Birthday festivities.

We celebrated Buckwheat's birthday not once but TWICE this weekend. We party hard around here, I guess.

Sunday was his actual birthday so of course we needed cake. Rainbow Chip frosting is the bomb so I went with that. By the way, Pinterest says to make your box cakes taste professional, substitute milk for water, add an extra egg and substitute twice as much melted butter for the oil. I tried it out and it sure made that cake RICH! Delish.

Yesterday, we threw together a combined birthday for Dill and Buckwheat. Dill is turning 30 this year and isn't too thrilled about it -- I'm not sure why since I've made it abundantly clear that 30 is still quite youthful to me and besides, he's one step closer to becoming a silver fox.

Anyway the second shindig was a Mario party. I'm not too big on themes since I've been known to suffer PTSD after assembling themed parties, but I did want to take a stab at these 1-up and power-up mushroom cupcakes. I think they turned out pretty swell!

I thought about making my own marshmallow fondant for the spots, but then realized I planned to cut the fondant spots the same diameter as an actual mini-marshmallow. So instead of wasting time on the fondant, I just used some kitchen shears to snip those little 'mallows down. Et voila. So easy.

The icing was just a regular ol' buttercream with about a gagillion drops of food coloring per batch. Anyone who ate one  of these cupcakes may experience a bowel movement of a unique color today. I believe it's nothing to be concerned about.

We all wore our Mario shirts for the occasion. We're big gamers around here. My parents gave us our first game console -- a Super Nintendo -- when I was 6 years old. Dill pretty much came out the womb with a controller in hand. Same with our kids.

They don't really make Mario shirts for little dudes, so I whipped Buckwheat's up in about 10 minutes with some fabric pens. He was diggin' it.

See? His love for Mario runs deep. These two are inseparable.

And what's a Mario party without some Mariokart racing? I personally prefer the old skool Super Mariokart but the Wii version is fun too.

My twinner came all the way from Oregon to see us. How lucky, since he's currently in the throes of optometry school and managed to get away for a quick family visit. He's also a camera aficionado so he's been educating me on my new DSLR. He takes really great pictures.

Birthday Boy #2 got a French Silk pie from Village Inn, his absolute favorite. There was also a lemon meringue, but both were inhaled before I could snap a picture. Oh well!

The best part of any party is the people who show up. I didn't get everybody, but here's a sampling of the guests:

My sister Sarah and her husband, Jason ...

 My Papa and my parents's little dog, Bisky. He was protecting her from the ruffians.

Dill's brother Scott, his wife, Rochelle and daughter, Hailey ...



My fabulous parents, who hosted both parties in their beautiful (big) home ...

And of course, Big Sister Bubby (who loves little Bisky to pieces).