girl eatingImpress your guests with our creative candy decorations -- all completely doable in less than 30 minutes!

By Amanda Kingloff, Taryn Mohrman, and Erica Clark from Parents Magazine

Mini Smash Cake
A mini layer cake for a first birthday is coated in frosting, edged in colorful sprinkles, and topped with the cutest little "cupcake." To make the topper, pipe a swirl of frosting onto a small peanut-butter cup and decorate with sprinkles and a nonpareil "cherry."

RELATED: Easy Birthday Cakes

Birthday Buzz Cake
Create flowers on a sheet cake in seconds. Use a green food marker to transform the sticks of lollipops and adorn with gummy spearmint leaves. A yellow jelly-bean bee (flanked by two halves of a black jelly bean) gets its stripes from a black food marker and leaves a trail of chocolate sprinkles.

Rainbow Cake
Simply press jelly beans into a frosted layer cake for this showstopping effect.

Confetti Cake
Carefully cut Airheads into strips and twist them around your finger to form streamers. Arrange

Keep sane when sharing a family bathroom.

When my kids were still very little, too young to take baths on their own and still in diapers, I was the proud owner of a lovely home with two bathrooms. Then, as children do, they began to grow. My clever decorating scheme gave way to bathtub crayons, cartoon characters, and toothpaste from floor to ceiling - don't ask how the little darlings managed that last one, because I couldn't tell you.

As a family of five, we've had to make our shared bathroom work for us. In short, I learned all about sharing a bathroom with children. Happily, I discovered a few things along the way to make the entire adventure less painful and more productive (and even kind of fun) for everyone.

A Place for Everything…Including the Duckies

Strictly speaking, the basic bathroom supply list for most kids includes soap, towels, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and little else. I have yet, however, to encounter a parent who hasn't also tried to find room in the bathroom for countless rubber duckies, special

Image: Ben Werdmuller/Creative CommonsToday is one of those days that as soon as I woke up, I already felt completely overwhelmed. I knew my to-do list was already excessively long, I was anxious about the rain that is headed our way because our basement hasn't stopped flooding yet from the last two rain storms we've had this week, and it's my son's seventh birthday. Mom bloggers, and especially ones that double as party planners, are supposed to have balloons ready to burst through the bedroom door when their child opens it the morning of their birthday, aren't they? Instead, last night my son asked me what I was bringing in to his class today and inside my head, I said, "Oh crap. I hadn't planned on that."

Read More: 5 Fast Stress Busters for Instant Relaxation

Doing it All
It's not that I hadn't thought about his birthday at all. We have dinner plans with a friend to celebrate tonight, and I tried to get my super sports fan tickets to the Stanley Cup finals. If I hadn't been distracted by the contractor (our kitchen is

I'm always telling my 5-year-old daughter, Ashby, how important and fun learning is. It's one reason I love my career so much: There's always something new to explore. We all want our kids to have fun, and it's even better when they can learn at the same time. I asked a few celebs to share their fave educational toys.

By Nancy O'Dell, host of Entertainment Tonight from Parents Magazine

Kristin Davis
Sex and the City star, mom of 1-year-old Gemma
"She's recently become very good at the sorting toys. For her birthday, Cindy [Cynthia Nixon] gave her a house that has blocks in different colors and shapes. In two days, she got it! And she knows how to open it, get all the blocks back out, and start again. I'm very impressed."

RELATED: Age-by-Age Guide to Toys!

Ali Larter
Resident Evil: Afterlife actress and mom of 2-year-old Theodore
"He's amazing with the alphabet and with his numbers and all of that. Alphabet flash cards have been incredible. On airplanes, they