A Girly 4 Year Old Monster Bash!

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Elaine

It all started with the song….”Calling all the Monsters” by China. My four year old has been in love with that song since Halloween, so when it came time for planning her birthday she said, “I want a Calling All the Monsters Birthday.” I had been imagining rainbows, but how could I resist cute girly monsters. We had a blast and the girls had fun getting things ready for the party! Here’s a sampling of the Monster Fun. I must confess that I love all the fun perfect parties I see all over pinterest and the web, but I do love when the girls can help make things too! My little one made a monster decoration out of a tissue box and the guests entered through the front door and were welcomed by this sign painted by the birthday girl!

The house was set-up with crafts and activities….first were monster headbands so each child could make their own. We hot glued the googly eyes to the pom-poms and pipe cleaners prior to the party. This was perfect for 4 year olds to wrap the pipe cleaner around the headbands! Even the adults thought it was fun.

It was photo booth fun after putting on your monster eyes! The mouths were painted on poster board, cut out and then hot glued to straws.The kids danced, played, and had a blast…..we made playdough monsters, colored and made some necklaces! Of course, we played “Pin the eye on the monster.”

I made the monster birthday cake! I thought it came out great! It was a two layer cake with chocolate covered mini cupcakes for the eyes. The eyelashes were made with semi-sweet chocolate which I piped on parchment and then attached with icing! The teeth were made with piped white chocolate as well.

It wouldn’t be a yenta mamas party without cookies! As a party favor I made monster tote bags and monster cookies! The cookies were made with a 3 inch scallop cutter. Then I piped the monster shape. This was really fun becuase you can’t mess up a monster! I used the Wilton pre-made eyes and piped on some party hats. The kids loved them.

As the kids were leaving they got to take home a monster tote bag. My aunt helped me sew these (maybe the instructions will be on a future blog post)! They had a space for crayons in the monsters mouth and each one was unique. The kids were super excited to take them home and they made a cute decoration. They filled them with some bubbles and cookie:)

We opened presents…hence the sock monkey hat….and enjoyed the cookies!

Hope you enjoy all monster fun as much as we did! -Elaine

Yenta Mamas Go Global … Sort of …

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Elaine

Admittedly best laid plans tend backfire and that’s exactly what happened with this idea I really wanted to do for Teacher Appreciation Week at my daughters’ school. The school is designated as an IB World school, part of the International Baccalaureate Programme and for a while now I wanted to do “thank you” message cookies in different languages. So I knew what I wanted to do, but when the blessed week arrived, my girls were sick! Thankfully they rebounded pretty quickly and I was able to bake the cookies, but … by that time, I was faced with another problem … my comrade in arms, Elaine, who does the icing (while I mix and play with colors) had two sick children on her hands!

Well, what do they say : “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” (Or something like that). So braced with the idea of icing these bad boys myself while Elaine was holed up the Peds office, I dashed off to Wal-Mart and purchased everything I needed … I even found a hot, hot, hot pink food coloring we didn’t have (I can’t say how excited I get over icing colors, Elaine can attest to it, and let me say, this hot pink made me as giddy as a schoolgirl)!

So happy was I was with my purchases, I picked the girls up at school and promptly got to work while they did the balance of their homework. And so here I was, smiling from ear to ear – gushing over the perfection of the piping consistency I had achieved – my euphoric mood brightening even more with that hot, hot, hot pink … sigh …

And then it hit me … I was missing one very key piece of equipment! And though small, it was very important. A coupler, this tiny piece of plastic used to attach and keep the icing tip in place. So now, I think to myself … go back out to Wal-Mart (with two children shooting daggers at me) or try to make due. I telephoned Elaine and we chatted about what to do. In the end, I decided to push the icing tip through the corner of the Zip-Loc, then put the small little icing bag into said Zip-Loc and got to work with my shaky, rather unqualified hand.

The result is below and it isn’t all that pretty … certainly not our best work … but I guess what I have to remember is … it takes a lot of talents to make the world go around and though I’m not sure of mine just yet, I’m confident in one thing: we make a damn good cookie! So, crazy week and lack-luster icing job aside, I can rest comfortably tonight knowing that my daughters’ esteemed teachers will at least have a tasty treat at the Staff Appreciation Luncheon tomorrow! –April

You scream, I scream….

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Elaine

We all scream for ice scream! More Valentine’s Day fun with these cute, and oh, so tasty cookie treats! Don’t you just love the lips on top of the ice cream cones, we do!

Ladies Who Lunch

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Elaine

“Ladies Who Lunch” is women’s luncheon held at Temple Solel in Cardiff-by-the-Sea that benefits our kids’ preschool. We have helped plan this event for the last four years (luckily someone else is in charge this year) and this year we decided to donate cookie favor for each attendee. The colors we used were inspired by Elum Designs beautiful invitation they generously donated! We hope everyone enjoys the event!

Super Bowl Fun

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Elaine

I must admit that I am not much of a football fan! My husband is a Wisconsin Badger fan so I mostly end up watching college football every Saturday. But, give me a reason to make cool cookies and I will watch football any day.

A few of my friends are HUGE Giants fans and we were going to a Super Bowl party, so we decided to mix up some Super Bowl Themed Cookies. It started with our “Super Bowl” message cookie and then we made some footballs and to top it off…some amazing football fields, complete with sidelines of roaring crowds. Enjoy! –EW

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Elaine

“Lions and tigers and bears … oh my …” that’s what we said when a friend of ours asked us to bake some Wizard of Oz cookies! In the end, we decided on a super glitzed out replicas of those iconic ruby red slippers to accent our message cookies, check them out here.

Anger Management

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Elaine

In the spirit of embracing the Angry Birds craze, we baked some not-so-fun-loving cookie replicas of those testy fowls for some not-so-angry nine year olds!

Chanukah O’ Chanukah

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Elaine

Chanukah cookies have always been a tradition in my house. When I was a kid my mom would let us put the sprinkles on them. We made these fun royal iced message cookies and had a good time coming up with something a little different. The favorite was the menorah in the star! –EW

Give Thanks!

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Elaine

“Gobble, Gobble” … That was the word on the street when we gave our friends the “Give Thanks” message cookies. Fall colors are our favorite. The mini leaves and acorns add just the prefect accompaniment.

Soccer Mania

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Elaine

The end of the soccer season brings lots of team pizza parties! Of course, you can’t have a party without dessert. Here are some fun soccer inspired cookies. I can tell you that soccer balls are a HUGE amount of work because they are a) big in real estate (big cookies) and b) They look silly if they are not symmetrical. We were pretty proud of these! The tiaras were for my other daughter’s “Perfect Pink” soccer team! –EW

Yenta Mamas

"A lot of baking, but mostly a lot of kibitzing.” {chatting}

Tag Archives: Cookies