Cakes, cakes, cupcakes, and more cakes!

No kids birthday party would be complete without an awesome birthday cake!  As I said before, I am a theme person, so each year my kids pick out their "theme" and I make them a special cake with that theme.  My absolute favorite cake is a recipe that came from my Aunt Sharon years ago.  My Grandma and Mom always made "Aunt Sharon's" chocolate cake with peanut butter icing!  Mmmm....  It's not too often I get to use peanut butter icing in my designs, but when I can I do.  (by the way, it is also a vegan recipe)

I'm not quite sure how, but somehow I got in the habit of making a batch of cupcakes to go with my cake.  Sometimes I go all out for my cupcakes too and sometimes I take the "easy" way out and laminate pictures to stick on the cupcakes.  It is an easy way to incorporate some of the more intricate special requests.  The kids don't mind in the least that pictures aren't edible.  In fact, I wash them off and they play with them, tape them to the windows, and whatever else it is boys can find to do with them.

My cakes and cupcakes:

Mickey Mouse

Ice Cream Cone cupcakes

Elmo

Elmo cupcake

 Ben 10 Ultimate Alien

 Woody from Toy Story

Oooh... the Aliens from Toy Story

Captain America's Shield

All of Radiator Springs showed up for this party!

A little more lamination than I usually like, but it was 2 weeks after I had a  baby!

The sand was peanut butter icing!!

Diego (chocolate-covered gummy worm eyebrows,

chocolate-covered tortilla chip hair and peanut butter icing!)