My Little Pony Carnival

Sebastian had an amazing 5th birthday party.  He wanted a My Little Pony Carnival, and how could I say no to him?

Sebastian's favorite pony is Rainbow Dash, so I tried to make it RD heavy. We had a lot of rainbow elements for him.

First, let's talk invitations. I was pressed for time, so I found a great Greeting from Equestria postcard art from The Hub, printed them out and pasted them on different colored card stock.  Next, I found a screen shot from the opening of the show where you can see Ponyville and I added Rainbow Dash's cutie mark to it and wrote the info over the background.  I bought some rainbow ribbon and glued all of it to the inside of the card.  I think I spent $5 on the invitations and about 15 minutes. This was the easy part.

Next, I gave my husband the job of making signs for all the games.  He took the challenge and made fantastic vector art for the party.  We printed out these signs and hung them by the game/area that they represented.

We had lollipops, medals, play dough, water guns, and other fun items that we gave away as party favors.

This was one of my favorite stations.  Who doesn't like blowing bubbles?

My younger sister did an amazing job painting the Everfree Forest on a large cardboard box for this game.  We used beanie bag animals and tossed them into the box for points.

This is probably my favorite sign my husband made.  I love Pinkie Pie and how she breaks the 4th wall. :-D

This was one of the best areas. My younger sister (who is an artiste!) painted cutie marks on a bunch of our faces.  She then let the 5-year-old boys paint her face.  She earned mad street cred after that...

Keeping with the rainbow feel, I found some great ideas at Pinterest for rainbow cupcakes.  I made rainbow cupcakes with rainbow icing.  They tasted great!  As a side note, our oven broke the week before the party and it was a bit nail-biting to see if we were going to have an oven to bake the cupcakes in for the party.  We did.  Whew (and I LOVE love love my new oven.)!

"I'm not giving him cake! I'm ASSAULTING him with cake!"

I had my friend, Laurie, put the icing on the cupcakes. She does a good job making it look so pretty!

We had a great time with our family and friends celebrating Sebastian's 1/2 decade of life.

The games went fast, but it kept the kids (little and big) busy for a few minutes.

Our collection of cutie marks, and poor Emma with her face covered in paint. She is a good sport.

Sebastian has already been thinking about his next birthday, lol.  I think we may have outdone ourselves this year, so I don't know what we will do next year.  We do love parties!!

"I never leave home without my party cannon"

Sebastian's 4th Birthday Cake

I can't believe I forgot to post this one!  In June, we celebrating Sebastian's 4th birthday.  I asked him what he wanted for his cake and he said he wanted a lollipop cake.  Easy!

I made a vanilla cake with buttercream icing and I stuck a ton of lollipops in it, all over the place.  I was feeling stressed out and didn't feel like investing a whole lot of time in decorating his cake, so this is what was made.  It tasted great, and I am sticking with this cake recipe. The cake was delicious and super moist.  It stayed moist for a week too!  It is versatile and can be adapted to a number of different flavors. 

I am still searching for a good icing recipe.  This one was a bit too sweet.  I am still working on it. I like the MM fondant, but it is a lot of work to do all the decorations for a cake that way.  It takes time, and that is something I do not have a whole lot of with two small children in the house.

Decorating Cakes

I love to decorate cakes.  I have a great recipe for marshmallow fondant which is super easy to use and makes cakes looks smooth and beautiful.  Here are the ones I have made over the past few years.

For his 3rd birthday, Sebastian wanted a watermelon cake than he saw on the cover of a magazine.

Sebastian's first birthday cake.  This was HIS slice.

Here is the cake for the rest of the party.

This is one side of a Super Bowl cake I made.

Here is the other side.

Matt's 27th birthday cake. Super Mario FTW

I made this cake for my church choir's picnic

This is my first attempt at making and decorating with marshmallow fondant.

Sebastian's 2nd birthday cake.

I don't remember the story behind this cake besides my sister wanting a cake to eat.

My mom's 50th birthday cake.  I still have bags of those little flowers.  I made millions!

Another Super Bowl cake.