We had planned an outdoor party at a neighborhood park that has both a playground and a grassy area for playing ball and the bounce house but alas, it was not to be. We woke up Saturday morning to very cool temperatures and blue skies. I had hope the rain would stay away but by noon it was raining and by 1:30pm we made the decision to move the party to our house. Needless to say I was not thrilled with having to move the party to our house, not because I don't love entertaining or mind having a house full of children because I do and I don't. It is just that our house was in party prep mode rather than have people over mode and it was a frantic rush to get everything cleaned up and ready for guests.
A big thank you to my parents and in-laws who helped get things ready. I will admit I wasn't a very nice person to be around during that frantic hour and a half so my apologies go along with my thanks.
This year our "theme" was supposed to be Outdoor Fun at the Park. A pretty generic theme I know which means almost anything goes for invitations, decorations, etc. I found some cute, polka dot invitations and used those as the inspiration for colors, decorations etc.
As I did for Ava, I made a big "Happy Birthday" banner. It was supposed to hang in the tent at the park so it was bigger than the one I made for Ava. Since we didn't end up at the park it was swagged over the window in the front room. It was a little long but still fun. Sorry it isn't the best picture.
I also tried to have "polka dot" food so we had cheese balls, whoppers, mini chewy sweet tarts, fruit skewers and fruit dip (not polka dot but still yummy). Instead of a big cake I made polka dot cupcakes. I got the idea from pinterest for a polka dot cake and adjusted it to make cupcakes instead. Here is the original pin I found.
The cupcakes weren't hard, just a little time consuming. First I made a batch of vanilla cake batter, divided it into six mini bread pans and dyed each one a separate color. We had blue, green, yellow, pink, orange, and purple. I baked the dyed mini cakes just like normal. After they were cooled, I made mini cake balls using white butter cream icing and the colored mini cakes.
Here is a quick shot of the mini cake balls in process. Two colors down, four more to go.
After making hundreds of mini colored cake balls I made another double batch of vanilla cupcake batter. I put a couple of the mini cake balls into each cupcake tin and then added the vanilla cake batter. The result I hoped would be polka dot cupcakes. Here is the end result.
Yeah....it worked.
I topped each cupcake with chocolate buttercream icing and then added multi colored sixlet candies as polka dot decorations.
Now for a little cupcake and ice cream.
Time to blow out the candles.
Yummy!
After all their friends left, the kids had some fun with Uncle John Robert in the bounce house.
A great time was had by all. Thanks to everyone who helped me pull things together at the last minute when the weather forced us to change our plans. Thanks to my brother and to Jessica for making the long trip from Ohio in time for the birthday party. It meant the world to my three that you were here.
You would think things might slow down now that the party and all that it entails is over but that just isn't the case. Things around here never slow down. And as tired as I am, I don't think I would want them too.
Happy Birthday my April babies.
