Birthday Retrospective Part 2: Elmo Takes Over

I had so much fun planning Gavin's first birthday, that I decided to do it up big again when my little guy turned two.  Why is it that all two year olds have a love affair with Elmo?  I sincerely hope that whoever created the character Elmo is a millionaire and is sipping margaritas on a warm beach somewhere.  What a genius.

The inspiration for this party, beyond Gavin's two year old obsession with the furry red guy, were these.  Have you checked out Bakerella's blog yet?  Is she not a baking genius?  In my dreams I am as genius and talented as her.  (Seriously.  I just took a huge timeout from writing this post to marvel at her latest creation.)  Anyway, once I saw her Elmo cakepops, I decided we had to have an Elmo birthday party.  It was more than a little brave of me to make Elmo as my first cakepops.

Birthday Retrospective Part 1: A Very Giraffey Birthday

This time of year is always really hard for me.  The anniversary of my mom's death so close to Christmas, a holiday she did BIG, feels like a big weight hanging on me.  But, I was given a gift when my mom died.  Gavin.  Just hours before my mom left this world, Gavin came in to it.  Both events rocked my world and changed it forever in very different ways.  And without a doubt, Gavin's birthday makes this time of year so much easier.  This perhaps explains why I do his birthday so big every year.  It's partly a distraction  . . . making cake pops and over the top favor bags, and partly a huge celebration of my beautiful little gift and the fact that we are still going forward.  So, as I plan the celebration of his fourth year of life, I thought it would be fun to show off some of his past birthday parties.

Year one was Giraffes.  And the inspiration for this party came from this.

Pine cone Birdfeeders

Do you remember doing these as a kid?  I do, and it turns out this is a pretty decent Saturday activity for an active three year old.  I just did a Google search and picked the first recipe I came across, but they are really all the same.  Okay!  First step.  Collecting the pine cones.

The Most Amazing Sugar Cookies

These are some of the greatest sugar cookies ever.  For real.  They taste delicious, they aren't difficult to make, they bake SUPER well without losing their shape, and they are fat free!  (Okay, maybe not the last one.)  Anytime I make these, they are a hit, and I get recipe requests.  I made these for Gavin's first, second, and third birthdays based on age and theme. This batch was made in gratitude for someone who did something amazingly generous for me (and I'm posting on Thanksgiving!!)

Easy Applesauce

So after the Turkey Disaster of '11, I decided to do something that I was fairly certain I couldn't screw up . . . Applesauce!!  (Besides, we had a lot of apples left from apple picking.) This is the recipe that we like for applesauce.  Mainly because it's yummy and really simple.

Gobble Gobble Fail.

For my very first creative post, I was super pumped to make these timely Thanksgiving Turkey Pop treats.

Welcome!

To be honest, I have no idea where the idea to start a blog came from.  I know that it involved planning my son's birthday party, dreamsicles (more on that to come), and lunch with my cousin.  The end result was this blog, Wine and Glue (so fitting that the start of this blog came from sipping cocktails and talking crafts).  My hope is that it is a lot of sass, and a little bit of everything else - projects with my kiddos, baked goods, goofy crafts, and delicious things I make for dinner.  More than anything else, this is for my own fun.  I LOVE making crafty shit (which was a proposed title for this blog), and I have a borderline narcissistic personality.  So really, this should be perfect.