Turtles, Macaws, and Porcupine Cupcakes

A couple of months ago, I asked Vivi what kind of birthday she wanted. It didn't surprise me that she asked for a "lemur" birthday (her favorite animal). I asked her if we could make it a little more general... sort-of an animal birthday party that had some lemur aspects. Vivi thinks we invited a bunch of her friends over, and that we will play some animal games, and pretend we are lemurs (her idea:). We have a huge, huge, HUGE surprise for her tomorrow- I found a woman who has rescued a bunch of exotic animals, that she brings to birthday parties---- and she has a RING-TAILED-LEMUR!!!!!! You have no idea how excited she is going to be to see/touch a lemur up close! SO in preparation for our animal birthday party, I googled animal cupcakes and found some cute ideas. After some adaptations, here are the results:

OK see the middle cupcakes? They are supposed to be macaws or parrots, but with the white chocolate almonds they looked like Elmo:). So I sent my wonderful husband to Walgreen's late at night to buy some Mike & Ike's, and voila- birds! The porcupines have chocolate covered raisins for eyes/noses, and I dipped pretzels into white choco for the spikes. The turtles have a ritz cracker covered with green frosting, and then I got some really weird green gummy aliens, and cut them apart for the heads, and the legs are pistachios. I can't wait to show the kids tomorrow!!!! And all are egg/dairy-free so Vivi can have them...

I know this looks like a lot of work, but it was really fun to make these-- the real pay-off will be the kids' reactions when they see them in the morning!:)