Ladybugs

Today is National Pancake Day!

To celebrate you could get free pancakes at IHOP or you could make some fun ones at home...and of course I decided to make some fun ones at home! We made some Ladybug Pancakes:

These cute pancakes are simple to make:
First mix up your pancake mix, homemade or boxed.  Mix it well so there are no lumps.  I separated my batter into two different bowls for red and brown (I added red food coloring and cocoa powder to make the colors). Once your colored batter is fully mixed then put into a squeeze bottle.


On a skillet or griddle (on low heat) draw out the circle/oval for the lady bug body in red batter. Draw the line down the middle in your brown batter. Outline the head and antennae in the brown batter and then put your ladybug spots on the body.  Let it cook until all nice and bubbly.  Fill in the head with the brown batter and the body with the red batter.  Let the entire pancake cook until bubbly all over.  Gently flip over and let the pancake fully cook on the other side.  Add mini chocolate chips for the eyes.  I added my chocolate chips while the pancake was still on the skillet so they melted a little bit. 


Since Eliana's birthday is coming up (!!!!) I am just remembering how fun her last birthday party was. Last year Eliana loved ladybugs and asked for a ladybug birthday party and all. 

These are some pics of what I did last year for her Ladybug birthday party: ((excuse the quality of the pictures.. I only had a cell phone camera at that time since my camera had just broken!))

First we blew up all red and black balloons and put them everywhere. On some of the red balloons we used a black sharpie and drew spots on them to look like ladybugs.  We also used red and black streamers all over the house :) But the food was the best part:

Ladybug Cake balls inspired by Bakerella

To make these ladybug cake balls I made red velvet cake balls and smooshed them with my hands into an oval shape. Coated them with red candy melts and used dark chocolate candy melts to put the line and spots on the body.  I used a junior mint candy for the head ("glued" with candy melts) and attached two edible candy eyes on the head.

Ladybug M&Ms

Red M&M's + Black foodwriter = Ladybug M&M's

To make these Ladybug M&M's you will need a lot of red M&Ms and a black food safe marker. Simply color one end of the M&M black for the head, draw a line down the middle and put two to four dots on either side of the line. Simple as that! (super time consuming if you need a lot of M&Ms like I did... so enlist help or do it before the party. Not the day of the party. Don't be like me haha)

Ladybugs relaxing on some red velvet cupcakes and green buttercream frosting

Ladybug treat bags can be found here 

Ladybug Fun!

The 3 year old ladybug herself holding a ladybug cakeball! :)
Ladybug costume can be found here (not incl. wings)

Eliana still loves her lady bug costume :) That was such a fun party. I can't believe that was almost a year ago! Eliana will be four in less than a month! Time to plan another party! :)