Before we get too far away from the birth month of The Milk Belly Princess, I would like to share some pieces of her birthday party with you. Seven little girls gathered at BAYarts on a Saturday afternoon to help us celebrate. Per the request of The Milk Belly Princess, the theme was Little Red Riding Hood, a theme she decided on at this time last year. In fact, last spring, when the local JoAnn Fabrics went out of business, I bought an entire bolt of red felt at their clearance sale. I had lofty goals of making little red riding hoods for all of the guests. Then, as the year wore on and it was time to start making the hoods, I began to wonder whether they would look as adorable as I'd originally envisoned. Would The Milk Belly Princess and her friends look like the sweet protagonist of her favorite fairy tale, or would they seem more like tiny druids?
In the end, my mother, The Amazing Grammy Susan, made one beautiful red riding hood as seen here, being modeled by Miss Milk Belly herself.
I thought it would be cute to have a photo booth where each guest could dress up and pose for a picture with her basket for granny, but my little one was the only one who wanted to do this.
We began with snacks of fruit. I tried to make the beautiful "Marshrooms" that I found here, but they did not look as beautiful as they did in the picture that inspired me. I wasn't sure how to keep the apple tops from sliding off the marshmallows. Toothpicks seemed risky with such little kids, but the marshmallow fluff I used as glue was too slippery. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that I'm not the first mama to fail at something she saw on Pinterest, so I'm not going to let it get me down.
My wonderful friend Laura painted hands and faces,
We played "Pin the Hood on Little Red" with the game board courtesy of The Mister.
Then it was time to sing our baby into another year. I wish I knew what she was thinking here.
Once again our favorite birthday cake bakery did not disappoint and created this delicious cake to fit our theme:
After the cake, it was time for our final craft, decorating our very own basket to take to grandmother's house. I looked long and hard to find a craft that would fit our theme, but this was silly. Little kids like to paint, regardless of what it is. It's more about the sensation of touching and pushing paint than creating a final product.
Really, this could be said about children's parties in general. Instead of obsessing over themes I should savor the pushing paint, the process, the moment, the gathering. I spent a lot of time planning thematic crafts and games, but that was more for me than my youngest daughter. At the end of the day, when I asked her about her favorite part of the party, she said it was "playing with balloons with my friends."
Looks like a fun party! Can't believe our littles are turning 4 already.
Posted by: Haley | Sunday, March 04, 2012 at 08:19 PM