Rainbow Birthday Party

Since before I had kids, I had always wanted to throw a Candyland theme party for a little girl.  Only one problem.  Now that I’m older and wiser, I wasn’t so keen on the candy part.  It doesn’t quite fit into my real food philosophy.

So I let go of my dream theme and decided to let Allison choose what she wanted for her 3rd birthday party.  Except she’s 2.  And very little help.  All she could articulate was that she wanted a strawberry cake.

When I mentioned my lack of inspiration to a friend, she was quick to suggest a rainbow party. 

Now I know that the rainbow theme is EVERYWHERE right now and I have a tendency to run away from anything trendy.  (Except for salted caramel.  That is one fad that I. am. all. over.)  But the more I thought about it, it all just began to fall into place…

Allison would get her strawberry cake.  And orange cake.  And pineapple cake.  And tons of bright balloons.  And maybe even a little candy.

And I would get a theme that I could go so crazy with, I’d have to be committed when it was all over.

The birthday girl.  I ordered the embroidered rainbow shirt from K. Mae Designs and made that rainbow tutu in 30 minutes for $3.  She even kept in on for the ENTIRE party.  It was a birthday miracle.

I LOVE how the decorations turned out.  And all I had to do was spend $112 in assorted balloon packs because each bag was short one. freakin. color.  I went to Hobby Lobby so many times, I had to have an intervention.  True story.

We had hoped to set up the party outside since it was a rare 80º in March, but the ground was a little soggy since it had been raining for two days.  We were lucky that things dried out enough for us to move the festivities outside, but it was a last-minute decision.  So sorry to all the people who stepped in dog poop since we didn’t clean up the back yard.

The secret to a successful party is a piñata.  Apparently, beating things up with the payoff of candy is all that kids need to have fun.  Way better rate of return than the rainbow parachute, which occupied their attention for 10 minutes.  Which is highly unfortunate because I actually purchased two.  One from Amazon and a second one from Party City that was $7 cheaper.  I was going to return the Amazon one until I saw it costs $5 to ship it back, somewhat negating my initial cost savings.  I. just. can’t. win.

But a birthday party is all about obsessing over the details, isn’t it?  That’s why I spent 42 hours planning these bath-themed favors, including homemade rainbow soap, and served sandwiches for dinner.  Because favors live on forever.  Food is a distant memory within 36 hours.  Unless it’s leftovers in my house.  Because I still have fruit sauces in my fridge.

Which brings me to the cake.  Or should I start with the cupcakes?  The 12 DOZEN mini cupcakes that I baked in rainbow flavors, that pretty much all tasted like vanilla.  At least the orange and pineapple did.  The strawberry, blueberry, and green banana actually turned out pretty well.  I won’t even talk about the grape. 

What started as an innocent suggestion from my toddler, turned into an obsession.  While it may not have been worth the effort of spending two days recipe testing and baking more cupcakes than I could ever use for the sake of keeping manageable ingredient measurements, it looked damn cute.  And she got her strawberry cake.  So I have to say I’m pretty proud of the effort.

But the round cake was a masterpiece.  Because six icing colors and two decorating tip couplers did not make this a simple task.  But totally worth it.  I mean, check out those cake-writing skillz!  So much better than my first attempt.

I know all of this was more for me than it was for her, but I’m pretty sure she had a blast.  Look at that face!

Happy 3rd birthday, my sweet girl.  I love you more than words can say.

A Simply Awesome Easter

Easter was a fairly low-key event this year.

We dyed some eggs.

Matt gave me all kinds of trouble because I bought our usual brown eggs to dye.  He later had to eat his words because they turned out rather impressive.  Look at those vibrant colors!  It might have actually been the gel dyes that I used, but don’t tell him that.  I like to hear him say I’m right.

Allison was enamored with them.

There were baskets with chocolate bunnies and peanut butter eggs.

We did some egg hunting.

And I brought my tripod so I could actually be in a picture for once.

Allison’s first Easter we had taken a picture with her, me, and my mom.  It was time for an updated one.

Thank goodness I have better equipment now.  And I’ve learned a thing or two about photography since then.  Eek.

Overall, it was a simply awesome holiday.  Even without 15 craft projects that involve discontinued components to hunt down.

How was your Easter?

Simple Days

Ok, so simple may not be the best word for the title of this post, but I’M GOING FOR A THEME, PEOPLE!  Obviously, I have problems.

What I’ve been up to…

I think the last couple weeks can pretty easily be summed up by adventures in obsessive party planning.  I’ve been making soap for favors, making yogurt by the drum, making SIX DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF CUPCAKES, making 6 different trips to 4 different grocery stores, and overall making myself crazy.  But I *think* it’s in a good way?

While I know I sound like a lunatic going to these great lengths for a 3 year old’s birthday, I really do enjoy the process.  At least most of the process.  It’s my one time a year to go balls-to-the-wall crafty.  When I can astound family and friends (and myself) with my mad Martha skillz.  And that is hella awesome.  Even though the knowledge of a sixth dimension of crafty that includes printables exists taunts my need for perfection…  But I’m just not ready for that yet.

While party prep has been taking over a large portion of my days, it’s not the only thing we’ve been doing.  Last Friday night, Matt went to an old sand mine in Herculaneum, MO that has been converted into a rec center of sorts.  He’s a disc golf player and they have a 9 hole course underground.  Next time, we’re all going to go because they have barge tours and other activities as well.

Then Saturday night we went to our neighbor’s house for a while to hang out while our kid was asleep.  It was a good break from the cupcake recipe testing that had broken my brain.  I love that we have cool neighbors because we can be social without having to get a sitter since we can still monitor the house closely.  It turned into a fairly late night and tacking on the time change made for a rough start to Sunday.

Daylight savings is always best enjoyed the next day…  After I get home from work and it’s still light out.  I love that.  I wish it was that way all year round.  So on Monday, I said the hell with cleaning the kitchen and we packed up after dinner and got ice cream.

Tuesday night was a bit of a “fuck it” night, too.  After Allison’s hair cut, we came home (after going back to Trader Joe’s to pick up the forgotten items) and invited some neighbors over for a bon fire.  What can I say?  We like fire.

Finally on Thursday we went out for one of my closest friend’s birthday.  It is an annual tradition to spend it at Schlafly Bottleworks, a local brewery specializing in local ingredients.  I usually get the field greens salad that was the inspiration for my vanilla bean vinaigrette, but this time I got a bison burger.  It was good, but someone else’s plate of pistachio ravioli make my burger look a bit less impressive.

What I’ve been doing around the web…

Sarah from Clover Lane is one of my favorite parenting bloggers.  She always makes it look so easy, but this week she lifted the veil on “doing it all.”

Ever try to share a blog post link on Facebook and you get a generic thumbnail and excerpt?  I was pulling my hair out about this just the other day.  Then Blogging with Amy shared a great tip on a plugin that can fix it!  It was like the Blogging Gods were listening to my prayers!  Or my complaining…

I recently stumbled upon a site called Homemade Frontier and FELL IN LOVE!  And as I was talking to my mom the other night about Allison’s party plans and she was telling me she didn’t understand why I go to so much trouble, this post played through my head. Because it’s not just about making things.  It’s about making memories.

Hope everyone has a great St. Patty’s Day!