Before setting sail we wanted to celebrate Jackson’s 3rd birthday while we were still here with friends and family. Last weekend we had a big gang of Jackson’s cousins and friends over for an airplane themed party. The kids decorated postcards for Jackson to send them from Switzerland and painted little wooden airplanes. We had lots of great food and the kids had a blast.

For lunch the kids had Chickfila nuggets (the birthday boys favorite) and homemade macaroni and cheese. For the adults we had a spread of sandwiches, mini tomato pies, salad, etc. The best recipe to come out of the party was Barefoot Contessa’s mac and cheese. I couldn’t try it but everyone asked for the recipe and said it was delicious! The adults ate more of it than the kids! The best part was that I reheated it the next day for Seth and it was good again! I feel like macaroni and cheese rarely reheats  well!

I had a couple of cake disasters- one from my oven rack being crooked, the other from misusing some metalic baking strips…in the end I threw my arms up in surrender, admitted that I was trying to do too much a week before our move and made some cupcakes.  Jackson didn’t know anything had gone wrong!

I got some candy molds and made airplane chalk for the kids favors but unfortunately the wings were too thin and most broke on their way out of the mold, so I ended up using muffin tins and making little chalk rounds to pass out.

homemade artisan bread…ready for sandwiches

Owen and Rowyn