New Year's Eve Party Ideas with Kids

I love New Year's Eve.  It is a stress-free holiday and it is lots of fun.  We always celebrate at 9 p.m. with the East Coast.  We start the evening with some good food.  I love doing a bunch of appetizers on New Year's Eve.

I also decorate our Christmas tree as a New Year's Tree.  I take down all the ornaments and add party hats, noise makers, balloons, etc.  I have three balloons with a piece of paper inside with an activity for the kids to do.  This past year one was put together a puzzle, another was to paint, and another was to play a candy bar game (kind of like a white elephant).

We then always love to light a few fireworks and then come inside and do the countdown and toast with Martinelli's cider. 

Minnie Mouse Party

My daughter loves Minnie Mouse, so we had a small party with my parents on her birthday to celebrate.  My mom is an excellent cake decorator, so she helped me out.  She had this  Mickey Mouse cake pan where he is wearing a party hat.  To make it look like Minnie, we cut off his party hat and made it look like a bow and then we just looked at a picture of Minnie Mouse when we frosted it. You could also always piece the cake together by backing two 9x12 cakes and cutting out with a pattern you draw or find online.  We also did pink and white cupcakes.  



Frosting Recipe:
4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup softened butter
1 tsp vanilla

We made a cute birthday banner using sparkly pink and black paper and placing stickers on each pennant, spelling out "Happy Birthday."  We punched holes in the pennants and strung with Minnie Mouse ribbon.  In between the pennants we placed pictures of my daughter and hung with small cloths pins. 

How to Make Your Own Soap

My son is a lego-maniac, so naturally this past year he wanted to lego party.  I found this cool lego mold (they even have the lego figure molds).  I used the mold to make chocolates to go on top of the cupcakes, which unfortunately melted in the summer heat.  So keep the chocolate cool if you are going to be having an outdoor party in the heat! 

 

 I decided to make lego soap as a party favor because I had a big block of glycerin soap to use and I had the lego mold.  

 

Making the soap is easy.  You simply cut off a piece of soap from the block and slowly melt in the microwave.  Stirring after one minute and then about every 30 seconds or so.  You can then add soap dye to color the soap and then add a fragrance oil if you so desire.  You mix the dye and fragrance in the melted soap and then pour into your mold and let set.  That's it!  Super easy and a fun party favor or gift for a friend! Below you can see the lego soap we handed out to his friends. 

Race Car Birthday Party

My son wanted a race car birthday party this year. I had to put it together quickly, since my husband was going to be out of town when I was planning the party so I just had a couple of days to plan since there was no way my son was going to have the party AFTER his birthday without driving me insane asking about the party every five minutes.

I found tons of great ideas on this site here. We ended up keeping it simple. I had a breakfast party and I made the cake out of a stack of donuts that looked like race car tires served with fruit, bacon, and juice. The kids painted their own wood race cars and played pin the car on the race track. I planned on setting the table up like a race track and using these adorable road cones for cups, but since the party was earlier than planned they weren't delivered in time.


For his birthday cake that night, he had a race car cake. He loved it! It was super simple, too.

Race Car Track Cake:



Supplies Needed:
-One package OREO cookies
-One cake mix
-Frosting (see below)
-Coconut
-Green food coloring
-Car for top of cake
-Toothpicks
-Construction paper

Frosting:
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 tsp vanilla

I made one cake mix and then baked in two round cake pans. I cut the top of the cake off to make flat and flipped cakes over onto a piece of cardboard I covered with aluminum foil. I frosted the cake. I untwisted all of the Oreo cookies and the side without the cream I put in the food processor and crushed into a fine powder. I then poured it around the perimeter of the cake to look like the road. I then placed the Oreos with cream around the side of the cake to look like tires. I then dyed the coconut green and placed in the center of the cake to look like grass. I then took a spoonful of frosting and put it in a bag and piped it in lines to look like the dashed lines of the road.

Next, I cut out three triangles out of construction paper and taped to a toothpick and placed them by the road. I then found a checkered image online and put my son's name over it and printed it out to look like a race banner. I put a toothpick on each side of the banner to hold it up.

Ladybug Birthday Party

We had a ladybug birthday party for my daughter this past weekend. I was terrible at taking pictures, so I don't have as many as I would have liked to but I thought I'd pass along some of the ideas.

The Invite:
Below is the invitation to her party. I just found a fun lady bug image I liked online and a fun black and white poka dot image online as well. I created the invite in Photoshop Elements and had the invites printed at Wal-Mart as 4"x6" photos.

Display:
We were going to have the party outside on our patio but we had been finishing up planting a flower bed in time for the party and didn't even think about the smell that comes with fresh dirt. Our back yard basically smelled like a barnyard so we moved the party inside. I had a picture of the bday girl in a black frame and a vase of red flowers to go along with the red and black lady bug theme. I had red plates and cups and black utensils and napkins. I had a red and black balloon. I made a banner using black yarn and small clothes pins with pictures of her each month of her first year. The birthday girl was also wearing a cute little lady bug shirt. I had a lady bug costume, but she wasn't feeling well that day so I didn't want to put her in anything uncomfortable.



The Food:
I served these adorable ladybug cracker appetizers. I made this delicious Southwest pasta salad and had some bread to go along with it. I had a tray of strawberries with a dip which is made out of a 8 ounce container of strawberry cream cheese and 8 oz of marshmallow cream. For dessert we had cupcakes. I used a yellow cake mix and added zest from one lemon to it and then I frosted it with this lemon frosting. I made lady bug toppers to put on top using the same lady bug image I used on my invites. I printed twelve of the images to a page and printed them and cut them out in a circle shape. I then cut red card stock in a slightly larger circle and glued the ladybug cutout to the red piece. I then taped a toothpick to the back and stuck in the cupcake. They turned out really cute and were delicious. We served with some delicious Breyer's vanilla ice cream.

Photo credit: Taste of Home