A colorful birthday celebration

My baby girl turned 3 this past Saturday and even though her big party (which of course I'm going over the top for) is this coming Saturday, I had to mark her big day with some fun.

I saw this beautiful rainbow cake on several blogs and Martha Stewart's website and I knew my princess would love it! Turned out to be quite a hit and was actually pretty easy!

To start, I took the easy way out and just bought some white cake mix. I bought two boxes knowing this would be a six layer cake to represent each color of the rainbow.

I made the mix according to the box and then divided it into six bowls, coloring each bowl a different color. I baked them for about 10 minutes, and presto - had my layers!



After letting them cool I made a lemon buttercream frosting and started stacking my cakes, putting a layer of frosting between each layer. I don't recommend this cake if you are watching your sugar, fat or carb intake.



After frosting the entire cake I decorated it with some rainbow sprinkles on top and around the bottom. It looked quite large and exciting!



Slicing it was so beautiful. The cake looked amazing when sliced and looked beautiful on each plate. My beautiful baby girl just loved it.






Happy birthday my darling girl!

The magic of spring....

Every year when springtime rolls around I am still amazed by the beauty of mother nature. This photo is a tree in our backyard that seemed to just bloom overnight and waking up to it was a special treat.



Keeping with the magic of spring time, lollipops are in bloom at the Soares household! We were so excited to wake up this past weekend and find the Easter bunny had paid us a visit.

Our kids had a sleepover so we had extra kids to enjoy the Easter magic.




The kids have been keeping busy enjoying the beautiful weather. They have been riding bikes and even talked me into taking a quick dip into our freezing cold pool!





With Amelia's birthday just days away I have lots of fun crafts and treats planned for her birthday! I've been busy making hanging flower balls, rainbow cakes and Tinkerbell centerpieces. I will be sharing all of those very soon!

Planting Jelly Beans

Easter is finally getting close so what is it time to do....? Plant jelly beans of course! Get them in the ground now so you sprout lollipops by Easter!

If you plant some jelly beans in the ground (or in our case a bucket) and leave it outside, the Easter Bunny will come by and sprinkle some magic on the dirt for the jelly beans to grow into lollipops. My kids had a great time putting the jelly beans into dirt yesterday, they didn't even eat them all!



After the jelly beans were planted we waited....and we were lucky enough to be visited by the Easter Bunny today! We didn't actually see him but know he was here since he pooped jelly beans near the bucket. He also sprinkled some of his magic on the dirt so the lollipops will grow.



Can't wait to see some 'buds' in the near future!

Low Fat Lemon Creme Pie

Wondering what to do with all those beautiful lemons? Well instead of making lemonade, I say make lemon creme pie! Due to my obsession with Pioneer Woman I've had to re-join Weight Watchers to shed a few (10) pounds. This recipe was featured in their Weekly brochure they give you at your weekly meeting. I love a nice lemon pie so I of course ran home and made it right away! For any other Weight Watcher enthusiasts out there - each slice is only 4 points!

The recipe is very simple! Here it is:

6 reduced fat graham crackers
2 tablespoons of butter
11 ounces of non fat sweetened condensed cream
2 eggs
the juice of one lemon
lemon zest of that lemon

That is it! Can you believe it??! And the results are delicious! Here's how to make you own lemon creme pie.

Crush up the graham crackers either in a Cuisinart or by a rolling pin and then mix with the melted 2 tablespoons of butter. Spread it out into your pie pan and set aside.


In a bowl pour the condensed cream and whisk in the two eggs into mixed completely.



Next zest your lemon. When zesting a lemon, stop when you get to the white of the lemon as the white part is bitter. Then roll the lemon gently on your counter to get the juices flowing and juice the lemon into the bowl.



Pour this mixture into the pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.



After the pie cools from the oven, chill it completely in your fridge. I topped mine with some fat free cool whip and strawberries. A great spring or summer treat!!!