Hello there. I know it's been a bit but such is life with a newborn. I've come to peace with the fact that only half the house might get vacuumed at a time and that the most important things are a fed family with clean clothes to wear. The first few months are always the hardest while you walk around in a daze from lack of sleep and try to figure out the new "normal" in your house. BUT look, here I am. I managed to get most of my chores done and *GASP* all the kids are down for a nap AT THE SAME TIME <- can I get a virtual high five? I figured I'd take a few moments and do a recap of Lily's 5th Birthday, because while some things are taking a backseat in these first few months of being a mom to four my daughter's 5th Birthday was not going to be one of those things.
Lily is like me in almost every way, including starting to plan out her Birthday months in advance. So, I wasn't the least bit surprised when back in August she saw a picture of a Candy-land themed cake that she wanted for her Birthday. The funny thing is that this wasn't my first time being a part of or planning a Candy-land themed party. My mom did two of them for me when I was growing up. I loved them because my mom took construction paper and made a life-sized Candy-land board for my friends and I to play on. It was awesome. So when Naiya turned 5 I did a Candy-land party for her with the same life sized Candy-land board in our driveway and make your own cupcakes for the dessert. All the little girls seemed to love it.
This time for the invitations I created a game card that had the invitation printed on the blank side. I sent along a pawn I had used a cookie cutter for the outline of the shape and then used glitter glue to pipe out the details on each gingerbread man. They were very easy to make but I really liked the look of it when it was all put together.
The cake was set, but I changed the size of the cake from the sheet cake Lily had found to an 8-inch round cake, which was a better size for the number of guests we were going to have. Lily wanted a chocolate cake with strawberry filling. I found a recipe for a marshmallow frosting that was both insanely easy to make and tasted unbelievable. You can get the recipe for that frosting here. I used starburst for the path, various candies for the different stops, ice cream cones that I piped with chocolate frosting for the "castle" at the end, and gingerbread men around the side. Side note: I was really annoyed when I saw that they've changed the little candy hearts you get at Valentine's Day. They now say things like, "text me" or "tweet me". I searched through until I found enough of the old ones for the space on the cake.
I was planning on the life sized Candy-land game, but in our basement since it is winter. I did switch up the rules a bit though because I found that when I followed the traditional Candy-land rules at Naiya's Birthday that the game took too long. So I removed the "special" cards from the deck so that there was no skipping ahead, and likewise no getting sent back to the beginning. That also changed how you picked up candy along the path. So I just had the kids pick up candy as they passed each stop. The whole game took about 15 minutes to do which was a much better time frame for the kids.
Lily was grinning from ear to ear so I'd say the party went over really well and I have a hunch that Jude might be asking for this party at some point in his life, just not this year as I'm doing a super-hero themed party for him. I can't wait for it :)
Lily is like me in almost every way, including starting to plan out her Birthday months in advance. So, I wasn't the least bit surprised when back in August she saw a picture of a Candy-land themed cake that she wanted for her Birthday. The funny thing is that this wasn't my first time being a part of or planning a Candy-land themed party. My mom did two of them for me when I was growing up. I loved them because my mom took construction paper and made a life-sized Candy-land board for my friends and I to play on. It was awesome. So when Naiya turned 5 I did a Candy-land party for her with the same life sized Candy-land board in our driveway and make your own cupcakes for the dessert. All the little girls seemed to love it.
This time for the invitations I created a game card that had the invitation printed on the blank side. I sent along a pawn I had used a cookie cutter for the outline of the shape and then used glitter glue to pipe out the details on each gingerbread man. They were very easy to make but I really liked the look of it when it was all put together.
The cake was set, but I changed the size of the cake from the sheet cake Lily had found to an 8-inch round cake, which was a better size for the number of guests we were going to have. Lily wanted a chocolate cake with strawberry filling. I found a recipe for a marshmallow frosting that was both insanely easy to make and tasted unbelievable. You can get the recipe for that frosting here. I used starburst for the path, various candies for the different stops, ice cream cones that I piped with chocolate frosting for the "castle" at the end, and gingerbread men around the side. Side note: I was really annoyed when I saw that they've changed the little candy hearts you get at Valentine's Day. They now say things like, "text me" or "tweet me". I searched through until I found enough of the old ones for the space on the cake.
I was planning on the life sized Candy-land game, but in our basement since it is winter. I did switch up the rules a bit though because I found that when I followed the traditional Candy-land rules at Naiya's Birthday that the game took too long. So I removed the "special" cards from the deck so that there was no skipping ahead, and likewise no getting sent back to the beginning. That also changed how you picked up candy along the path. So I just had the kids pick up candy as they passed each stop. The whole game took about 15 minutes to do which was a much better time frame for the kids.
Lily was grinning from ear to ear so I'd say the party went over really well and I have a hunch that Jude might be asking for this party at some point in his life, just not this year as I'm doing a super-hero themed party for him. I can't wait for it :)
I'm trying to remember any fifth birthday parties from my own family--and can't. I do remember that for my tenth birthday I asked my Dad for pizza soup, based on the "cup of pizza" joke in the movie "The Jerk." I got the joke, I understood that you can't have pizza in a cup, but it sounded good anyway, so my Dad invented it for me. Creative parents rock, and you are certainly creative.
ReplyDeleteYour daughter's cake looks tempting! She definitely needs a trip to the dentist afterwards, or else cavities. What's ironic was when I was a child, my dentist always gave me candies after the session as a positive reinforcement for being a good girl. So, did she clean my teeth for nothing? Hahaha!
ReplyDelete