Let's Skip the Drama!

Oh, how I wish I could! It's been one thing after another. You'd think since I "stay at home," I'd have a pretty drama-free lifestyle and it would be easy... NOT! *Sigh*

Well, Marissa's party (she turned 5 a week ago) is almost here. And then there's Super Bowl... gotta love it all. At least Marissa's party should be ok. I found the cutest sprinkles for her cupcakes, and a wonderful person donated the use of a Scooby-Doo cake pan (by Wilton). This was almost impossible to find, unless I wanted to pay a small fortune on e-Bay. I looked everywhere... and this particular character was retired two years ago. And so... he was hard to find.

In case you didn't already figure it out... Marissa loves Scooby-Doo. And so... we are having Scooby-Doo party favors, Scooby-Doo cupcakes (with Fun-Fetti cake, a Scooby-Doo ring as the centerpiece and "bone" sprinkles), and a Scooby-Doo cake (French Vanilla). All this at the world famous Chuck E. Cheese! Yep. That's where she wanted her party. She hasn't had one since her first birthday, which (of course) wasn't her choice. Unfortunately, C.E.C. is way expensive. But... they should still have a blast.

For Jr. (he turned 21 the day before Marissa turned 5), I'll make some lemon (his fave) cupcakes to take so he won't be left out of the birthday bandwagon. Renee... well... we'll just have to wait and do something for her. Her birthday is the day after Valentine's.

So... all of the kids' birthdays will be done by the middle of the month. YAY! For Stacy and Rey, we just did small birthday dinners at my mom's and Stacy had a couple of friends over for that wii party I wrote about before. Simple. Inexpensive (homemade pizza). Stacy even did the clean up. Loved it!

The whole idea for C.E.C. was to have as little cleanup as possible... yeah right. Like that's gonna happen. And so... guess what I'll be doing tomorrow? That's right! Cleaning. Yay...

Ever the procrastinator, I will be finishing the cakes (that's if I even start them tonight) and making a total of 5 cards for Saturday (4 birthday and one baby shower). Yep... that's me... wait until the last possible minute. However, at least I'm ahead of the game this time. I designed everything on my Gypsy. YAY! Should make for a quicker put-together time.

I was in the mood for Chinese/Thai today, so my family got the results of that craving. Fried rice (Jasmine rice makes the best fried rice... so aromatic!) with ham, bacon, chicken, broccoli, carrots and a homemade Thai sauce (fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, white pepper, sugar [I know Ellen... you are doing the sugar-free thing... I can't do it!], and lime juice) with scallions and cilantro. I believe it was quite good. There is a trick to getting the perfect fried rice. The rice needs to be dried out, so it is better if it is several days old. Drizzle oil over the rice and work your fingers through it to separate each grain. Yummy goodness!

Whelp... time to go... I should never have been here... I'll try to post pictures of the cakes later. Ta ta for now!