Cinco de Mayo 2014

Since we are about as culturally insensitive as they come, we decided to throw a Cinco de Mayo: parte dos party this year. Nothing like a good excuse to eat lots of tacos, make every version of every piñata we can think of and invite lots of friends over to fiesta with us!

We like to fiesta
Paper dot garland tutorial on Oh Happy Day HERE

I tried to make a bunch of cactus piñatas, but after making all the shapes and stuffing them with candy, I realized they were going to take WAAAY too long to decorate the way I wanted them. So my solution was to just throw them all away. Easy fix. Since Joey is a fixer, he decided he was going to decorate them a much more simple way than I wanted. We ended up with a handful of cactii and some coordinating tamales. I was definitely impressed with his ingenuity! // We brought back the kids favorite M&M cake pops.

He made such a good Mexican with his fake stache

Our fun desserts and piñata everything

Even Jack got into the Mexican spirit // The best part about having a Cinco de Mayo party is having everyone bring a salsa or dip to share!

Kenny set the mood with a little 'La Bamba'

It's not a fiesta without the Jarritos...although I had to add a few Goyas for color since I couldn't find an actual Mexican supply store // piñata cones

Feelin' it

My round piñata cake actually worked this year! Woot!
Tutorial on a Subtle Revelry HERE
I recommend overcooking the cake a bit, using a pound cake recipe and not thinning out the inner hole too big in order to make it sturdier so it doesn't collapse like mine did last year!!

A few of us girls

Still so proud of my cake that didn't crumble this year

Kenny and a couple buddies on the tramp

Taco station

Fiesta like there's no mañana

Our Cinco De Mayo party was a BLAST! We packed our little place full of friends and other families who made it all the merrier and were a hoot getting into the totally and completely politically incorrect festivities with us. Pinterest was definitely a lifesaver since I only had a few days to pull this party together.

The photo props and mustaches were a hit with everyone. I didn't get any group pictures, so I'll have to try to steal one from someone else who did.

Ahhh, the cake pops. Not a part of the plan until my first attempt at a piñata cake literally crumbled to pieces at one am the morning of the party. {Piece of crap pinterest tutorial that I swear doesn't really work...another story for later}. Anyway after letting loose a long stream of mormon curse words and chucking half the cake at the wall, I used the other half of the cake crumbles to make M&M cake pops which were DELICIOUS and adorable. So in the end I guess it was all meant to be.

Recycled dot garland from the St. Patrick's Day rainbow party and the piñata cake design I came up with that was actually good and worked {still cursing rotten scam pinterest tutorials}.

Mexican flag veggie and cheese tray {pinterest success, but really, how can you screw up a veggie tray?!}

Taco bites {delish} and individual piñata cups for everybody {took forever to make, but one of my favorite features of the party}.

I decided about 2 am that we needed mini key lime pies to go with our fiesta. They turned out surprisingly good.

What's a Mexican fiesta without Jarritos soda?! Izzy is the coolest friend ever for driving all over Miami to find a Mexican store that sells these. Totally made the party awesome. My cinnamon twist cupcakes were delish. I bought a churro maker for the party, but ran out of time and lazily used these cinnamon twist sticks I bought at Costco for the topping. I am totally addicted to them now.

Fiesta time!

Viva Meh-hee-co!!

Homemade salsa bar

Kenny was SOOO excited to have his best friend, Dylan there

More salsa Bar

Ellie busting open some piñata cups

These two definitely know how to keep a party going

SURPRISE! M&Ms in the middle of the piñata cake. Ellie was surprised and excited about it!

My favorite part of the party was the salsa bar. We had each family make some homemade salsa for everyone to try. Ellie hit up the salsa bar for Joey's guac. She's his biggest fan. 

Toy Story Birthday

We had Ken's Buzz Lightyear birthday party on Saturday at our house. It was pretty much the coolest birthday party ever and we all had a blast, especially Ken!

Since I have so much free time I thought it would be fun to make Ken this masterpiece. It was my first time using fondant, but I was so happy with the way it turned out and Ken loved it. (Joey Comment: Amber seriously made this cake and she made it all the way from the brown fence to the very shaped moon. She stayed up until 5am finishing it, two nights in a row and some how managed to study, do clinicals, etc... I only say this because I think some may doubt.)

I posted a million pictures of it because it took me 12 hours to make, lived for about 5 hours, and was destroyed in about 2 minutes. Totally worth it for the look on Ken's and the other kids' faces.

I was particularly pleased with how the moon turned out.

Joe and Ellie just hanging out at the party

The bounce house was a hit and the kids were so entertained I didn't have to try to come up with games to entertain them. Genius.

Ken had a perm-a-grin all day!

King of the slide!

Ken and Rebeca had to sit by each other at the head of their table to eat their pizza.

I love this picture of Elizabeth with my mama. Grandma was very excited because it was her first time to ever play in a bounce house!

Getting everyone gathered around for some pinata action

Collecting the goods. You can tell these kids are still only 3-4 because it took them like 15 minutes to finally get all the prizes and candy off the ground.

Ken was quite proud of his cake

Blowing out the candles...I'm not sure if Ken was actually the one to blow it out or the one of the 7 other kids trying to blow it out before he could.

Joey Comment: one of the cool things was that we had the bounce house for the whole day. So, before the party Ken and I bounced to our delight. Then after the party Amber, Ken, Ada (Amber's friend from Anesthesia school), and myself bounced for hours again. We had a great time and I loved being a kid again!