Mia started planning her "Dora the Explorer" party to celebrate her 4th birthday a few days after her 3rd birthday party. We planned a big outdoor party, but at the last minute had to switch to indoors due to rain.

We made an "adventure" the kids had to go on to find the party (through the dark cave, through lollipop field, and finally to treasure island)

We kept the decorations and food bright and colorful "Dora" colors. We made chocolate dipped pretzel rods with colorful sprinkles:

We also made flowers and stuck little Dora character punchouts in the middle, then taped them to tooth picks for the cupcake decorations.

Our Swiper the Fox was the ingenious creation by my husband. He put a picture of Swiper on an overhead projector, and traced it onto a piece of cardboard, then colored it in.

We filled a round jello mold with water and fruit slices and froze it for the ice ring.

We made a colorful bunting with fabric scraps to hang up - a tutorial can be found in the Feb/Mar issue of MOM Magazine.

Dollar store telescopes made perfect favors and decorations!

Enjoy ice skating? The Toyota Arena has just undated their lighting and is a great place to enjoy an afternoon with the kids.

Birthday parties, open skating, lessons and more.

Now is your chance to WIN a birthday party package for eight. Simply comment on the question below for your chance to win. One lucky entry will be randomly drawn on March 30th.

Have you been ice skating lately? Select comment below to share your answer.

Go  Americans! Join MOM Magazine tonight at the Tri-City Americans game as we introduce our amazing new SuperDAD on the ice.

We've had a blast watching the winter olympics on the television every night. We haven't missed a single quad-toe-loop or back-to-back double cork...and certainly haven't missed any goals in hockey's birth nation. But tonight we're ready to enjoy some of the excitment in person. Meet us there!

Saturday Night Student ticket discounts available to those fans that show a valid ASB card at the Toyota Center box office

Washington's Lottery Well Fed, Well Read Drive Fans are encouraged to bring new and gently used children's books and non-perishable food donations to the final Washington's Lottery "Well Fed, Well Read" book and food drive, benefiting the Mid-Columbia Reading Foundation and the Tri-Cities Food Bank

Giveaway Night The first 2,000 fans will receive a package of 2009-10 Trading Cards.

by Krista Klinkhammer

A birthday without Wacky Cake is just another ordinary day. This is an old family recipe, and I've requested Wacky Cake on my special day for as long as I can remember. For my aunt's birthday this year, we had a virtual birthday party for her since she lives in Massachusetts. I videotaped my kids making this cake for her-I measured out the ingredients and let the kids go at it while I sat back and captured every lick of the spoon in between every stir. After it was done baking, we sang happy birthday, sliced the cake and ate it in honor of Auntie Lynn. We then burned all the footage to a DVD and sent it to her. It was hilarious…or should I say "wacky!"

Wacky cake

• 1 ½ cups of flour
• 6 Tbls. cooking oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 Tbls. white vinegar
• 3 Tbls. cocoa
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup cold water
• ½ tsp. salt

Directions: Place all dry ingredients in sifter - directly into ungreased 8x8 pan. Make 3 holes in mix. Pour oil in one hole, vinegar in 2nd hole and vanilla in 3rd hole. Pour cold water over all and stir with fork until evenly blended. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Invert to cool and remove from pan. Or frost it right in the pan. (That's what I do.)

Vanilla butter frosting

• ¼ cup soft butter
• 1 ½ cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 Tbls. milk

Directions: Blend butter and sugar, stir in vanilla and milk; beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.

Make decadent chocolates for your special valentine, and for yourself. Create simple, elegant balls or prepare fun shapes in chocolate molds. You can find molds for shapes like hearts and kisses at the local craft store. I'm not patient enough to wait, so I roll the filling into balls, coat in chocolate and then pop in the freezer to harden quickly.

Coconut mounds 1 cup coconut 1/2 cup light syrup melted chocolate Mix coconut and syrup until coated. Form into balls, dip in melted chocolate and set until hardened.

Peanut butter balls 1 cup peanut butter 1 cup Ritz crackers, crumbled 1 cup powdered sugar melted chocolate Use a rolling pin to crumble crackers in the sleeve. Mix with peanut butter and sugar. Form into balls, dip in melted chocolate and set until hardened.

This is the closest combination I’ve found to resemble Reeses brand candies. The crackers give the filling a bit of unexpected crunch that is addicting. I recommend refrigerating the filling until firm, making it easy to form into balls and dip. Better make a double batch - they don't last long!

MOM Magazine, January/February 2009. After great reviews from readers, we're sharing these recipes online too!

We're working on the Feb/Mar 2010 issue = Birthday Party Guide!

For those of us busy moms with no time to make cakes, I stumbled upon the greatest bakery EVER in Albany. She made a cake that looked exactly like this one (I took her the photo) and it was amazing! Check out Sweet Things Bakery for their cakes, cupcakes and lunch.

In the meantime, need more ideas from you to finish up the cake section for the magazine. A while back we asked MOM Blog readers, "Do you make your own birthday cakes?" Here's what some of them had to say. Add your own note in the comments section below.

raeann--I used to make my own b-day cakes. Now Dairy Queen makes them for me. She rocks!
madisynlynae0--YES! My hubby and I make them together. The biggest hit so far has been our castle cakes. My daughter requests this every year. So far we've done it twice!
momofEs--Yes I do, I figure it's my one time a year to make something special and different, especially now that my oldest can give me input. I like being creative.
alhelms-- Yes, my favorite is cupcakes made into a cake! (last year it was a big flower) Easy to hand out and fun to frost with my daughter. (and to eat of course!!)
Scrappincannon-- Half the time I make them and about half I buy them! Costco, Basket and Robbins, or New Morning Bakery.
Krista-- I do!    In fact, my son is turning two next week and is totally into trains. I got a train cake mold (the one from Willams Sonoma, have you seen it?) and can't wait to make it!
cnhrogers-- I have done both~
elizabeth-- Sometimes depending on how much time I have. I often add toys to the top of home made or store bought cakes.
vanderwal-- Of course, can't decide a favorite between a train with 10 cars or the pile of "dirt" with bugs, etc. crawling on it!!!
oddbirdd-- My twin girls are only 10 weeks old so no cake for them yet! My mom always made our cakes growing up and I plan to make b-day cakes for my girls too!
madisynlynae01-- I guess I should say I have made the cakes and I have bought them too. Making them every year would be giving me too much credit.
lzbthj-- Ice cream cakes are the only way to go.
Kassie-- I have tried and failed at many cakes. They all look better in my head than in reality. My youngest turns three on Sunday, and Costco will do the baking.
laninamialegria-- Not always but when I make them I try to do my own creations with m & m's, little kisses, white chocolate figures or lollipops.
adc397-- My mom has a great recipe for an ice cream cake that my son just loves!
lynnbos-- the latest for me is doing the Cold Stone Creamery cakes! Like them better than DQ…or i sometimes go with homemade Cupcakes(with cherries in the middle of course)
hosersgirl-- Yes I do make my own birthday cakes, sometimes my cake making mom makes them for us, and my sister has even made a cake for our family birthday parties….this last party we had it at the bowling alley and I made bowling pin cupcakes and bowling ball cupcakes….much fun!!
sabrina-- I usually make the birthday cake myself.
dhoover-- I have made birthday cakes since I was 9 years old, I am now 50. I just have always liked making cakes.
kimberlr-- I have 10 kids and 1 grandson. We have nearly one birthday a month so sometimes I will make them, sometimes my mother will make them, sometimes my 2nd & 3rd oldest will make cakes….but lately most often it seems that we have been SOOO busy with sports that we have just been buying them from Costco and adding out own special touches to them! We also do those nice little cupcake cakes from Wal-Mart. They are adorable! My answer would be a bit of both depending on how busy with sports, etc., we are!
Tammy-- My kids love homemade cupcakes. Brownies are also a big hit. I enjoy baking for them and with them so it is always a treat.
Kristal-- Are you kidding me? What Mom has that kind of time? I don't! Although I do seem to have the hour or so to get in the car, go to the store, reserve the right cupcake/cakes, drive home, go back to the store on the birthday party day to pick up the cupcakes/cake, drive home, etc….LOL…PERHAPS I do have the time… Although, it doesn't help that I am not very creative, either!
MaryWebb-- I make them sometimes, or Dairy Queen makes them. We really like those ice cream cakes. This year my 14 year old son wanted a homemade cake…so that's what we had!! :o)
jbrobidart-- When my oldest was very young I would buy the Wilton character cake pans like bunnies, Big Bird and the very favorite was a bear pan that was sitting upright and you baked the cake upside down in the oven. Then, you would take the pan off (it was in two peices and it had clamps to hold it together while baking) and sit it up and decorate it. If you were having a baby shower, you could cut the ears off and decorate the face and skin color like a baby. We loved that cake pan!! I did this until my youngest of four was born and I didn't have time to cook a cake. Walmart Bakereis are wonderful things!!

Over the holiday break, my kids spent 4 days at Winter Camp at The Little Gym. They LOVED it….for 3 hours they ran and jumped and played their little hearts out. And that is when it occurred to me: my kids require a good amount of exercise every day. They don't need it, they require it. If we don't do some sort of physical activity, by 5:00 p.m. they are literally bouncing off the walls or clothes-lining each other in a game of Race Car Touch. In the summertime, we could just go out in the backyard, for a bike ride, for a walk, etc. But now that it's winter, I really need to start planning a physical activity portion of the day.  This time of year it's too rainy, dark or cold to go outside - so what do you to get your kids exercise on a regular basis?

Here's Alex doing one of my exercise videos. I started doing it with both of them, and they LOVE it. Alex asks often (several times a day) for me to put on the video so we can exercise.

A while back, I was looking for some things to add to the extra wall space that was created when Alex moved from his crib to his big boy bed. I saw these really cool robot wall clings (I'm kind of obsessed with robots these days), but they were too expensive so I decided to make my own. I found some really cute robot png files I downloaded from Designer Digitals and then printed them off on Post-it picture paper. We had used this paper to make signs to stick on the wall for Mia's birthday party and had some left over. It's awesome because it sticks well, but it's re-positionable and doesn't peel the paint off! Instant, cheap wall decals! We gave these to Alex for Christmas and he LOVES them.

They were such a hit, in fact, that my daughter insisted on having some of her own.