Bea's 18th Birthday

Turning 18 years old is a big deal in the Philippines. We call it a debut, and is usually a grand celebration, similar to a quinceanera.

Parents would rent a restaurant or some other nice venue. The celebrant would be wearing a gown, there would be a cotillion dance, 18 roses dance, the 18 candles, and everything is so formal and elegant.

You know how little girls dream of being a princess? Well, this is kind of like being a princess for a day.

And all that is wonderful.

IF you can afford it.

And since we fall into the category of "parents that can't afford it," I had to be a little creative to make my daughter's birthday a little special.

Instead of  renting a fancy venue, we celebrated it in our humble home.

Instead of ordering an expensive tiered cake, I gathered my baking supplies and made her a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, and poured some ganache on top of it.

Instead of  buying party decorations, I put my cutting machine to work and made paper flowers for the wall and also for the table. (If you don't have a cutting machine, you can also use scissors just like they did here.)

Was her party grand?

Absolutely not.

But it didn't make it any less special though. (^_^)

I linked this post to these wonderful parties:

Bewitchin' Projects Block Party : Titi Crafty  |  Creative Style Link Up : 100 lb. Countdown  |  diy Sunday Showcase : Pink When  |  Freedom Fridays with All My Bloggy Friends : Love Bakes Good Cakes  |  Friday Flash Blog : The Jenny Evolution  |  Inspire Me Monday : Create With Joy  |  Pin Junkie Pin Party : The Pin Junkie  |  Share Your Stuff Tuesdays : Table for Seven

Mickey and Minnie Cupcakes

My oldest daughter Bea is graduating high school in a few weeks. Instead of going to the prom, she wanted to go on their Grad Nite, which simply means she gets to go to Disneyland with other seniors. :)

She and her friends wanted to wear Disney themed hair bows for this special event, so they went on a sleepover and made their own hair bows while watching some Disney movies.

These are her Alice in Wonderland themed hair bows. They turned out real pretty, don't you think?

And to make their sleepover a little bit more memorable, I made some Mickey and Minnie Cupcakes. Everybody thought they were adorable. :)

You can get the template and instructions on making the Mickey and Minnie chocolates here.

The cupcake wrappers are free printables by Cupcake Addiction and you can find it here.

I used Cake Mate Glitter Gels for Minnie's hair bow (neon pink).

For the cupcakes, I used Betty Crocker Devil's Food cake mix. I made and baked them as directed on the box.

Here is the recipe for the buttercream frosting. Recipe is courtesy of the Betty Crocker site.

Enjoy!

VANILLA BUTTERCREAM

FROSTING

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 to 2 tablespoons milk

In a mixing bowl, mix powdered sugar and butter with spoon or electric mixer on low speed. Stir in vanilla and 1 tablespoon of the milk.

Gradually beat in just enough remaining milk to  make frosting smooth and spreadable. If frosting is too thick, beat in more milk, a few drops at a time. If frosting becomes too thin, beat in a small amount of powdered sugar.

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I linked this post to these wonderful parties:

All Things Thursday Blog Hop : Posed Perfection  |  Bewitch Me & Titi Link Party : Titi Crafty  |  DIY Sunday Showcase : Minettes Maze  |  Freedom Fridays with All My Bloggy Friends : Love Bakes Good Cakes  |  Friday Flash Blog : The Jenny Evolution  |  Friday Link Party : The Pin Junkie  |  Inspiration Monday : I Should Be Mopping the Floor  |  Inspire Me Monday : Create With Joy  |  Say G'Day Saturday Linky Party : Natasha in Oz  |  Tasty Tuesdays : Anyonita Nibbles

4th of July 2013

My family and I love watching the fireworks every 4th of July, but we don't like the huge crowd and the heavy traffic on the way home. So this year, we found a spot inside the NAB (Naval Amphibious Base), laid out a blanket on the dead grass (yes, dead grass, no sugar coating here), and made ourselves comfortable while we waited for the fireworks. 

This is the view from our spot, the Coronado Bridge. It looked really pretty with it's lights on, when it got dark. But this is one of those times when I wish I have one of those fancy cameras. The pictures I took were just too embarrassing to share. So if you're expecting really cool photos of fireworks, you're not gonna find them in this post. Sorry!

These are my three goofy kids, (from left to right) Nath, Bea, and Claire. We brought Subway sandwiches, KFC chicken, chips, cookies and drinks in the cooler, nothing fancy. 

Killing time while waiting for the fireworks wasn't a problem either. Not when you have your grandpa to horse around with.

And video games of course!

The fireworks were spectacular! Thank goodness there were no technical problems like last year. The little boy enjoyed every moment of it.

What about you? How was your 4th of July?

Daddy Herschel's 61st Birthday

My stepfather turned 61 years old last weekend. We decided to make him a surprise birthday celebration in advance. The little boy had a sleep over with his woewoe and woewa (lolo and lola is Filipino for grandpa and grandma, but when Nath was younger he couldn't pronounce it right, sounded like woewoe and woewa), so we knew for sure that they were coming that day to bring him home.

This is the birthday card I made him. I used the digital scrapbooking kit from Kristal Kreations. You can click here to check out her site. This is the same kit I used to make my Father's Day Freebie.

Claire made a drawing of him, but unfortunately I didn't get to take a picture of it. Yes, me, the family paparazzi, forgot to take a picture of something. Still kicking myself about that, by the way.

My sixteen-year-old daughter Bea made this chocolate cake from scratch. 

You want to know how I made the number 61 on the cake? First, I printed out the number, making sure it's the right size for the cake. Then I stapled a piece of wax paper on top of it. And then I melted some white chocolate, spooned it into a ziploc bag, snipped off a corner and piped it onto the wax paper. I tried my best  to follow the shape of the number 61, then topped it off with sprinkles. When I was satisfied with it, I put it into the freezer for a few minutes until the white chocolate is set.

The thing is, I went a little crazy with the birthday candles. And you know how when you have a lot of candles to light, it kind of takes you forever to finish lighting them all? Yeah, that's when the white chocolate started to melt. Yep, our number 61 turned all weird and melty. Oh well, at least we had a good laugh about it. Makes it more memorable, don't you think?

Father's Day 2013

Father's Day is the perfect time to show the fathers in our lives how much they're appreciated. I hope all of you had fun celebrating this day. I know we did! 

We started our day with a breakfast made by the girls. Pandesal with bacon and eggs. Yum!

They also gave him their handmade gifts so he can enjoy reading them while eating his breakfast. Bea drew this character from the Candy Crush game. Yup, my husband plays Candy Crush.

This one's from Nath, he insisted on making these "coupons" for tatay by himself. It says "You are the best tatay in the world. --- massage your back, rub your feet, pluck your white hair, massage your head."

We invited my parents, and my stepson and his family to come over and spend the afternoon with us. We were just hanging out, eating pizza, while the kids played in the backyard.

My stepfather loved the gifts that we gave him, a 6-pack  of  IBC Diet Root Beer and a 1 liter bottle of Dad's Root Beer. We went to several stores to find Dad's Root Beer, we finally found this one at K-Mart.

I also made this fun tag for my stepson. Nothing says Father's Day like your own personalized beer, don't you think? 

When it was time to go home, the grandkids didn't want to go, so we decided it's best if they stay a little bit longer. Which then led to an unexpected sleepover. They didn't bring their pajamas but they didn't mind wearing their Uncle Nath's clothes. They had so much fun making s'mores in the backyard.

And that concludes our Father's Day celebration. How about you? I'd love to hear what you did for Father's Day.

I linked this post to these wonderful parties:
Alderberry Hill : Make The Scene Monday  |  A to Zebra Celebrations : Link Party Tuesday  |  A Peek Into My Paradise :  T.G.I.F. Link Party  |  BeBetsy : Brag About It Link and Hop  |  Carrie This home : Frugal Crafty Home Blog Hop  |  Create With Joy : Inspire Me Monday  |  Domesblissity : Thriving On Thursdays  |  I Should Be Mopping The Floor : Mop It Up Monday  |  Life With The Crust Off : Two Girls and a Party  |  Love Bakes Good Cakes : All My Bloggy Friends  |  Memories By The Mile : Tuesday Trivia and Link Party  |  Natasha In Oz : Say G'day Saturday Linky Party  |  Piggy In Polka Dots : Party In Polka Dots  |  Rain on a Tin Roof : Give Me The Goods Monday  |  The NY Melrose Family : Whimsy Wednesdays  |  The Pin Junkie : Friday Link Party  |  This Gal Cooks : Marvelous Mondays  |  Titi Crafty : Bewitch Me & Titi Link Party  |  VMG206 : Brag About It

Mother's Day 2013

Ever since my parents moved here from San Jose, it became somewhat a tradition for us to celebrate Mother's Day at their place. This year I decided to make my mom a Mother's Day card...

...and some Mini Cherry Cheesecakes. I used Bakerella's recipe to make these. They turned out great and they're also super easy to make. Click here for the recipe.

My hubby and kids were really sweet. My little boy had some artwork he made in school for me, and the girls made breakfast - Bea cooked some omelets while Claire fried the bacon strips. They also got me some flowers. Then around lunchtime, we picked up some food and went over to my parents' house. It was just a simple family get-together, but it was fun just hanging out with them. It was even hot enough for the pool. So of course Nath took advantage of that.

How about you? How did you celebrate Mother's Day?

Bea's 15th Birthday Party

This was Bea's birthday party when she turned 15 years old (she's turning 17 years old this year). For some reason, my kids tend to gravitate towards all things anime. Is it because we're asian? Hmmm... That's a possible reason, right? Well, anyways, Bea wanted to watch this anime series called Durarara!! with her friends, so we ordered the DVD on Amazon. I don't know if it's popular with the kids but it's about an internet-based anonymous gang called The Dollars in Tokyo, Japan. I searched the internet for party supplies with this theme but there were none, so I had to make most of the decorations.

This was the invitation I made on the computer using Adobe Photoshop Elements. I also made the envelopes. I printed out their names on shipping labels to make it personalized.

This was the welcome sign on our door. Since the story centers on an internet-based gang, I made this look like the log in page for their site.

This was the backdrop. It's made up of pictures of all her favorite anime characters, and also some of her favorite Korean Pop idols.

Her birthday cake was made to look like the invitations.

These were on our walls.

Since they were having a Durarara!! marathon, we served them food that you would usually find at the concession stand in the theater -  hotdogs, nachos, popcorn, candies - you know, the good stuff. (^_^)

Everybody had their own personalized concession boxes.

These were the party favors. If they look like Starbucks Frappuccino bottles, it's because that's exactly what they are. I've been saving them for months.

They played several games before they watched the dvd. First was the chopstick game (whoever gets the most jelly beans by using the chopsticks wins), popping the ballons game (the person who pops the most number of balloons by sitting on them wins), guess the character on the forehead game (this is similar to the Hedbanz game, but the images taped on their forehead are anime characters), hunt for Celty's head game (Celty is a dullahan looking for her stolen head, so we hid different pictures in the backyard, the person that finds the picture of her head wins).

It was a hot summer afternoon and our living room was overcrowded, but the kids did not seem to mind. Judging from all the squealing and fangirling, I think it's safe to say that they all had a blast. And hopefully it would be a nice memory for Bea to look back to when she gets older.

   

I linked this post to these wonderful parties: 

A to Zebra Celebrations : Link Party Tuesdays

Ilse's Thank You Tag

This is a thank you tag I made for my daughter's friend. She is into anime and the character in the tag is one of her favorites, Shikieki Yamaxanadu - the name is a mouthful, I know. Ilse drew a poster of Momo, a character in "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and we used that poster for our "pin the ear on Momo game."

This is the poster that Ilse made. I think she did a great job on it. Thank you Ilse! (^_^)