We throw our kids their first birthday party at age five. Jay turned five when I was sick and pregnant with Amber, so we basically met a few friends to play at the park and my mom brought cupcakes to share. Since Rose was a February baby, however, we couldn't do the simple park party plan that I love. We had to do an indoor party since it's cold and wintry outside. So at the end of January, we got to work planning prepping her fairy tale party:
- Compile guest list and make invitations
- Shop for party supplies
- Make a dragon pinata
- Cut out paper crowns for the guests
- Draw Olaf the snowman to use for a pin the carrot nose on Olaf game
- Assemble party favor bags
- Bake and frost cupcakes
- Tidy up so the house isn't a wreck when people come
- Decorate table, hang streamers and blow up balloons
- Clean it all up again.
It was a formidable list, and it took the better part of a week to complete, but we did it! And Rose was very happy with the results. I felt completely out of my element, organizing little party activities and decorating and frosting cupcakes. The things we moms do for our kids, ha ha. I think Rose enjoyed the whole process so much because it really felt like it was her birthday every day this week that we were getting ready for her party!
For fun, I composed a limerick for the invitation. I looked up the correct formula for limericks online and did my best to conform. We didn't end up building castles or drinking chocolate milk at the party like we thought we would, but it made for a fun little rhyme on the cards.
The limerick says: "She hosted a grand celebration. Friends dressed up in fine royal fashion Built castles, slayed dragons, Chocolate milk by the flagon. "Happy Birthday was their exclamation!"
On Tuesday this week we drove the 45 minutes to the Tri Cities to shop for the party supplies. That took forever because I didn't know exactly what kinds of things would be available. I prefer to have a precise list when I go to stores because we live so far away and every second I waste debating in a store uses up precious Amber-patience. But we survived and then came home and made our dragon pinata that night. I used a tissue box for his body and toilet paper rolls for his neck and head. His tail was a twist of the green tissue paper we used for his scales. He had cardboard and tissue paper wings, feet, and spikes, with tissue paper fire blowing out of his mouth. I filled the tissue box to the brim with Starburst, Laffy Taffy, and Jolly Ranchers from the Winco bulk candy isle. I could hardly believe that I actually bought that much candy in a month other than October. Gag, But pinatas need filling! On Tuesday night we also cut out paper crowns for the kids at the party to decorate and assembled the party favors: awesome light-up rings, candy bracelets, mini notebooks, and brightly colored pens.
Wednesday I took a break from party prep.
Thursday I drew a big picture of Olaf the snowman, and it actually turned out! After that we decided to print off the birthday interview. Alas, it was a disaster. Our printer has issues printing photos and we kept getting weird colors and stripes across Rose's face. We even tried using Steph's printer, but she happens to have the same printer as us and it did the same thing ours did, but with different line thickness. We tried and tried all morning on Thursday before admitting defeat and retiring party prep for another day. Normally I prefer to bake the birthday cake or cupcakes the day before we eat them because baking is not my thing and I don't want to be stressed out on the big day. But I was totally DONE after hours of dealing with a malfunctioning printer, so by Friday we still had an ambitious list of things to prepare before the party.
all of the failed attempts at printing the birthday interview.
Friday! Since Rose was dressing up as Elsa for her party, she requested an Elsa hairstyle that morning. I pulled out all the stops and did my best diagonal French braid since Steph's wedding five years ago (I did a French braid in the bride's hair that day). It was a birthday miracle! After we dropped Jay off at school just before 9am, the girls and I were doing party prep pretty much nonstop for the rest of the day. The party was set to begin at 3pm and the clock was ticking! I could hardly believe that all of the decorating and baking and everything took so long! We rescued the Olaf drawing I made the day before. He had fallen off the wall, so before Amber could trample him, I added a nice thick border of masking tape around the fellow. That way, Pin the Carrot Nose on Olaf would not end in a crumpled snowman at the party. After that quick detour, we buckled down and got to work.
We started out by making a double batch of brownie cupcakes. I mixed up a single batch first, but one batch only made 20 cupcakes and that was not enough. I only wanted to bake birthday cake-type things ONCE, and we needed enough for 9 kids at the party plus adults and some for Rose's actual birthday dinner on Sunday. So I got out another brownie mix and whipped up a second batch, following the instructions my sister Em gave me over the phone last week: add an extra egg to a brownie mix and put it in a cupcake pan: easy enough. But I am seriously challenged when it comes to dividing batter evenly between muffin cups and pouring it in without drips. While the cupcakes were cooling, Rose and I tidied up the upstairs. I kind of let toy pickup slide this week, so there were little things scattered all over the upstairs from Amber's wanderings. It took a while to get everything put back in its place.
After lunch we got the table all ready, blue plastic tablecloth and all. Then I whipped up the frosting for the cupcakes, again following Em's over-the-phone instructions. I was clinging to her simple recipe like a lifeline because in the past, frosting has completely stumped me. But a single batch seemed small so I doubled it into a giant sticky white blob. I followed Em's instructions again and spooned it into a plastic bag with the corner cut off so I could squeeze the frosting onto the cupcakes and spare myself the horror of spreading each individual one with frosting. Alas, the plastic bag burst at a seam after the first squeeze, and I was forced to pry it open and knife the frosting onto one cupcake at a time. That inspired a long list of venomous mental epithets towards baking, cupcakes, and frosting. I despise all of it. I can't even think of anything else that causes me to chant "I hate this, I hate this, I hate this" over and over the whole time I'm doing it, but I was thinking those thoughts from the moment I started pouring batter into the muffin tin.
My version of Dante's Inferno has an entire level dedicated to cupcakes: dividing the batter evenly without drips, making and spreading the frosting, and everything in between. It's my culinary Waterloo. And I have no desire to improve. They tasted good, but were totally not worth the agonizing effort. Thankfully I reigned in my angst and only muttered negative comments under my breath once or twice through the whole ordeal because Rose was watching me and I wanted her to be excited, not distraught over my baking dilemmas. The job was done after a painful half hour--or maybe it was longer--time really stood still whilst I labored over the frosting, coating my hands in sticky sugar every time I had to readjust the bag to access more hidden frosting from within. Wshooo! I texted Em a picture of the baggie of frosting plopped on the counter with a butter knife sticking out of it with a pathetic comment, and she cracked UP. I can't blame her. I am never offended at anyone being amused at my lack of confectionary genius. I mean, I was amused at myself! Cupcakes are the worst!
My feet were aching and my back was stiff, but there were still a dozen balloons to blow up and streamers to hang! Rose really appreciates good decorations. We only do birthday parties every few years, and this was Rose's first ever birthday party, so I wanted to make it feel extra special to her artistic eye. Since it's winter and we couldn't do the party outside, I figured the best way to make it seem less ordinary than our normal ole house was to coat the place in streamers. I got six rolls of crepe paper streamers at the store this week, and went to TOWN. I covered the kitchen in them and did the long doorway into the family room and the bannisters down to the basement. Somehow I only used about a roll and a half of all those streamers even in my extravagance! Oh well, on to the balloons. I told Rose I thought I could handle blowing up ten balloons without passing out. So she picked out five white and five blue for me. I estimated just about right--barely! I was definitely lightheaded after all that huffing and puffing. I hung some balloons up and scattered the rest around the family room.
Rose specifically requested chocolate raspberry cake, so I stuck raspberries on top of the cupcakes.
I took these pictures two days after the party, so the table is a wreck. Ignore it.
Rose and Grama Meri--Rose is wearing her birthday gift from her other grandparents: a dress, hat, and necklace. She felt beautiful all day, and I loved seeing her feel so lovely. The unaffected, honest self-admiration of a five year old is wonderful!
Around 2:30pm on Friday afternoon, my mom (aka Grama Meri) got here! She drove 2 hours and 45 minutes to come to Rose's birthday party! Rose changed into her Elsa costume, and kids started arriving around 3pm and the party began! Everyone was dressed up in costumes: we had two knights and a dragon plus a purple tutu prince--ha (the boys), and we had a mermaid, an Elsa (Rose), a Rapunzel (Amber) another princess, and two kids without costumes. I wish I had gotten a picture of all the kids at the party, but it was too hard to be in charge and take pictures and I forgot about the camera. Thankfully I did manage to get a picture of Rose in her Elsa dress and the little Amber-punzel before everyone arrived.
We started by decorating paper crowns with gel pens. Then we played pin the nose on Olaf. There were a few kids peeking so it wasn't exactly a fair game, but oh well. Then we moved on to the piñata! It was terrifying. I tied my homemade dragon piñata to the end of a broomstick and braced it against the back of a chair. The scary part was how all of the kids kept creeping forward while someone was swinging a stick at the piñata! It's a miracle we didn't have any casualties or any black eyes. The little tissue box piñata was a surprisingly strong fellow, and Jeff ended up cutting a few slits in his sides to help the candy start spilling out. Once the part with the rope attached to it was busted, I picked up the severed body and sort of flung the rest of the candy around the room while the kids dove for it and gathered it up. It was extremely entertaining how excited the kids were about the piñata!
After the piñata, we did cupcakes and candles and cheese and crackers. Jeff got the camera out for part of it. At the end we did presents and after that it was a big crazy mess of playing and reveling till 4:30 when people started leaving. Whew! The dragon piñata was slain and Olaf's nose was stuck on. It was a success. Parties are exhausting! We were all wiped out that night, but at least the birthday girl was well celebrated.
Rose blew out her candle right when we started singing Happy Birthday to her, haha.
The knights, Jay and Spencer.
