Sunday, May 22, 2011

Sports Party with Soccer Cake and Cupcakes!



My oldest cupcake's 11th birthday was a few days ago and I posted about some memories of her HERE.

She enjoys playing soccer so she decided to have a sports themed party.  We had a family party the day of her actual birthday and then a party with friends the day after her birthday.

We played several games, mostly relay games.
We started the party with the traditional balloon toss game. I didn't take pictures of this game because I was too busy guarding the cooler of balloons to make sure no one took all of them at once :)

Then we played a soccer ball relay game I made up, but it was a little too difficult for the kids to hold the soccer ball and hop at the same time, but it was fun anyway.  Here's my daughter doing this relay:

Then I had the kids hold a racket with a wiffle ball and walk/run down the cone and turn around, run back to their line and then hand the racket and ball to the next person in line:

The next relay game we played was called "Mystery Word Relay":  Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures of this game either, but the idea of the game was to run down to a cup that had circular chocolate that was wrapped in ball patterns (football, basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis). Each chocolate had one letter taped to the back of it.  Each player ran back to their team, placed the chocolate on a small table, then the next person in line ran to pick up another chocolate. When all the pieces were picked up each team had to try to unscramble the letters to spell the answer to the question I gave them at the start of the game. Here's my daughter with a chocolate piece in her hand running back to her team.  We played this relay twice and each game had a different question.

In the first game the 2 teams had to answer this question:  How many players are there on the soccer field during a game (World Cup soccer game).  The answer was E-L-E-V-E-N so the players on each team worked together to get the answer when all the letters were picked up.  The next question I had was:  In 1996 (before most of the kids were born), the Summer Olympics was held in what U.S. city?  So each team had to run and get a piece of chocolate, run back to their team and unscramble the letters taped to the back of the chocolate.  Each team had to spell A-T-L-A-N-T-A.

The next relay game we played was Ball Boy/Girl Relay.  Each team member had to put baseballs, a wiffle ball and softball at the bottom of their shirt and run to cone, turn around, run back to their team and then transfer balls to their next team member.  Here is my daughter being the ball girl as she balances and runs with a shirt full!



The next game is where I volunteered my hubby to be a soccer goal and the kids would use their soccer balls (water balloons) to throw the balloons at the goal :)  Oh, this was fun and the kids loved throwing balloons at him! Thanks honey for being such a good sport! You are one good hubby and Daddy! (and you make a cute soccer goal too!)

We had Tug-of-War next. The girls...
vs. the boys...

My hubby and the boys tried really hard to beat the girls...

But, the girls won this one!

The final game we played was hitting the soccer ball pinata filled with lots of goodies...

And after the pinata was broke open, the kids decided it made for a really cool hat!

After all the fun games, it was time to each hot dogs, chips, and fruit, open presents, and then have yummy soccer cake and cupcakes!  This was the first year that I made my cake from SCRATCH ( I have always made the box mix cakes) and it was the first year I made my own icing!  The cake and icing were so good and it really wasn't too hard to make.  It's going to be difficult to make a box cake again after I tried the homemade cake recipe!
This cake was made with two 8 in. or 9 in. round pans (I don't know what size pans I had). I used green food coloring to dye the cream cheese icing to make it look like the ball was in the grass.  I then took green cake icing in a can and squirted "grass" sprouts over the green icing.  I then put green icing between the two layers of cake.  Then I iced the top layer with the cream cheese icing and used Wilton sparkling black gel to make the pentagon shapes on the ball. The cupcakes were made from a chocolate box mix, homemade cream cheese icing dyed green and then I topped each cupcake with clipart attached to toothpicks that I blogged about HERE.   Here's a close-up:

A good friend of mine gave me THIS yellow cake recipe that I followed.  However, some of the reviews used 4 whole eggs vs. the 8 egg yolks and I used the 4 whole eggs and it turned out great!

My friend also sent me this information about how to make the icing:

The icing is just 2 sticks butter (or 1 stick butter, 1/2 cup shortening) and one pound (box) of powdered sugar.  I mix about a tsp. of vanilla into this and a little milk if it seems to thick.  If you use all butter, it can get pretty soft, so if I am doing decorating with stars I usually use the half shortening half butter kind). This amout is usually plenty enough for a   9x13 pan and a good amount for a round layer cake.  If you are going to need a lot of extra icing for decorating, you might want to do 1.5 times the recipe.

If anybody loves cream cheese icing, you can also do the same recipe but with 1 stick butter and an 8 oz. block of cream cheese.  Same amount of sugar and vanilla.  really good.

For the soccer cake and cupcakes, I made the cream cheese icing with the 1 stick of butter and 8 oz. cream block of cream cheese with sugar and vanilla and it was so good!   I think I have found another great cake and icing recipe!  I did notice that the homemade cake was not only delicious, but was so much easier to ice because it did not crumble like box mixes do sometimes.  



As the party guests left the party they each received a cup of party favors: 
Inside each cup was a bookmark my daughter and I made  for each friend and my daughter signed her name (which is covered up in photo).  Each bookmark says "Kick off the summer with a good book!  Thank you for celebrating my 11th birthday with me!  From your friend, _____  
May 2011

The cups also had stickers inside, silly band rings in the shape of different sports items, and some of the circular chocolates that were wrapped in ball patterns (the same chocolates I used for the Mysery Word Relay game)

It was alot of fun planning this party for my big 11 year old!  Everyone had a great time, including the adults, and making the cake and icing from scratch this year was a treat for everyone, including myself :)  


Please join Lynda, Anna-Marie, and myself at No Ordinary Blog Hop (NOBH).  Click button below for details and to read some great blog posts that have already linked up!



18 comments:

Fantastic birthday party. Very creative games and the kids look like they were having an amazing time:) Love the cake I haven't ever made one from scratch you are making me feel bad for buying store bought cakes;)

Thanks Anna-Marie! It was a fun day with lots of smiles...which is all that matters. I've bought yummy store bought cakes too in the past for some of my children's birthdays since that is what they requested. Those years saved alot of time with party planning for sure :)

Wow - what an amazing party. There was so much organisation went into that! Well done, it looks like you all had a blast.

Mom2Seven said...

Wow, Tracy... just wow! You are such a good mom. You are making wonderful memories for your children. God bless you! +JMJ+

Joy said...

That was an awesome birthday party! Loved the cake and cupcakes! Looks like everyone had a blast!

CHE said...

Looks like a fun time was had by all. I hopped over from NOBH and i'm following you now.
http://kafkatokindergarten.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

What a wonderful way to celebrate your cupcakes birthday. You are really great at organizing, and I l.o.v.e. the cake. You are very talented. Happy Birthday Cupcake #1!!!

Unknown said...

Hi Tracy! Cupcake, what an amazing party! It looks like you had so much fun. I love the sports theme, and I love the bookmark idea. Happy Birthday.
Tracy, you did an amazing job on the party. The relay races were a great idea, and boy do they look fun. The picture of the tug a war game cracked me up. Way to go girls! Oh my goodness, the cake is just too cute. I love the soccer ball, it looks real. I also enjoyed reading about the clip art on the toothpick. I have to keep that in mind the next time I make cupcakes. I am glad to hear that your cake recipe was delicious. Cream cheese frosting is my favorite, as well as the rest of my family. I will have to give that one a try. Thank you so much for sharing Cupcake's special day with us. You did an amazing job and created a wonderful memory for her as well as the rest of your family. Have a wonderful day!

Mary said...

Looks like fun! The cupcakes look fabulous.

This looks like fun, delicious, etc...

HI "Canterbury cakes", Thanks so much for stopping in and posting your comments! It was a fun time! :)

Hi Annita!
Thank you for stopping in and for your kind comments! God bless you too!

HI Joy!
Thank you for visiting and commenting! God bless!

HI "CHE", Thanks for visiting and your comment! It was fun to see all the smiles and life as we celebrated my daughter's life :)

Thank you Lynda! :) Have a blessed day!

Thank you Kimberly for all your kind comments! I hope you get to try the cake/icing recipe out since it is so yummy ! :) Thanks for your visit!

Thanks Mary for stopping in and commenting!

Hi Kim,
Thank you for stopping in to read this special post and for commenting! :)

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