Harry Potter Birthay Celebration

Missing Harry Potter? 

We are! We went to Universal last fall and we are halfway through the audio books this summer!  Our kids are all fans and we have a couple weeks of mellow, well, mellow for us anyway, so we are going to celebrate Harry Potter's birthday! July 31st is a Monday this year so we will be doing a bit of it during the day while hubby is at work and the biggest Potter fan is at football camp.  

I've got a scavenger hunt for after lunch. 

I just picked up some horcrux and other Harry Potter inspired items. Some we already had, it doesn't have to be expensive! 

A plastic snake, a goblet, an old book, a necklace, a wand, a piece of silvery fabric left over from a project, I really like the little plastic animals because our little one loves them. You can find a  Badger, Griffin, or a Raven. I found a little tri wizard cup, a lavender unicorn horn, Nevil will probably need help finding his toad a few times, and the bones of an Acromantula. 

We do some harder clues and some that are easier because we have a bit of age range for our Potter fans. 

I don't love butterbeer to drink because it's too sweet. This year we are either going to make butter beer fudge or butterbeer caramel corn, I will be winging that, if it turns out I will share :) 

After visiting the 3 Broomsticks at Universal Studios and having THE best roasted chicken ever, seriously the best, I am pretty sure we can do something like that with baby potatoes that is easy enough for our middles to do a lot of the work, they love to help!  We also have an owl muffin pan and they can make some corn bread or something in them. 

I will pick up some dry ice for the table and goodies for snack mix to make for movie watching! 

Here are some other things we have done in the past, none are to hard! 

What do you do to celebrate?

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Gold & Pink Party Inspiration

Usually this time of year is full of Birthday planning. But being in a smaller place and we weren't sure if we would be here or in the middle of moving etc. We decided to do things super simple this year. We are having a joint party for our oldest 2, their birthdays are 1 day apart. We rented the local swimming pool and I am getting a Costco cake. It's really whats best for us this year but makes me a little sad. I wanted to do a pink and gold party. I don't like gold that much but I love it on party supplies!! Just sharing some ideas I had floating around and some great sources for cute stuff!

I have a feeling I won't be so eager to do Gold and Pink next year. 

I always start with decorations, stuff like a banner or picture.

This DIY one is nice and basic

This one is more my style. I prefer less straight lines and more whimsy

But THIS is my favvvvvorite!

And outfits, ahh soo many!

Everything from over the top to super casual and super adorable

Supplies, things like silverware, napkins, think of everything you can do with some gold glitter!
And SO many cute treats and cakes!

Sad that we probably won't get to make this one happen, but if your little girl loves gold or pink and glitter, check out my Pinterest board  HERE for all of these links and more :)

Can't wait to see where we are for next years birthday parties! I feel like I am running out of themed parties for these big kids, they are growing so fast!

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National BIRD day AND National Whipped Cream day?!

EEK, I really didn't want to share EVERY National Day. So I had to decide between these 2 for January 5th!

For the Birds! 

I think our poor birds are probably starving out there, I have been bad and haven't been keeping up on the feeders. So first we need to make some kind of fun craft that will also feed these poor birds!

You could go all extreme like they did HERE and make one of these!

Or keep it a little bit more simple and do the old PB in a pine cone rolled in birdseed.

Or the in between like these

And I love birds, more so than bird food, there are some SWEET coloring pages

You could make snack time "bird food" with some apples, dried cranberries or raisins, sunflower seed kernels and if your REAL adventurous, you could make these. I don't know if I could, I get kinda nauseous just looking at the Jello Worms from Theidearoom.net!

The kids would love it though!  I will probably go a little easier and make these for dinner

these little pasta "nests" are adorable! And they come this way, here is a package of them 

I will probably make a meatball "egg" for their little nests!

And if its a day I feel like making a treat these are adorable and a pretty basic shape

Whooo's going to celebrate National Bird Day?

If birds aren't your thing, maybe Angry Birds are?

Or Owls? They're birds too!

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January 3rd, National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day!

Yes, in case you didn't know January 3rd is National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day!

What are you doing to celebrate? I had no idea this holiday existed, or honestly, WHY it does. But whatever, I am a big fan of everyday being a celebration, so I am hoping to share some more of these strange but fun National "Holidays" and some fun treats or crafts or both!

So the obvious would be to make some chocolate covered cherries with/for the kids! The image above has the details from here.

But there are also SO many other ways you could celebrate!

Easiest way? These

And I just found cherry MnM's yesterday at the grocery store!

These look amazing!

Chocolate covered cherry whoopie pies!!

And a coloring page, cause who doesn't love a free coloring page?!

And if your still wanting to celebrate after the kids are in bed..

Chocolate Covered Cherry Martini!

Find the recipe HERE!

And January 4th is National Spaghetti Day. I did some fun stuff for that last year.. check it out here

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Ready For A Giveaway?! My Memories Suite!

It's about that time, when most of us that don't home school are sending our little loves off to school! I know some of you have been in school for a month already, I can't even imagine that! So now that 2 of our 3 will be in school at least part of the day, I am sure I will have a little more free time. Not too much but enough to enjoy some quiet time creating with MyMemoriesSuite! And now one of you can too!

I am so excited for the winner, this program is great! It is a Digital Scrapbooking program but as you can see here and here, it is SO much more than that!

I am taking full advantage of all the great things I can create easily and quickly. It's been a great helper already, making the everyday a little special. Working on some party printables too!

Still working on it, but I love the sweet shapes and colors that are included!

Soo if you want to enter, here are the details!

Entries start now, and will end Thursday at noon PT.

To enter, you must

1. Be a follower of Cupcakes, Kisses 'n' Crumbs, or tell me if you are already

2. Check out MyMemories.com and tell me what your favorite FREE download is.

1 entry for these 2

And if you want some extra entries (1 entry each)

1.Become a fan of Cupcakes, Kisses 'n' Crumbs on FACEBOOK or tell me you are

2. Visit Mymemories.com and tell me what you favorite (free or not) download is

3. Become a fan of Mymemories on FACEBOOK or tell me you are

Please leave 1 comment for each entry, and if your email address is not easy to find, please leave it in the comments!

I will announce the winner Thursday evening!

Good Luck!

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It's almost FOOTBALL time!

And there is all kinds of football goodness in blogland!

I haven't made much in the past just some mini cupcakes and some PB Pretzel Truffles

The Ducks first game is this Saturday and I haven't decided what to make yet!

If they were for me, I would make these

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But hubby is not a fan of whoopie pies (crazy!)

I'm thinking I will take the easy route and make a batch of these

But instead of making circles, I will just dump it all on a sheet pan and cut them once

they are cooled with my mini football cookie cutter.

There are soo many cute things!

Brownies

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And if you are outta time, Little Debbie has these

Those would never fly here though!

There is more than just sweets too. These little cracker appetizer things are adorable

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Football meatloaf?! So smart. I would probably make mini ones,

 they cook faster and who doesn't love mini stuff!

Celebrations.com has pretty much anything football you could imagine!

These Pigskins in Blankets are easy too!

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I will probably make hubby's favorite finger food too. I can't find any pictures online of it,

and I have never taken a picture.. but I will!

It's 1 can of crescent rolls

cream cheese (softened)

pepperoni slices

First you unroll the crescent rolls, but you want to keep them in 2's or 4's and pinch the seems back together, then spread the square (or rectangle) with cream cheese, leaving a little edge without cream cheese.

cover cream cheese in pepperoni slices

roll it up tight with parchment paper or freezer paper

put it in the freezer to firm up (it cuts SO much easier that way)

repeat with rest of crescent rolls

then take the firmed rolls out

Cut into 1/4-1/2" slices

place on baking sheet and bake according to the package.

YUM!

You can add olives too if you like them that way.

You don't really taste the cream cheese, I think it just helps bind and keeps them moist!

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