Jessica's Party

Happy Sunday to you!

We had Jessica's birthday party today and overall it was a lot of fun.

I thought you might like to see some of the event.

Jessica decided (at the last minute) she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake cake. She said like the one I made for her when she turned 5. Prior to this she kept talking about Ming Ming cupcakes (Ming Ming is a Wonder Pet). I was actually relieved she changed her mind. LOL

Anyway, I went on the hunt for ideas (because I wasn't gonna make the same cake I made before) using good old Google and came across a cake with a path and on the path was a Strawberry doll on a Moped. Very cute, I thought, so I went with that and added my own little twist by adding the house and the tree. I found free coloring pages online and printed off smaller versions of the pages I wanted. Then I colored them using my pencils and odorless mineral spirits. (does this count as being crafty???) I found the little doll and it came with a Custard the cat, but no hat for Strawberry, which bummed me out. She doesn't look quite dressed without it. But the doll smells like strawberry...

I can't quite get my photos to line up right, so I'll keep chatting and see how it ends up looking when I post.

The path is graham cracker crumbs with brown sugar mixed in. The grass is coconut colored green. The cake was strawberry flavors with tinted green frosting. (Erin, did you notice I took the cake out of the pan? I did that for you! I took a deep breath and flipped it out and then sighed a deep sigh that the cake didn't break in two). The "stars" around the base are strawberry frosting. I put it in a ziploc baggie, with a corner cut out and a tip inserted...cheap way to decorate, I thought. LOL And in case you can't tell, I taped the images and the doll to popsicle sticks so they would stand up.

In my searching for ideas, I came across a blog post where the author had a very very on theme SS party. She shared some chocolate covered marshmallows and I thought it was a neat idea, so here's my take on the idea. I used some chocolates I had, which were orange, but they worked well with the strawberry marshmallows. Then the girls added the sprinkles. Those were a hit!

We played several games. I liked this when I saw it in the store (except for the $6.99 price tag) and we pulled together our own version. Cost nothing since we had the jar and clothespins at home. If you look carefully, you can see Jessica's clothespin falling.

We played a game where the kids had balloons tied to their leg and they had to try to pop other people's balloons. It didn't work quite as I thought, but it was a lot of fun and the kids ran off some energy. One guest had the balloon cover his foot when his popped and I hadn't ever seen that before. Amy designated herself "party director" and person in charge of the prizes, which made for a few not so fun moments, but overall she did a good job. She led the bingo game. And she played the music for musical pillows (think musical chairs only on pillows).

Jessica had a great time as you can see and got some great gifts, too!

(Amy drew a butterfly on Jessica's bandage...cute, huh?)

Thanks for indulging me while I shared the party. As I am typing this, the girls are busily playing with Jessica's new Barbie (shown above) and some new Pollys. That's a good thing!

Hope you have a great week!