Food Fun Family

What’s Your Lobster-Worthy Moment?

Lolli — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 18:14:22 +0000

This post is sponsored by Red Lobster, but all thoughts, opinions, and #LobsterWorthy moments are my own.

How do you like to celebrate your family’s happy moments….birthdays, good grades, a promotion, etc? I admit – I love celebrating even the smallest achievements with dinner at a favorite restaurant. You don’t have to twist my arm to find an excuse to eat out!

Lobster-worthy celebrations come in all shapes and sizes…and we’ve had a ton of them this month!

My daughter and I decided to celebrate one of those moments – her 13th birthday – with lunch out at Red Lobster. Everything about the day was perfection – from the time we had together, one-on-one, to the sunshine, to the excellent smiling service that we received, to the delicious food that we ate.

Reese, my new 13-year-old, ordered clam chowder (one of my favorites!) and shrimp Caesar salad with a Shirley Temple to drink (her latest obsession!). I ordered the wood-fire grilled shrimp tacos with rice pilaf. We shared a classic shrimp cocktail to start.

And who can forget Red Lobster’s famous cheesy biscuits? Those things are to-die-for delicious! They are a highlight of any meal at Red Lobster, big or small.

No, I’m not sharing these!

A Mom-and-Me Birthday Tradition

When I was little, my mom started a birthday tradition with her kids. Every birthday, she would pick us up from school and take us out to lunch – just the two of us. I loved those mom-daughter dates so much that I decided to continue them with my own children.

Every birthday, I pick my kids up from school, if their birthday lands on a school day, and treat them to a lunch together. Their choice. When their birthday lands on the weekend or a holiday we just escape together whenever we can (my oldest was born on Christmas Eve, so she definitely got the short end of the stick on this tradition!).

No matter how big or small your special moments are, you can make them even better by celebrating them at Red Lobster.

How do you enjoy celebrating your lobster-worthy moments?

Share your lobster-worthy moment on social media and include the hashtag #lobsterworthycontest. When you share, you’ll be entered to win some pretty cool prizes throughout Red Lobster’s Lobsterfest campaign.

How To Throw An Epic Doctor Who Party for Kids

Lolli — Tue, 26 May 2015 17:36:54 +0000

Before my youngest turned 10 last week, he declared that he wanted a Doctor Who themed birthday party. Now, throwing parties is not my thing. Parties take a whole lot out of me, and so I try to avoid being a party host as much as possible. But AJ is my youngest and he’s definitely had the least number of birthday parties over the years…and not just because he has had the fewest birthdays.

My little Doctor in front of the TARDIS “welcome” door before his party. PS – apparently, Doctors don’t need shoes.

So I said he could have his Doctor Who themed party. We made TARDIS invitations (I simply found an image of a TARDIS online and added his info in the windows and blue “boxes”) and sent them off to all of his friends.

As much as the party exhausted me (I crashed in my room as soon as everyone left), we had a blast and I wouldn’t mind throwing another Doctor Who party sometime…in the future. Even his friends who had never seen Doctor Who enjoyed the party!

Doctor Who Party Games

We played 4 Doctor Who themed games: Doctor Who BINGO, Blink-Don’t Blink (a Weeping Angels version of Red Light-Green Light), TARDIS piñata, and Pin the Face on Cassandra. Amazon has some really cute and affordable Doctor Who mini figures to give out as prizes or as party favors.

Doctor Who BINGO

Doctor Who BINGO was a great way to get the party rolling, especially for the kids that didn’t know all of their Doctor Who lingo. I made up several BINGO boards and printed them off for each of the kids and then had a bag full of the “master” pictures. Because I love to share, I’m including the BINGO game boards here to download. Just print them off and use them for your own Doctor Who party of game night with friends. Use as many of the boards as you need, but be sure to print off the 2 master image sheets so that the “caller” can choose the square to call out.

Note: I printed my game boards off on white card stock paper.

Also needed: pennies or other small objects to mark each square as it’s called out.

Blink-Don’t Blink

Blink-Don’t Blink is best played outside, or in a room with lots of space. One child (leader) stands alone and the rest of the kids (the Weeping Angels) stand in a line at least 20 feet away. When the leader has his back turned, the Weeping Angels can walk or run towards the leader, but when the leader turns around to face the other kids, they must freeze. If the leader catches another child moving, they have to return to the start line. Game continues until one of the runners has tagged the leader.

ALTERNATE GAME PLAY: If a “Weeping Angel” is caught moving, then he/she replaces the first child as leader. The leader can either be “out” or join the rest of the runners trying the catch the leader.

Doctor Who Piñata

My daughter custom-made our TARDIS piñata using balloons covered in newspaper and watered-down glue (she’s a very talented piñata maker!). We filled it with candy and toys and hung it from a tree outside. And then we blind folded the kids and let them go crazy. I made sure that I backed WAY up…

NOTE: I found a few TARDIS piñatas on Etsy if you’re not up to making one yourself.

Pin the Face on Cassandra

I love this version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey! I started by giving each child a blank piece of paper and instructed them to each draw a face. We had some pretty creative faces!

We taped a large piece of paper onto the wall (cut like Cassandra) and drew a circle where her face should go. Each child took a turn being blind-folded. I spun each kids around 3 times, and they tried to tape their face as close to the circle on Cassandra as possible. The kids had a blast “directing” their friends towards Cassandra!

Gallifrey Cake

I was planning on making a TARDIS sheet cake, but after having such success with the blue zebra cake I made for his actual birthday, I decided to make a Gallifrey Cake using the same method.

I colored white cake mix orange, yellow, and brown and layered the colors in two round cake pans. I covered the entire cake in homemade whipped cream and yellow and orange sprinkles, and then wrote a few Gallifreyan symbols on top (someone asked if it spelled out AJ’s name in Gallifreyan, and NO I am not fluent in Gallifreyan, so those are just random letters…).

Adipose Marshmallows

I thought it would be fun to make a few Adipose with Jumbo Marshmallows for the bodies and mini marshmallows for the arms and legs…and it WAS fun!

I had no idea how popular they’d be, though! More kids ate Adipose than cake and ice cream. We had to throw a few more together in the middle of the party. Luckily, they’re super simple to put together. I used edible frosting cement to “glue” the arms and legs onto the body and then drew the eyes and face on with a small tube of black frosting.

For a fun display, we sat the Adipose around a cupcake holder.

We also served Time Lord Soda (Sprite mixed with blue Gatorade) and P-P-Pizza. I was originally planning on serving the traditional fish fingers and custard, but I ran out of steam and worried that 10 year olds wouldn’t eat it, anyway.

There was SO much more we could have done, but we only had 2 hours of party time. I think I’ll have to save the rest of my ideas for the next party…

Our Last Double Digits Birthday #PSF Give Me Your Best Shot

Lolli — Fri, 22 May 2015 01:35:12 +0000

Monday was quite a milestone birthday in our family. My youngest – my baby boy – turned 10. A double digits birthday. That means that all of us are double digits (and by default, I guess that makes us old!).

AJ has never been much of a fan of traditional toys…so when he made a birthday wish list earlier this month, he wished for things like balloons and a new sonic screwdriver and a Doctor Who keychain. Honestly, I had a blast shopping for his presents – partly because I’ve gone into my local Hot Topic so many times that they know me as “The Blogger Who Met the Avengers.” Yes, when I walk in the store, they know who I am. I guess I’ve reached celebrity status – last time I was in the store, shortly after my press trip to LA where I interviewed the cast of the Avengers and got my picture taken in between Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans, they took a picture of me to post on their internal employee website. My picture and story got over 80 likes (which is apparently a lot). How cool is that?

AJ’s birthday was so much fun….but a little on the crazy side. I took on a little too much. Between taking him out to lunch (our birthday tradition) to shopping for dinner and cake and ice cream to making a labor-intensive dinner (chicken pot pie) and an even MORE labor-intensive birthday cake (see the directions here)…I was completely exhausted by the end of the night.

But he ended the day happy and that’s all that matters, right?

Oh…and I got to eat 4 days of leftover birthday cake. Bonus.

What have you been up to this week? Now it’s time for YOU to show me your best shots from this past week. Link up below and have a fantastic weekend!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

To play Give Me Your Best Shot – Photo Story Friday, check this. Copy this code into your post and sign the link list:
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How To Make a 3-Color Zebra Cake

Lolli — Tue, 19 May 2015 19:01:30 +0000

A few years ago, my oldest daughter taught me how to make zebra cakes. I was shocked at how easy they were to make but mostly how brilliantly fun the presentation was. Yesterday, when my birthday boy asked for a chocolate and vanilla cake, I immediately thought of making a zebra cake…but because I was feeling slightly over-zealous, I decided to add an extra color to the mix.

Just a little note of explanation: my first layer went just fine, but I ran low on white cake for the second layer, since I had colored half of it blue. Long story short…my second layer is mostly chocolate. Next time I will use 3 cake mixes (2 white cakes and one chocolate) and use the left over batter to make some cupcakes.

5.0 from 2 reviews

How To Make a 3-Color Zebra Cake

Prep time

1 hour

Cook time

35 mins

Total time

1 hour 35 mins

This cake is easy to put together but it does take some time, making many small layers one at a time. The effort is well worth it in the end. The presentation is gorgeous - vibrant and fun and festive! If you don't like chocolate cake or if you'd rather have different colors, simply use 3 white cake mixes and color 2 of the mixes different colors (a red white and blue cake would be fun, don't you think?).

Author: Lolli

Ingredients

1 chocolate cake mix, mixed according to package directions
1 white cake mix, mixed according to package directions
1 white cake mix, mixed according to package directions PLUS gel food coloring (see note below)

Instructions

Mix each cake mix in a separate bowl. Add gel food coloring to one of the bowls of white cake mix until you've got a color you're happy with (I highly recommend using gel food coloring instead of the typical liquid drops).
Lightly grease and flour 2 round cake pans. Working on one pan at a time, pour about 2 spoonfuls of chocolate batter (I use about ⅛ of a cup) into the middle of the pan.
Pour another few spoonfuls of white cake mix directly on top of the chocolate batter.
Pour a few spoonfuls of colored batter directly on top of the white batter.
Repeat until pan is ⅔ full. Note: the batter will probably look pretty "messy" as you keep layering scoops on top of each other. Don't worry. Just keep adding batter on top of the last scoop you put down. It's especially fun for kids to see the swirls appear inside the baked cake!
Bake cakes according to package directions (I cooked mine at 350° for about 35 minutes).
Let cakes cool on a wire rack before removing from pans. If cakes have a rounded top, use a bread knife to carefully slice the rounded top off. You can eat the extra cake.
When cool, loosen sides of cake with a bread knife and carefully turn it out onto a plate. Repeat with second cake.
To add frosting, generously spread frosting on top of bottom layer. Place second layer on top. Spread frosting over top layer and then along the sides until cake is completely covered.
Note: I used homemade whipped cream to top this cake. See recipe below. If you prefer buttercream frosting, I highly recommend this frosting recipe. If you use whipped cream, be sure to refrigerate leftover cake.

Where to buy GEL FOOD COLORING

Recipe for whipped cream topping:

Homemade whipped cream couldn’t be easier! And it tastes so much better than store bought whipped cream and is much lighter than using buttercream frosting (not that there’s anything wrong with a homemade buttercream frosting…).

For best results, use a chilled bowl and beaters.

2 cups whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar (or more to taste)

2 teaspoons vanilla

Whip cream, sugar, and vanilla in a deep bowl with hand beaters on high until desired thickness. Be sure to lick the beaters…

As you can tell, I also added blue sprinkles to the whipped cream for a fun and colorful touch.

Everyone loves the chocolate-white-and-blue cake!

A 14th Birthday, an Oreo Cake, and a Flashback #PSF

Lolli — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 03:11:56 +0000

It’s kind of hard to believe that my baby #3 just turned 14 this past week. Although…considering the fact that he has grown so much in this past year that he’s towering over me and even taller than his dad, I suppose it should surprise me that much.

It’s also pretty hard to believe that when I suggested to him the night before he turned 14 that he come upstairs and recreate a picture to took right before his 9th birthday, he headed right upstairs and took the picture willingly.

This year is the year of the Rubik’s Cube. Since T has recently mastered the Rubik’s Cube (I think his current record for solving it is 1 minute 13 seconds) we decided that he needed a bigger challenge, so for his birthday, he got a 2×2, 3×3, 4×4, 5×5, and a pyramid cube.

He has already figured out how to solve all of them.

Now he’s just trying to cut his time down.

It was a happy 14th birthday. A happy, full birthday.

Oh, and we had Oreo cake. It might have been the best store-bought birthday cake any of us have ever eaten. We devoured it.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

An InLinkz Link-up

Everyone Deserves a Special Day #PartyReddi

Lolli — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 00:14:35 +0000

Birthdays are pretty frequent occurrence at our house, with 7 birthdays in 7 different months. I was excited participate in the Reddi-wip #PartyReddi campaign, because who doesn’t love an excuse to celebrate a birthday? Although I have been compensated, all opinions are my own.

No matter if we’re celebrating a first birthday or a 40th (ahem…my 40th birthday is in a few weeks!), every birthday boy and girl deserves special treatment on their special day. Even when they have more than a few birthdays under their belt…

Last month, when the family was driving back across the country towards home after our 6-week-long road trip, my husband turned 43. Because we were literally on our last stretch back home, we couldn’t buy a cake and I didn’t even have a chance to wrap any presents. By the time we pulled into our neighborhood, we were all too wiped out to even sing happy birthday. The next morning, we woke up early to start a new school year, and we’ve been moving at a fast pace ever since. His birthday was passed over and I have been feeling horrible about it.

So this week, we did a birthday do-over. Everyone deserves a special day…even if it’s not on their special day.

Birthdays in our house always include a cake. They start out with presents in the morning, lots of picture opps, and they usually include a meal out. When the kids have a birthday on a school day, I pick them up for a lunch date, just the two of us. I think I enjoy our birthday dates just as much as they do (my kids birthdays are pretty big days in MY life, after all!).

I wanted to make sure that we didn’t forget our August birthday, so I started making some plans. When I was doing my grocery shopping at Walmart this week, I ordered a cake from the bakery and was thrilled to learn that the Walmart bakery offers free smash cakes with a $14.98 bakery purchase. Although smash cakes are traditionally a 1st birthday thing, I thought it would be fun to have a little smash cake just for the birthday boy, even if he wasn’t up for shoving his face in the cake.

To make the birthday celebration even more special, I picked up some Reddi-wip whipped cream and some fresh strawberries. I love adding fresh berries to cakes, and Walmart makes it so easy to get extra party supplies and foods since they’re all in the same place. No need to run all over town to pick up the bakery items, the balloons, the wrapping paper, and the grocery items at different stops.

Make party prep easy with these items at Walmart:

Smash Cakes: Walmart has free smash cakes with a $14.98 bakery minimum purchase. It can be any combination of cakes, cupcakes, and cupcake cakes.
Angel Food Cake: Angel Food cake is one of my favorite types of cake. It’s light and sweet, and perfect when topped with strawberries and whipped cream.

Helium Balloons: Walmart fills Latex balloons for 50 cents (per balloon). Walmart also sells Mylar balloons at various prices (filled for free).
Reddi-wip: Cake is always better with whipped cream! Walmart is offering a $1 off of 2 Reddi-wip cans with this coupon.

How do you celebrate birthdays in your family? Do you go all out and plan a big party or do you keep it quiet and simple and bring the party to your house?

Necco’s Birthday – a Little Delayed #PSF

Lolli — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 22:58:31 +0000

I remember sharing a family picture from Necco’s 15th birthday – nearly a month ago now! – on Facebook. But apparently the month of June really WAS so crazy that I neglected to “officially” post about her special day.

And considering how infrequently I show up in pictures with my kids, it would really be a tragedy to NOT post these shots.

I am so lucky to be Necco’s mother. She is talented and kind and so much fun to be around. I love seeing how much she has matured over the last year, and I have so much fun spending time with her.

What have you been up to this week? Surviving the heat and the craziness of summer? Be sure to link up your posts below!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

To play Give Me Your Best Photo Story Friday, check this. Copy this code into your post and sign the link list:
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Night at the National Theater – West Side Story #WW

Lolli — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 03:57:04 +0000

It has been a LONG day, but WHAT a night! my just-turning 15-year-old daughter and I just got back home from an AMAZING night at the National Theater, where West Side Story just opened.

The music, the dancing – Wow!

It was an amazing way to spend a night out together, just the two of us.

Have you ever seen West Side Story on stage? What a show!

Can you tell which picture was taken with my new Samsung NX300??

Are you playing along with Wordless Wednesday, too?

An InLinkz Link-up

Birthday Surprise #WW

Lolli — Wed, 21 May 2014 02:26:51 +0000

My youngest son turned 9 this past Sunday. His presents were well-received (Although…after a late night wedding on Saturday, I was hoping to sleep in. Instead I was awakened as soon as the sun came up, Christmas-morning-style). His cake was yummy…and he didn’t even mind having the wrong number of candles (and recycled 11th birthday candles, to top it off).

We took our traditional behind-the-birthday-cake family picture (two, actually. One with me, one with our “other” daughter) –>

But the biggest smiles of the day came when a few of his favorite missionaries, who have all since moved away, came to wish him a happy birthday. It was the best birthday surprise a 9-year-old could have asked for.

At least THIS nine-year-old!

Do you have a Wordless Wednesday post this week? Link up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Bounce U: The Ultimate Birthday Party!

Lolli — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 15:54:19 +0000

We were invited by our local Bounce U location to celebrate my daughter’s 11th birthday with a few friends. Although the party was complimentary, all thoughts, opinions, and photos are my own.

I’m not much of a party-planning person. I love the idea of celebrating each of my five kids’ birthdays, but the thought of planning a party (and everything that goes in to running a successful party) stresses me out. So when Bounce U contacted me about hosting a party at one of their nearby locations – just weeks before my youngest daughter turned 11 – I couldn’t believe my luck!

My kids have attended Bounce U parties before and the response is always that Bounce U is the ULTIMATE birthday party location. Reese was beyond excited when I told her that she could invite a dozen of her friends to her very own Bounce U party this year.

Not only were we able to book a party for her, but we were able to get the special Cosmic Bounce (where they turn out the lights and turn ON the black lights. They gave each of the kids glow necklaces (I brought a few extras from the dollar store) and everyone glowed! It was a fun dimension to their party, for sure – perfect for a group of giggling 11-year-old girls!

(It might be a little harder than usual to catch pictures during Cosmic Bounce, but I can assure you – it is WILD and crazy-fun!)

Here are just a few of the amazing benefits of throwing your own party at Bounce U:

• The kids have an absolute blast and wear themselves out with physical activity that does include tearing your house apart. Climbing, bouncing, sliding, balls, games, you name it!

• Bounce U party pros run the whole party for you, from gathering presents and coats at the beginning through getting on the equipment and bouncing with the kids to scooping out the ice cream and serving the kids. They even loaded all of the presents into my car at the end.

• No clean up or set up. No messy house. No chocolate cake ground into my living room carpet.

• Bounce U will get everything for you – from decorations to pizza for the kids and grown up food for the parents. And goody bags (and these are goody bags that kids actually want!).

• A stress-free birthday party experience for everyone.

• Bounce U goes beyond birthdays. The fun includes Parent’s Night Out (drop the kids off for some supervised fun!), Open Bounce, camps, fund raisers, team parties, and more.

(Our party started out with a safety video and an energetic introduction from our party pros)

We were extremely impressed with the helpfulness and patience of the two party pros that helped with our party. They took pictures through the entire party which they played during pizza and cake time in the party room (the pictures are also available for purchase on a disk so you don’t even have to worry about taking pictures if you don’t want to).

I noticed quite a bit of 11-year-old flirting with the male party pro (mostly in the form of hitting him with the blow up hammer) and he didn’t even blink and eye. What a great sport! he didn’t even miss a beat.

We opted to bring our own cupcakes and ice cream, but you can also order cake or cupcakes and ice cream from Bounce U before your party and they’ll have it ready for you on party day. I just loved that I didn’t have to run back and forth serving cake, scooping ice cream, or pouring drink refills. We really could just sit back and relax and ENJOY the party.

Our party pros scooped ice cream while they helped the birthday girl decorate the cupcake tower (which they had!) and insert all 30-something candles. I never would have braved lighting all of those candles, but they were awesome!

And, no, she didn’t blow them all out in one breath!

Have you ever been to a birthday party at Bounce U? What are your favorite kind of kid birthday parties?

Find a Bounce U location near you!