Power Ranger Birthday Party

My little boy has suddenly become obsessed with Power Rangers.  He found some of his older brother's toys and he found the videos on Netflix.  So, he was determined to have a Power Ranger party.  Power Rangers have changed over the years... anything from Jungle Fury, to Operation Overdrive... and now they are Samurai Rangers.  I mostly used the Samurai Rangers because they have really cool graphics on their masks... and because it was easier to find things online.

I dressed him up in some of his Power Ranger gear and took his picture.  Then I made a simple invite and printed it as a 4x6 photo.

On the front door, I had a sign with Power Up... getting them ready.

On the door to the back yard, I put a Power Ranger Training Zone.  When we went into the back yard, it was set up with six stations for Power Ranger Training.  I printed signs and stuck them in the grass on wooden stakes.

The first training was "Be Careful"  The kids did relay races with a jewel on a spoon.

The second station was "Be Strong"  We had a tug of war with a bunch of 4 year olds.... it took them a few minutes to actually figure out the concept, but they finally got it.

Station #3 was "Teamwork"  (I somehow forgot to take a picture of that station).  The kids had a partner and they had to hold a balloon between them and race to the wall and back.

Station #4 was "Defeat the Bad Guys"  I printed pix of bad guys and glued them to soup cans.  Then I made bean bags and had them knock down the tower of cans with the bean bags.  The kids really loved that one too.

Station #5 was "Save the Good Guys"  I had frozen a bunch of Power Ranger toys in a bowl.  My original plan was to have them push the ice block around until it melted.... even in this heat, that was going to take forever.  So, we improvised and got out squirt guns for the kids.  That worked really well and they all had a blast.... if I ever do a party like that again, that will be my plan from the start!

Station #6 was an "Obstacle Course"  My hubby was in charge of this one.... it involved walking on a 4x4, climbing over the hay and weaving in and out of the swings.  (I missed the kids doing this because I had to take someone to the bathroom)

When the kids finished their training, they all got a Power Ranger badge.  I just printed the graphics from One Charming Party and added the power ranger symbol to the middle.

His cake was the red power ranger mask... out of fondant.  Not one of my best cakes, but he still loved it!

I got a sheet off ebay for super cheap and used that as the table cloth.  I used his toys to decorate down the center of the table.

I just bought cheap blue plates, napkins and silverware from the dollar store... but I can't resist the striped straws.  We got mini cans of tiki punch and put a Power Ranger label on them.

After cake and ice cream we went outside to break the piñata.  I made the piñata like the gold power ranger mask.  To make the piñata I used a balloon and a mixture of 2 parts water to 1 part flour.  I did three coats with letting it dry overnight in between.  I spray painted the gold.  Then used black acrylic paint to paint on the mask shape.

We finally had to get the metal bat out to break this thing!

I can't have a party without a banner.  I used all of the Power Ranger colors to make the flags and cut the letters on my Cricut.  I made a few power ranger symbols to separate the words.

For party favors, I put pop rocks, ring pops and a small drink in a cellophane bag... I don't know... that kind of stuff seemed Power Rangery to me:)  And I found the Power Ranger mask rings on Amazon.com to put on the treat bags!

Lastly, the birthday boy had to have a shirt!  I just cut the Power Ranger blue mask symbol out of black fabric and appliquéd it to the shirt!  easy peasy...

This really was a pretty simple party and the birthday boy loved it!!!

Summer of Canning

I grew up in a family that canned everything... well almost everything.  My mom used to can venison... do you know what that is???  I also have a father who grows an enormous garden.  So, since I'm a school teacher and I have my summers off, I had some time to can.

 The first thing we had an abundance of was cucumbers.  I LOVE cucumbers.  I probably ate 8 cucumbers a day.  Some just with salt.  Some dipped in ranch and some with a delicious marinade.  But there were way more than I could eat.  So, I bottled some pickles.  I used an old family recipe.  I don't know if they turned out that great.  I used fresh dill the first time and later found out you are supposed to use dried dill.  The other batches have dried dill, but I haven't tried the pickles yet.  If anyone has a good recipes for pickles, I'd love one!!!

I also bottled a batch of our family's favorite relish.  It's not dill relish, it's not sweet relish.. I'm not sure how to describe it.  It's yellow and it's delicious.

I also bottled some dill relish.  I used this recipe on Tasty Kitchen.  I think it turned out pretty good.  I love these adorable free printable labels for the jar.  They are much cuter than just writing on the lid with a permanent marker (which is what  I normally do)

Chili sauce is another family favorite.  We have a family recipe that a lot of our family members love.  It's sweet and it's so yummy on eggs.  I bottled two batches of chili sauce.

Then, I thought I'd try my hand at pickling some banana peppers. We had a lot of them and thought I'd give it a try.   I used this recipe on the National Center for Home Food Preservation.  I haven't tasted them yet... I figured they needed to cure.

The last thing that I canned was salsa.  I hadn't wanted to can salsa because I thought it would be too hard.  But when I realized I could chop everything in the food processor... I figured I'd give it a try.  I found this recipe on Get Off Your Butt and Bake.  It is delicious!!!  I made mine really mild... cuz that's how I love it.

School has started and I'm not sure if I'm up for canning anything else.... but I'm looking forward to canning more salsa next year because we've already eaten 1 1/2 jars!!!

Girls' Camp Flags

Do you remember this flag that I made for girls' camp?  

 Girls' Camp has come and gone... it was a blast:)  but I'm kind of glad that responsibility is off my shoulders now!  I thought I post pix of the flag at camp.  I ended up making quite a few bunting pieces... So we got to hang them up all over our pavilion.

The backdrop to our amphitheater stage was a banner of each country.  This is the banner that I made.  I tried to make it a little more simple.  I used a towel again... because in Finland it's a very popular past-time to hang out in the sauna.  I used water fabric for the outline of the country because Finland has over 200,000 lakes.  And I put an Angry Bird on our flag because the company that makes Angry Birds is from Finland.

Baby "Shower"

My two youngest sisters-in-law are having babies!!!  Both in September.  One is having a boy and one is having a girl.  I'm super excited to have babies in the family!  And I'm having fun making baby gifts and planning showers!

Shower #1 for baby girl was this past weekend.  I LOVED this idea of a "Shower" themed baby shower.  I pretty much copied what she did, but added a few minor details.... and took out a few.

 Here are my invitations... pictures don't do them justice.  The cloud is a shimmery paper.

 Here is kind of an overall picture of the table set-up.  We had it outside in my sister-in-law's back yard.

 We hung rain cloud (tissue paper pom poms) from the arbor above her patio.

 This umbrella is a vintage umbrella that my grandma had.... It was actually the reason I wanted to do the "shower" themed shower.  The original ruffle was white and was quite dingy.  So, I unpicked the ruffle and attached a new ruffle.  My sister-in-law had made these pink coffee filter poofs for another shower, so we stuck them in the umbrella.

 We made watering can centerpieces and used them to mark the path into the back yard.

I loved this idea of centerpieces out of rain boots.  I borrowed boots from some of my friends that have girls.  They turned out so adorable!!!  We punched the flowers out of solid and patterned papers and had them in varying sizes.  We put buttons in the center.  Then we hot glued them back to back onto the wooden skewers.

 This is what the table looked like when it was the food table.  The Partyland near my home sells sixlets candy in solid super fun colors. I had my mother-in-law put those in cute glass containers.  We had a pasta salad and rolls from Texas Roadhouse:)

I couldn't resist the cute striped straws.  They are so adorable.  I would have had us drink out of mason jars, but we were travelling almost 300 miles for this shower and I didn't want to haul the mason jars in the car.

 Here is the dessert table.  My cute niece made oreo truffles covered in pink candy melts... yummy:)

I made the cupcakes.  I used the same shimmery paper to make the clouds for the cupcakes.  I found the sprinkles and wrappers at Michaels.  ( However I just ordered some super cute striped and animal print cupcake wrappers from Pick Your Plum this morning)

I used this White Texas Sheet Cake recipe for the cupcakes and they were super moist and super delicious!

I think the shower turned out great and we are super excited for baby Jennika to get here:)

4th of July Float

Sometimes I really don't know why I do these things.... why do I spend hours, days creating a float for a 5 minute parade in Kanarraville, UT?  

My cousin, Summer, and I thought it would be fun to do a float for the 4th of July.  Last year we just had the kids decorate their bikes.  This year, we wanted to win!

 Our theme was "Our Founding Fathers are the real Super Heroes."    We used the Cricut to cut out all of the lettering and stars.

 My husband built a frame out of PVC pipe and we used a vinyl table cloth from Walmart for the background.

 I didn't want to do too many dollar store decorations, but, hey, they are cheap.  I thought I'd dress up this bunting a little with tulle tied between.

 These pinwheels were really fun to make.  I got the idea from Style me Pretty.  I used 1.5 sheets of 8.5x11 card stock.  I cut them in half lengthwise and glued 3 pieces together.  Then I accordian folded them and turned them into a circle.  I hot glued the circle in the center, then glued them to wooded dowels.

 The founding fathers pics were super easy.  I used my gathering foot on my sewing machine to gather the crepe paper.  Then I just glued it to the back.   I printed the pics from Wikipedia.  I just used a big X of duct tape to attach them to the trailer and I loved the way it turned out.

 These "bottle rockets" were made from old wrapping paper rolls.  We covered them with wrapping paper.  Then we made paper cones to go on top.  We taped shiny stuff to the bottom and taped them to a wooden dowel.

The kids all dressed up like super heroes... get it???

So, they gave prizes for the best 5... in no particular order!  I say we won:)

Cherry Chocolate Upside Down Cake

I really don't want this to turn into a recipe blog, but I loved this cake soooo much that I had to share it with the world. 

I went to girls camp last week and we had a Cherry Chocolate Upside Down cake in the dutch oven.  It was sooo good that we sent someone up the mountain to get cell phone reception so that we could call and have someone bring up the ingredients to make it again.

So, after I got home, I decided to make it in the slow cooker.  I loved it just as much, if not MORE.  So, here is my improvised slower cooker recipe.  I used a 3 qt. slow cooker, but you could probably double the recipe and use a larger slow cooker.

Cherry Chocolate Upside Down Slow Cooker Cake

Ingredients:

1 chocolate cake mix

1 can cherry pie filling

1/2 plus 1/3 cup apple sauce

(I know it's a weird amount, but that's what it turned out when I halved the recipe.  You could probably just do a full cup?)

2 eggs

3 oz. vanilla pudding (mixed according to package directions)

8 oz. cool whip

Directions:

Line slow cooker with a liner.  (this makes it easier to clean up, but also easier to get the cake out and dump it upside down).  Spray the liner with Pam.  Pour in can of cherry pie filling.  Mix cake mix with apple sauce and eggs.  Pour cake mix over cherry pie filling.  Cook in slow cooker on low for 2.5-3 hours.  Let rest for at least 15 minutes.  Put serving tray over slow cooker and flip cake upside down.  Peel off liner.  Spread vanilla pudding over cake and top with whipped topping.

It is a oooey gooey cake.  So yummy.  Cut and serve and scoop up all of the yummy gooeyness and put it back on top of the individual slices!  We loved this cake served warm... but it is also delicious served cold as left-overs.

I think I'm ready to experiment with other flavors of cake mixes and pie fillings and pudding:)