Take 2 dozen assorted donuts, stack them up on a cake plate, add a candle…simple as that! You have a donut cake that easily impresses your friends. The small donuts scattered on the table are stickers that I ran out on my inkjet and used a circle punch to punch out and stick on the plastic table cloth. I made some extra stickers to put in the goodie bags. 

Notice the Krispie Kreme donut hat Alex is wearing… I found these on ebay - 16 for $4, including shipping! Each kid got one of these too.

These graphics were found at: http://www.lharboe.deviantart.com/gallery/

I also used the graphics to make I {heart} Donuts stickers that went in the goodie bags.

Keeping with the theme of  “donut shop” I decorated this chaulkboard advertising “today’s specials”.

 The treat bags were just plain white paper bags with a sticker of the “Alex’s Donut Shop” logo printed on it. Inside the bags was a Cutie orange, I {heart} donuts stickers, small donut stickers and a small package of donuts with the logo sticker
(see below).

Small packages of donuts with an “Alex’s Donut Shop” logo sticker. I bought the donuts at Walmart (12 packages for $3). These were in the goodie bags and also went to school with Alex to celebrate with her classmates.

I designed and printed out these water bottle labels on my inkjet. I used 2 donuts stacked on top of one another to make an “8″ since it was her 8th birthday. Just measure around the bottle to get the correct length; make it the height you desire and use double stick tape to attach.

 I also used the same pink donut graphic (found online) and made danglers and large donut cut outs to tape to the walls.

Close-up of the donut cake.

We played the donut game. Tie a donut to a string, attached string something, in this case I used my clothesline, have the kids try to eat the donut without using their hands. It’s funny watching the kids do this. They were all laughing when it was all finished and wanted to play again…but we were out of donuts! There was 16 kids lined up the length of the clothesline.

The invitation I designed using the pink donut graphics.

Here’s a tea party invitation I designed for a friend’s daughter to celebrate her 8th birthday. I used actual tea bags, just emptied the tea out and replaced with confetti.

So, Alex wants a donut party for her 8th birthday. Below are some donut cake ideas I came across while brainstorming for the party…

1. beautyandbedlem.com; 2. donutking.com; 3. found on flickr.com; 4. cupcakes topped with minidonuts by justjennrecipes.com; 5. found on flickr.com; 6. found on photobucket by freemommy33

More ideas and my planning to come for Alex’s party in 2 weeks!

New Year’s Resolutions are out! One Word is in! Resolutions are too vague. I read this in church today: one-third of us who make a “resolution” for the new year dump it within 2 weeks and 50% of the rest say “forget about it” within 2 months. Besides, you can start a diet any day of the week. Instead, think about this: choose ONE WORD that would describe your focus…your mantra…your aspiration for the coming year. Let that word be your focus. Last year I chose “BE” as in “just be in the moment”. Like with chocolate, sometimes I won and sometimes I didn’t, but ultimately when I lost sight of it I focused on that one word. Be.

This year I have chosen ”Faith”. Who can’t use a little faith? As my blog name would suggest…Faith everything will work itself out. Faith in the future. Faith in the Bible (which I am still reading). 

What’s your word?

If you would like to read more about this idea check out Ali Edwards’ blog at http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/2009/12/my-one-little-word-story.html. She started this a few years ago and you can check out her past words too.

Glenn had to put a stop to a little boy calling the house for Alex last night. He had been calling for the last 3 days, 2-3 times each day! And, they’re only 7 years old. I saw into my future at that moment. Glenn told the boy that 8 p.m. was too late to be calling. The boy claimed his parents knew he was calling. Things that make me think “what the…?” Anyway, Glenn took care of it. Alex was upset but she got over it. Alex also had her first cavity filled yesterday. She was so upset that she had a cavity and then she was scared silly about it. But she was brave and once the laughing gas took affect she was good to go. She even told me she wanted some of the gas to-go.  We’ve been busy making homemade Christmas gifts. I will share those later this weekend, but for now here is a layout I did of Parker sitting on Santa’s lap at daycare and also an easy candy recipe that I got from Taste of Home magazine.

My Ni Hao! Kai Lan party ideas with be featured on The Creative Place http://creativepartyplace.com/ blog on Monday! Go check it out. There is lots of fun party ideas for every occasion.

Every year when one of my two daughters turn another year older I design a scrapbook layout celebrating them. I like to list their likes and dislikes, such as fav color, fav food, non-fav food, fav tv shows, nickname…just fun things about them. This layout is purely digital except for the hand print of my daughter who just turned three years old. After receiving the digital print back from Winkflash I painted up Parker’s hand with white acrylic paint and stamped her hand print onto green cardstock. After it dried I cut it out and taped it to the layout then framed it. I have 2 frames that hang in the entryway of our home that I rotate layouts featuring my daughters.

My Sister’s Keeper.
by Jodi Picoult

Yes, it is also a movie starring Cameron Diaz (love her). No, I haven’t seen the movie. Somehow, like most books I read that get turned into a movie, the book seems to get lost in translation (think Memoirs of a Geisha). So I imagine this one will too. Although I admit I probably won’t be able to resist and watch it when it is out on DVD. The book is deep in emotion. It’s about the choices we make for others, in this case our children, thinking it is the right thing to do when we could be really, really wrong. Beautifully written. The topic of the book is heavy and the ending I never saw coming…so have the tissue nearby.

PS It’s snowing here again in Denver. 8.5 inches so far on my back porch. Thank goodness it’s Sunday and me and the girls can hangout in our pjs all day! Alex woke up with a low-grade fever…just great!

Parker is getting creative holding her sucker between her toes!