Saturday Birthday Party

We hosted our one year olds first birthday party yesterday. All the food was allergy friendly and free of milk, eggs, peanuts, treenuts and soy (with the exception of one cookie, which contained soy). Here is our menu:

Cake (I used Duncan Hines yellow cake mix and used Ener-G egg replacer, the frosting was homemade here is the link to the recipe:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/White-Cake-Frosting-I/Detail.aspx)
Tortilla chips and salsa from Aldi and Tribe GarlicHummus
Blackberry muffins (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Cinnamon bread (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Chocolate Sugar Cookies http://www.foodallergymama.com/2011/02/02/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-chocolate-sugar-cookies-and-a-food-allergy-cooking-show-today/
Gingersnaps http://www.foodallergymama.com/2010/11/29/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-gingersnaps/
Soda, water and lemonade

The party was very inexpensive to host (I think I spent less than $30 for an allergy friendly party, including food, invitations, paper products and favors for the kids)

For favors I wanted to do something consumable and I did not want candy. So I decided to do washcloths and soap. I purchased hanmade soaps from Brown Bag Bath Bars on etsy. She made me robot soaps for the boys and castle soaps for the girls. For the washcloths I purchased princess castle washcloths from KBExquisites on etsy. My mom made robot washcloths for the boys.

Overall the food went over great- especially with the kids who loved the cookies (and J who decided that after the party he would eat the icing off the leftover cake.)

Throwing an Allergy-Friendly Birthday Party

I have been throwing allergy-friendly birthday parties for a few years now, and since I cook allergy-friendly every day planning for me is now not such a big deal, but the first allergy-friendly party I threw really stressed me out and took a lot of planning. Here are some tips to throwing an allergy friendly party without all the stress:

* Plan ahead- allergy-friendly parties are much harder to throw without some planning ahead since you can't just pick-up and serve just anything. Obviously with food allergies most bakeries are a big no-no, but there are plenty of cake mixes out there that you can use that cater to food allergies. Betty Crocker now makes a gluten free cake mix and Duncan Hines make some varieties that are milk/egg/peanut/treenut/soy free. Check your labels you may be very plesantly suprised! I also make my cake a few days ahead (unfrosted) and freeze it. I do this for two reasons, first it is easier to frost when frozen and second is is one less thing for me to do the night before the party.

*Make it easy on yourself- I have done parties with big menus and I just end-up stressing out and having tons of leftovers. Pre-prepared foods are great, Whole Foods has a vegan section of prepared foods. You can also find lots of chips (and sometimes pretzels) that are allergy-friendly. We love to serve tortilla chips with salsa.

*Don't forget about fruits and veggies- you can always serve a fruit and veggie tray, which is very allergy friendly and healthy! If you cannot have the dips that are usually served an alternative for veggie dipping is hummus (unless you are allergic to sesame).

My Mr. T will be turning one on Thursday and we will be throwing him an allergy-friendly party on Saturday. I will be posting about the party menu later on.

My Fisher Price House Party

My House Party was a success! We had four other moms (and two dads!) and eleven kids (all the kids were seven months to four years old) so it was a crazy and loud party! I held the party at 4:00, so I provided snacks (all allergy friendly) the menu was cut up fruit (apples, bananas and cantelope), sugar cookies (milk, egg and nut free- recipe is on my recipe page) and Food Allergy Mama's Spiced Apple Bundt cake (http://www.foodallergymama.com/2010/09/10/dairy-and-egg-and-nut-free-spiced-apple-bundt-cake/). Fisher Price sent me five toys to keep which included Laugh and Learn Learing Kitchern, Lil' Zoomers Spinnin' Sounds Speedway, Laugh and Learn Learn to Move Music Station, Go Baby Go Stride to Ride Dino and Stack 'n Supruse Blocks Musical Croc Block Wagon. The toys that we were given for the party were geared towards ages 6-18 months, but my two older children (2 1/2 and 4) loved them all and still play with them, especially the Lil' Zoomers Spinnin' Sounds Speedway. I think that this toy was the biggest hit. It is a race track that you can race two little cars on. This entertained every kid at the party and even my 7 month old can operate it! we all had a great time. Thanks Fisher Price!

Suprise Party!!

Well I have been a bit busy lately throwing my husband a suprise party for his 30th birthday. I started thinking about throwing him a party a couple of months ago and for the last couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of party planning and shopping and I managed to pull off a huge suprise! Here is how I pulled it off. I set-up a golf outting for my husband (John) with the father of my son's best friend from church. Meanwhile, I finished cleaning up the house and set-up everything. I had stored some of the food at my sister and mom's house and in my freezer and my gift/craft area. Since I could not manage to make a lot of my food the day before and hide it from my husband my mom and sister helped with some of the food prep and brought it a couple hours prior to the party. Most of the guests were able to arrive before my husband and they all parked across the street (most people thought it was strange that I told them to park that close to the house, but our neighbors have parties almost every weekend so I thought he would not notice (and he didn't). When he finished playing golf (which he did earlier than I expected) I sent him to the store to pick up some things for "dinner". While John was the the store his friend called him (while he was sitting on my deck) and asked John if he wanted to do something after dinner. He called me to ask if it was okay and then asked if he could ask him to come over for dinner. Of course I said that was fine (since he was already at my house for dinner!) and my hubby called his friend back. I called John back and talked to him until he was about five minutes from home. We all got ready for him and when he walked in I could tell he had no idea it was coming- it took him a couple of minutes to process everything. Somehow I managed to pull it off!

As for the menu most of it was egg, milk, soy and nut free. Here is what we had:

Hamburgers and Hot Dogs (with milk, egg, soy and nut free buns)

Homemade salsa and tortilla chips (and cheese dip which had milk)

Pretzels and Chips

Pasta salad (I made plain pasta without egg and used italian dressing that was free of our allergens)

Three Bean Casserole

Mixed Salad

Chocolate and yellow cakes (I could not eat either since I used store bought icing which is milk, egg and nut free, but not soy free- I did not have the time to make homemade icing)

Yeah I am Going to be the Host of a Fisher Price House Party!!

I know this does not relate to food allergies, but my sister and I both applied for a Fisher Price House Party a couple of weeks ago and when I checked my email this morning I found out that I was going to be one of 1000 lucky hostesses! If you don't know what a House Party is let me explain. House Party is a site where you can apply to throw a party based on one of their themes, they are basically having you market a new product to your friends in exchange they allow you to try new products and send you an awesome hostess pack. They want you to invite at least ten friends (I already have ten friends on the list as of this morning and I am sure the invite list will be more than ten). This is my second House Party (my first was a Ziploc Party) and my sister had a Hasbro Game Night party. If you are interested here is their site: http://www.houseparty.com/. I am so excited, for my House Party they are sending me five brand new Fisher Price toys to let the kids try out, and a bunch of party favors. I will update you on how the party went (yea!)