Large family birthdays—3 to be exact!!!

This past week we celebrated 3 birthdays!!!  It is the only month that we have so many celebrations within a couple of days.

We started out by making treats to take to church for Valentines Day.  We went with something that we enjoy making a few times a year.  Popcorn balls.  You can make a lot for little effort and they taste very good.  We have made this successfully with children of all ages for our girls group at church and we did it, with our younger group and it wasn’t too messy.  Most of the time they got their “blob” and just licked their fingers!!!

You can click here for complete step by step instructions.

Up next, we celebrated Madelyn’s 4th birthday.  She was our “red-head” born on Valentines Day.

We always let the birthday person choose their favorite dessert or cake.  Madelyn went with what else?? Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

She really wanted a princess dress for her birthday, but since they were like $35 for a flimsy one at Walmart, I passed on it.  We instead went to the Goodwill and found this “looks like a princess” style dress.  They also had the matching crown, found all of this for $4.  That was a deal and she can wear it out.     

The chocolate frosting was messy, she licked an awful lot of it.  We were having guests over, so I made sure to keep a separate plate for them and kept a “child-made” plate. 

Everyone wanted to get into the fun. Who can resist chocolate??

Here the birthday girl was all dressed up and ready for celebrating.

It is hard to believe how fast time flies.  I can’t believe that my life has gotten so much easier over the last few years. I would have never imagined being able to do the “extra” things that I do like my blog and going out on dates with my husband.  All the weary mothers out their who don’t get to do anything, I was you.  It seemed, I would never have a chance to breathe again, but it came.  In time it will.The other person who had a birthday was Lauren.  She turned 17 this year.  This year was much quieter than last years birthday where we had a big 16th birthday party for her.  Which I am glad that we got to do before we left Michigan.  This year Lauren and I got to go out alone to the Winter Jam concert.  That was way fun!! We got to see Family Force 5, Skillet, Jeremy Camp, Building 429, Veridia, and Blanca.  It was so great to be worshiping with 14, 000 other believers.  We took along some new friends from church and had a great time. Who said that Christians can’t have fun??

Since we did the concert, we decided to have our cakes on Madelyn’s birthday party.  That way, when we had guests over, we could have a variety of cakes.

Lauren’s favorite is chocolate eclair cake.  You can view here how we make it.  This is her absolute favorite.  Our old neighbor gave us this one time for Christmas and it quickly became a favorite in the family.

We also celebrated my birthday.  I decided to go with something different this year for a cake and I wanted to try pineapple upside down cake.  I had Jadyn make it and she did an excellent job. Click here to see step by step instructions on making this cake.  It was super easy and looks great for presentation.

So delicious, I am thankful that everyone liked this, otherwise I would have been eating most all of it myself!!!

We went and chose a Mexican buffet for dinner.  It was an easy thing to make and then it allows everyone to pick their favorite toppings for nachos.

Good fun, family times.  We get a little break before the next ones.  Have a blessed weekend.