This year, I decided to do something a little different for Mother's Day. The kids and I picked up 4 clay pots at Wal-mart and spray painted them white. After the paint dried, my husband and I, along with our 3 kids put our thumb prints on each pot making the shape of a caterpillar. I then took a Sharpie marker and wrote "Happy Mother's Day" along the top and 2011 on the back. I drew a little face and legs on the caterpillar thumb prints. Now, I used ink thinking that you would see a better print than using paint, but if I did it again I would use paint. I feel like the ink just doesn't show up as well as paint would have. On the back I had each child put another thumb print which I made into either a face, spider, or butterfly. We then planted a pretty pink geranium in each pot and gave them to two Great-Grandmothers and two Grandmothers (who are also great). Overall it was a fun project for all!

(Sorry for the bad picture - you can barely see the thumb prints! By the way, that big, round thumb print is mine!)

Butterfly Cupcakes

My daughter recently turned three years old and she asked for butterfly cupcakes for her party. It's definitely not the best picture but I was up at 1:00 a.m. putting icing on them. Life right now is very busy and unfortunately, it was the only time I could make them!

I made homemade chocolate cake and buttercream frosting. Using this template I was able to create butterfly wings. I melted large bars of white chocolate in the microwave then put the melted chocolate in a ziploc bag. I placed parchment paper (or you can use wax paper) on top of the template. After snipping the corner of the ziploc bag, I was able to pipe the melted chocolate on the paper. Quickly, sprinkle sugar on the chocolate then allow it to cool. Place wings on frosted cupcake with jelly beans for the body.

The kids were so excited to eat them and had trouble deciding on which color butterfly to eat first. :)

Since we were also celebrating my nephew's birthday I decided to have a "masculine" cupcake available. So, I simply crushed up some chocolate Teddy Grahams and dipped the frosting in it. Then, I topped it off with a gummy worm.

One word of advice...if you do decide to try and make these fun cupcakes be sure your little ones are carefully watched! I turned around for one minute and found my daughter had dumped sugar all over the table. She was then frantically trying to get as much sugar in her mouth as possible!

(This was of course the following morning...not at 1 a.m.!)