar lumps - mixture will be gritty. Whisk in egg, yogurt, milk, and vanilla extract until combined. Slowly mix in dry ingredients until no lumps remain. Batter will be thick. Slowly stir in sprinkles, but do not overmix because the sprinkles will bleed their color.

3. Pour batter into prepared cake pan. Bake for 35-40 mins or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. (If top is browning too quickly, cover the top loosely with aluminium foil around 20 mins and continue baking)

4. Once Baked, let cake sit in the cake pan for another 5 mins and slowly release the sides of the cake pan (if using springform pan) and  invert the cake onto a wire rack and allow it to cool.
5. Frost with whipped cream or vanilla buttercream and decorate as desired.

-Manju