Morty the Moose is on the Loose!! Celebrating the boys' birthday

I'm a planner...kinda goes along with being an admitted control freak (yep, it's out now!). Both of our boys' birthdays are in March. Luckily there's three weeks between them (they had other ideas than being born on their due dates which were 3/20 and 3/21) so as they get older having friends over for a small party will not be an issue but for now we do a joint party. Most of our family lives the next state over meaning whatever day we choose will be a big travel day for anyone coming. So I start planning and talking to family and friends who have jobs making it difficult to get time off in Mid to late December for a Mid-March party.

Before I'd gotten my annual ball rolling, I asked Connor randomly what kind of a cake he'd like to have this year for his birthday. He knew right away!! He said he wanted a moose cake. Not Moose A. Moose from Nick Jr, but an actual moose. Okay. . . a moose cake.

Last year he was all about Pirates, and mixed in with the junk mail was a really cute recipe from Parenting Magazine for a Pirate ship cake. It was a huge hit and really easy to do. So I went back to their website hoping they'd have a moose cake. They did, but they were flat sheet cakes looking like Moose A. Moose... Then I came across this ONE. It was a teddy bear.

Confident in my cake building skills ( I don't have ANY), I printed the recipe and began wondering how on earth I was going to make antlers. They'd need to be light enough to stay in the cake but strong enough to hold their own shape. Rice crispy treats? no. Fondant? no. Eh, no biggie. I have plenty of time to figure it out! Cake, CHECK!

On to invitation ideas. . .I've always printed the invitations at home usually finding really nice blank, card stock invitations at a great closeout place by us. Come up with a cute saying which incorporates both child's age and the party and off they go. But this Moose cake, was feeling like it needed a good Moose theme... So I kept my eyes out for cute moose pictures that I could sketch off of, figuring I'd hand draw them.

On a rare shopping trip that I was alone on, I saw a cute magazine which had cupcakes on the front of it. Without really reading the headlines, I snatched it as I checked out of our local store. A few hours later I start flipping through it and I find the cutest Moose I have ever seen!! The template was to be used as a Valentine Goodie bag, but I was able to adapt it to suit my needs. Here's the template.  Invitations, CHECK!

Holy Cow!! I had NO idea what I was getting myself into with these invitations. I used card stock for all of the parts. I sent out 26 invitations. It took me three nights from 8pm until 1am to get them all cut out with an Xacto blade, taped, outlined and ready to go. My hands ached for days, but I think it was worth it! (on the back of the card it read "there's a moose on the loose!! who did deduce, you should join us for a party...maybe even let loose. For Liam will be 2 and Connor will be 4, let's spruce up this caboose, break out the juice, even share some chocolate mousse")

In comes Repeat Crafter Me!! I stumbled across her blog from an Etsy team that we are both a part of and instantly loved everything she blogged about!! One day before St. Patrick's Day she blogged about making Shamrock cupcake toppers and how she didn't need a fancy mold or anything.

TADA!! I can do this to make ANTLERS!!!

Bringing it all together

 The recipe for the cake calls for using something other than cake for the legs. Not knowing how many people I could realistically feed with this cake, I decided to use cake for the legs. I filled two, 8 ounce Ball jars a little more than halfway with cake batter and baked them along side the two halves of the head which were in two small oven proof bowls.

Next I put some of the frosting i was using on the flat spot in the center of the body and placed the bottom half of the head and continued to assemble the head...I did use two wooden skewers to stabilize the head since there were kids around the cake and I didn't want his head falling off!!

Almost done...Right after I took this picture, I realized his ears were making him look too much like a bear so OFF WITH HIS EARS!

Here he is!! Of course his antlers weren't crooked the whole time. Only when I took the picture and didn't even realize it (you know you're trying to do about 50 things at once right now too) until after the party was long over and I looked at the photos...oh well! He's still cute and was DELICIOUS!


 Although usually saved for Christmas, the grown-ups were hard at work figuring out one of the boys new presents and I couldn't resist taking a picture.







When all our friends and family had gone and the house was quiet thanks to sleeping children, I was putsing around the kitchen (making cupcakes for Liam's church party the next day) and I saw the cake...or what was left of it.

what was left...

I think this says a lot about the day!! We are so thankful for having such loving family and friends who would take the time to drive all the way out to see us and were thrilled with being able to spend such a wonderful day together.

Happy Birthday Little Ones!!