Winter Toddler Birthday~Flurries of Fun!

Why are there tons more "cute" parties for girls than boys?? It seems like the blogosphere is flooded with adorable girl parties...boys parties not so much! Well, Spaceships and Laserbeams are on a mission to change that! They are a collective ETSY design group that has the most adorable printable party packs!! They only do collections for boys - or "non-frilly" girls~they are a no princess zone. All of their illustrations are 100% original and drawn by hand, they won't be found anywhere else. What is extra cool on top of their great products ~ they donate 5% of all sales to the YMCA Strong Kids campaign -- to help young boys grow in to strong young men.

Stephanie of Spaceships and Moonbeams sent me this wonderful dessert table. As a mother of a 2 year old, she wanted a healthier option "sweets" table for toddlers.

Here is the breakdown of "sweets" in her words (my words are in italics) : Snowmen - I originally saw a version of these guys in Canadian Living magazine. Basically, I put one bocconcini ball (that's cheese in case you didn't know~I had to look it up lol) on the bottom and cut another in half to use as the mid-section and head. The arms are stick pretzels. The nose is the end of a carrot. The hat is about a 1/4 of a radish. They're fastened together using two sharp toothpicks, one through all three cheese balls and one through the radish and into the cheese. (It should go without saying that the toothpick should be removed before giving to the little one.)

Winter Crisp - This is a fruit cup combination of baked apples, blueberries and blackberries. For the crisp part, I wanted something quick, as I find I have no time these days. I crushed some pretzels, a little butter and brown sugar. The salty and sweet taste awesome together. But if I actually had some in the house, I would have probably just crumbled some granola bars and put it on the top.

Snowflake Pudding - This is actually a homemade rice pudding made from a recipe I found in a toddler cookbook. Doesn't taste too bad either - which is good as the mom of any toddler knows you will be eating what he/she doesn't. (This is so true!!!)

"No cake" cake pops - Instead of cake and chocolate, I wanted to offer up a high protein concoction. As two year olds don't exactly have the most complex palette, I mixed peanut butter (no peanut allergy issues with my son and his close friends) with graham crumbs, formed them into balls, piped on a tiny bit of white chocolate and popped these in the fridge to get nice and firm. But a safer option, if there is any question of allergies, would be almond or soy butter. And for an even healthier base you could crush one of your child's favorite cereals and use it instead of the graham crumbs.

Vegan cupcakes - I've been wanting to try my hand a vegan baking for a while. A very good friend of mine owns Goodness Bakeshop and kindly supplied this recipe. It was an easy way to try something (vegan baking) that felt intimidating. Here's the link to the recipe: http://www.goodnessbakeshop.com/2010/11/winter-goodness.html

Thanks Stephanie for submitting this wonderful party. Check out their awesome stylish DIY printable boy party supplies at http://www.etsy.com/shop/spaceshipslaserbeams.

I will be featuring boy parties the rest of the week gearing up for the AFC Championship game on Sunday-not that football is just for the boys!!! So if you have some wonderful boy parties that haven't been all over blogland send it my way!