Back to back birthdays!

Happy new year dear readers!  December was a very busy month - with 2 birthdays plus an out of the country trip for my family.  Let me start 2014 with a blog post about N and E's birthdays.  N and E are both December babies - which means that on top of preparing for our Christmas travels and presents, I also have to prepare for their school celebration.

N's birthday theme for this year was supposed to be Tangled.  However, Stan took her to watch Frozen in November and she was mesmerized.  She decided to change her theme to Frozen!  I had not seen the movie so I left it to our ever reliable cake maker - Cats of Tazzy Cakes to create a Frozen cake and she did not disappoint!  This is a red velvet cake.

Meanwhile, for the kids' snacks I had to find something that was vegetarian.  N's seatmate, K, was a vegetarian and N wanted him to enjoy her birthday meal.  I decided to go with Gourmet Kids by Indianoy Kitchen.  I gave Nams a budget and this was the menu that she came up with: homemade hidden veggie tomato sauce and spaghetti; vegetarian croquettas; Brownie; mini bite sized burger cookie.

I was actually worried that the kids won't like the vegetarian fare.  Happily, it was a hit! I chatted some of the kids who shared that they enjoyed the spaghetti and croquettas!  More importantly, after missing out on so many birthday snacks,  N's vegetarian seatmate K, was able to enjoy this one!

E's birthday was just before Christmas.  However, we had to schedule his school party a couple of days earlier as it was already Christmas vacation in his school.  Initially, I thought about having a Hi5 theme because E recognized them.  However, even if he had not watched Despicable Me, he became enamored with N's minion gear - which he called BA-NA-NA.  So I gave Cats a challenge -- make a Hi5 x Minion themed cake!  This is what she came up with:

Recognize the Hi5 character? I must say, Cats was a genius! Even Stevie was impressed! ;)  Since E was in a small school (they were only 7 in class), we decided to have a party for all levels (about 30+ kids).  As with N's 2nd birthday, it was a simple party with cake and snacks. 

I had been wondering what to serve the kids.  E's yaya shared that during birthdays, food served usually represented the nationality of the celebrant e.g. Korean, Indian, etc.  So I opted for a Chinese-themed snack and luckily, my mother-in-law agreed to cook E's favorite - misua for his schoolmates.  We also served siomai from Eat Well and an egg tart from Emerald Garden. 

E's Amah plus our helpers had to wake up especially early to prepare his birthday snack.  The misua broth was made from scratch - no cubes or powder.  Plus there were a lot of toppings that had to be prepared, cooked and chopped.  I am all thumbs in the kitchen but I am definitely very glad that Amah stepped up! :)

Phew!  11 more months till the next back-to-back birthdays!  Do you celebrate your kids' birthdays in school?