Thanksgiving dinner!

mmmmmmmm..... there is nothing like a good turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. 

Ask my husband about my thoughts on other meats. It's not pretty!

So, I knew that for my first year of hosting Kindergarten Thanksgiving dinner (for parents too) I needed to do something fun. 

The year before, I had been given Hello, Cupcake! from a co-worker and knew there were some great options in there...but no turkey! :(

I did a little googling and found something that I had ingredients on hand to make (I mean really...they're 5 and 6 year olds...they wouldn't know the difference! ;) 

(It *was* actually an awesome way to get rid of the surplus Halloween candy that was reaching its second week of calling to me from the bowl!)

So, the first picture shows ideas from the book: 

corn (jellybellies, dark green sugar for the pepper and a pad of starburst 'butter)

peas 'n carrots (quartered orange starbursts and green sixlets)

mashed potatoes with gravy (frosting, pumpkin flavored ice cream syrup - I had to go seasonal!)

and a drumstick (white chocolate painted bones, a mini reese's cup, underneath piled frosting and ground - smushed - golden crisps)

Next is the turkey idea I found on the internet and my own creation. 

On the right is the turkey idea: a plate of Thanksgiving dinner (a cookie plate, frosting taters, nonpariel peas, ground golden crisps dressing, and the coup de grace is a split cashew turkey with gravy!)

Then on the left was my own creation. I had too much green frosting... and a plethora of sour apple air heads from halloween that would never get eaten in my house. NEVER. 

So, I made some green bean casserole. :-D

They were a hit with the kids and the parents and I had a blast creating them all!

Oh yeah! I just remembered that I made the cupcakes all different flavors too!

One was cranberry, one was pumpkin spice....and the third was....gingerbread maybe? Hmmm...that was a while ago ;)

Varied assortment

These next cakes ... well ... I'm just not sure when I made them. I know the house I made them in, so I know they were all within a year and a half period...but that's not too helpful...

Anyway, this first one was made for one of my 5th grade music classes. They were a little depressed that the other 5th graders got to do a lot of special things (math comps, regional science fair, etc.) and they got nothing. So, since they were one of my better classes, I decided to have a celebration with cake of their awesomeness. 

I remember making the school's logo the morning of (procrastinate much?) and using a toothpick to dab on fluffy frosting to make the words. Seriously. I'm not too fond of the giant slab of fondant I just slapped on the fluffy frosting though.... but all in all, it was fun. I even had the inside layers in red and blue (school colors.)

Next is a cake a coworker asked me to make for her sons' birthdays. They were having a knight theme and she had seen my previous dragon cake and asked if I could do something for them. This was the first paid cake ever :) WOOHOO! 

It was fun to make but also had the same problem of differently shaped pans. But you already saw that, didn't you? ;)

Lastly was a fun cake! Our friend's birthday was coming up and we asked her about her favorite flavor of cake. She told us that her mom made her a koolaid cake once. That's right. Flavored cake! 

My friend and I decided this was a great time to bust out the checkered pan and make three different flavors: Cherry, Orange, and Grape. 

Well... we probably shouldn't have used the entire packet in only a third of the cake batter. It was tangy. Really tangy. But everyone was nice and ate it anyway :)

Will be posting more from the past in the morning!