Maren's Donuts and Pajamas Birthday party

Maren's birthday party came right on the heels of the church party that I decorated for, making for one busy week! When we were talking about what kind of party Maren wanted to have, she came up with the idea of a candy party. I seriously love candy, but we couldn't come up with a way to translate that into party games or activities other than, you know, eating candy. I thought about it a little more and hit on the idea of a sprinkle-themed party, but again I couldn't figure out how to translate that to a whole party. Sprinkles led to the idea of donuts, and when I poked around Pinterest looking for inspiration I found an invitation for a 'donuts and pajamas' birthday party. Lucky for me, Maren loved the idea!

I purchased this custom invitation from Etsy (I can't post my own photo because I can't figure out how to blur out all of our personal info) and had the invitations printed at Costco. I didn't have any envelopes large enough and didn't want to go buy any, so we ended up packaging them in a clear cellophane bag with rainbow sprinkles dumped inside like confetti. I sealed the bags with brightly colored washi tape. Wish I could show you a photo because they looked so cute! Since the party guests were supposed to wear their pjs, we held the party from 9:00-11:00 on a Saturday morning.

Instead of a birthday cake, Maren chose to have a donut cake, specifically a glazed donut cake. I poured chocolate and white milk into my vintage glass milk bottles, a detail that was completely lost on a bunch of 9-year-old girls but made me happy. :)

 

I found fun, brightly colored paper plates on clearance at Target and pulled the pink and white stripey straws from my stash. The plastic 'milk' bottles were a purchase from Groopdealz a few years ago. 

Instead of a tablecloth, I purchased a huge sheet of donut wrapping paper from Paper Source. I am totally in love with the bright colors and illustrations of donuts that look good enough to eat!

Paper Source also had this cool donut garland kit. I had planned to make up my own paper donut garland but the kit was totally worth the money.

The kit came with pre-punched donut shapes and templates to make the icing swirls and fringe paper to cut the sprinkles. Making the garland was a fun activity that Maren and I did together. I love it so much that I confess it's still hanging up in my doorway, three weeks after the party. It's just so cute and happy!

When the guests arrived I had them each make a tag to hang on their goody bag using shipping tags and letter stickers and ribbon scraps. I ran out of time to make the tags myself and needed a little something else to fill some time, so this worked perfectly and I already had all of the materials.

The first big activity was decorating donuts. I purchased four dozen boxed plain cake donuts from my grocery store. They were larger than mini donuts but smaller than the kind they sell individually and very economical at around $2 per dozen. Each girl wrote their name on their paper plate and had four donuts to decorate.

I made up a few different bowls of brightly-colored glaze using powdered sugar and milk with a few drops of food coloring and one bowl of chocolate glaze (just add unsweetened cocoa powder). I set out bowls of pretty sprinkles from my collection and let the girls dip their donuts in glaze and then decorate them.

I anticipated this project being a mess but I was actually really surprised out how pretty the donuts turned out! The photo doesn't really do them justice. My favorites were the gold sanding sugar and the neon pink nonpareils with the aqua and pink glaze. After the girls were finished, we set aside their plates so that the glaze had a chance to set up.

The next activity was making donut charm bracelets. When I was planning the activity, I remembered that I had a bunch of teeny tiny glass bottles. I filled each one with rainbow sprinkles and added a tiny eye hook to the cork. I coated the corks with super glue before I stuck them in the bottles so I hope they hold! I ordered plain charm bracelets from Amazon and used jump rings to attach a sprinkle bottle to each one.

The girls got to make donut charms for their bracelets using Shrinky Dinks inkjet plastic. I designed 4 different cute donuts with faces like this one, then scanned them and printed them out on the white shrink plastic. The girls decorated them with colored Sharpie markers, cut them out and punched holes in the top and then we baked them.

I did run into some problems with this project when I was getting it ready. I've made Shrinky Dinks plenty of times before but I had a terrible problem with these curling up in the oven, then getting stuck together and refusing to flatten back out. I did some Googling and found that if I put a sheet of parchment paper over the plastic it was just enough weight to keep them from curling as they baked. I also found that I couldn't use my usual colored pencils to color the Shrinky Dinks because of the coating on the plastic that makes it possible to put it through the printer. That resulted in a run to JoAnn's to purchase a mega-pack of colored Sharpies. It wasn't ideal and was an added expense I hadn't anticipated, but it was really the only option. And now I have a whole bunch of colored Sharpie markers to use for another project, right?

The girls also got to choose a colored letter monogram charm for their bracelets (letter beads that I have literally had for 10+ years. Pack rat WIN). While we were baking the Shrinky Dinks and attaching them to the bracelets with jump rings, the girls played Just Dance Kids on the Wii. Thank goodness for Andrea and her jump ring skillz! We also took that time to package up the decorated donuts. I purchased small cardboard treat boxes from the Wilton aisle at JoAnn's and we put each girl's donuts inside with a bit of waxed paper to keep them separate, then wrote their names on the top with the Sharpies.

After that, it was time for 'cake' and milk in the cute little bottles...

...and then opening presents. By a stroke of luck I found donut jammies at Gymboree. It was fun to have that little matching detail. I even found a pair of donut jammies for her American Girl doll! And to take my devotion to a theme even further, I found these thank you cards at Paper Source. The description says they're supposed to be confetti, but I thought all of those little colored dots looked an awful lot like rainbow sprinkles!

It was such a fun party and it was nice to have it all over and cleaned up by noon! I hired one of my teenage babysitters to come and be my helper and she was fantastic, and this year again Andrea was a lifesaver (see last year's pinata-in-the-front-room debacle). And we had plenty of leftover donuts, which is never a problem! I loved putting it on for Maren but was awfully glad when it was over. Two parties in one week wore me out!

Maren's baptism lunch: the food

Figuring out what kind of food to have for our Baptism lunch was a little tricky. Everything I served had to be prepared in advance, because we left the house at 9:30 a.m. and wouldn't return until after the Baptism service. We knew our guests would be right on our heels, so everything had to be just about ready to go before we left for the church that morning.

I knew right away that I wanted to serve funeral sandwiches again. I made these for my Duck Dynasty party back in February and they were a huge hit, so I wanted to try them again. This time, I used Honey Wheat King's Hawaiian Rolls and did a batch of ham/Swiss and also turkey/provolone. I made them the day before and let them marinate. We set the oven timer to turn on so that the oven would be preheated when we walked in the door, then we just removed the foil and popped them in the oven so that they could be cooking while the guests arrived.

For punch, I used a recipe similar to this one that I found on Pinterest, though the amount of water & Sprite in mine was a little different. I chose this recipe because I had a can of pineapple juice in my pantry that I wanted to use up. I made up the base of the punch before we left the house, and while the sandwiches were cooking, I just added it to my drink dispenser along with the cans of soda, lemon slices and ice cubes. I forgot to get a photo, but I will say that I probably won't make that particular recipe again. It was okay, but not great.

Another thing in my pantry that I wanted to use up were a pair of cake pop kits that make pops that look like chocolate-dipped strawberries. My sweet mom worked on them forever--so many different steps! They looked really cute, though, and they were delicious so I'm so glad she was willing to go to the trouble to make them! I also had a large cake plate full of beautiful real strawberries in the center of the table. I'm afraid I didn't get a photo of those either. The only photos I got were taken before we left for the church in the morning. When we came home, I was much too busy trying to get sandwiches cooked, punch made, and the plastic wrap off of everything to take any beauty shots of the rest of the food.

This is really one of my all-time favorite Pinterest ideas: individual veggie cups with the dip already inside. You can double-dip to your heart's content! LOL To make these a little more fancy, we skewered the tomatoes and cauliflower with some really pretty beaded toothpicks that I found at T.J. Maxx years ago and had been hanging onto for a really special occasion. They added a bit of sparkle to the table and had the bonus of making it so you didn't have to dig your fingers down into the ranch dressing to find the tomato!

One of my favorite things on the table was this jar of pretzels. They're yogurt-dipped pretzels in the prettiest soft shades of blue (blueberry) and pale purple (raspberry_--perfect for my party color scheme! Who knew they'd actually turn out to be delicious? I found these at my local Sprouts. I served them in my all-time favorite antique coffee jar with some pretty vintage seam binding tied around the top.

I have enough thrift store silver forks that I don't even need to buy plastic utensils anymore, and I don't even mind sending it through the dishwasher! I displayed the forks in an antique green depression glass measuring cup. The gray straws were decorated with pretty washi tape flags and displayed in an antique canning jar that has been turned a lovely shade of purple by the sun.

I love to have fresh flowers for a party! I bought the gorgeous iris and white ranunculus at Costco the day before. The iris were all closed tightly, but I forced them to open by putting the vase in the very warm sunshine for a while on Friday afternoon and by Saturday morning they were all opened up and looking beautiful! I also bought a bunch of blue hydrangea that I put in a vase with the rest of the white ranunculus--but for some reason, they all wilted and looked completely horrible by the next day. :( I'm not sure what I did wrong but that was disappointing because they were the perfect shade of blue. Oh well.

For the lunch, we also served crackers (from my pantry) and homemade hummus, tortilla chips and Costco's Artichoke & Jalapeno dip (my favorite!), peanut butter blossom cookies (I had bags of Hershey's Kisses in my pantry so that was an easy decision) and at Maren's request, mini powdered sugar donuts. I think she must have eaten two dozen of those by herself--she had a permanent ring of white dust around her mouth for the whole weekend! I was pleased with myself for being able to use so many things that I already had in my food storage to keep the costs down a bit so I could splurge on the pretty fresh flowers that we're still enjoying days later!

The whole event was just lovely! I was pleased with how everything looked and tasted--pleasing to the eye as well as to the palate! Celebrating my beautiful daughter's baptism with loved friends and family only made everything sweeter!

Maren's Baptism Lunch: handmade decorations

 Maren's baptism was held at 10:00 a.m. so we planned to hold a lunch at our home afterwards for our friends and family to help us celebrate. When I started thinking about what colors and theme I wanted for the party, I immediately decided on a butterfly motif. Butterflies are a symbol of change and rebirth--perfect for a baptism, where there is a very physical representation of rebirth, with the person coming up out of the water cleansed from their old life. Plus they're pretty and feminine and perfect for the Spring--and I just so happened to have a butterfly die for my Big Shot machine that I'd been itching to use.

For the color scheme I knew that I wanted to use periwinkle blue, shades of purple, and a bright green to set it all off with touches of kraft as the neutral. I found the perfect patterned paper at Michael's that incorporated all of those colors, and supplemented with various other patterned papers from my stash. I started out by cutting about 100 butterflies in various sizes with my Big Shot and then waited for inspiration to strike!

Pack-rattery pays off, yet again! I made this brown paper sack ruffle wreath WAY back in August 2010, but it has sat in my closet, naked, for lo these many years. I saw it in the basement recently and remembered that the original that I copied actually had butterflies going up the side, so I grabbed it and adorned it with a few of my butterflies, with tiny lines of pearls adorning the bodies.

Next, I knew that I wanted to hang a banner in the doorway between the front room and kitchen. I used kraft cardstock for the base, embossed with my cool new hexagon embossing folder from Stampin' Up.

To add some movement, I layered the butterflies in different colors and patterns.

I crumpled and then smoothed some of the butterflies to add dimension. On others, I used my fingers to
bend and shape the wings so they curved in and out. I used hot glue to attach everything.

Then I punched holes in the tops of the banner pieces and strung them all on some beautiful periwinkle vintage seam binding. It was tricky to see the dimension and the embossing in the photos, but in real life it looks really pretty!

At Target I found a set of three small tissue fans in my color scheme, so I couldn't resist! I added more layered butterflies to the centers of each side of the medallions (since they would be seen from front and back) and hung them from my light fixture using vintage seam binding. These hung right over the food table. Target also had a cool garland made of strips of paper in purple, blue and green sewn together. I don't have a photo of this one but it hung over a different door.

After all of this, I still had some butterflies leftover, and I was determined to use them all! I bought some cool twine at Paper Source a while back--it is natural twine color, twisted with metallic thread. I used the natural/silver twine and sandwiched it between pairs of butterflies to make a garland.

This photo is sideways, but darn Blogger won't load it the right direction! I used this garland to decorate a little table display I put together of photos of Maren. I just used washi tape to attach it to the wall and the picture frame above the table.

I love how it all turned out and the butterflies were just the way I had pictured them in my head. It's so gratifying when a craft turns out just like you hoped it would!

Maren's Baptism

Saturday was a happy, joyful day for our family! In our church, a person can choose to be baptized starting at age 8, which we believe is the age of accountability. Maren decided that she wanted to be baptized, and we've been looking forward to the event for months!

Here is a bit more about what my church teaches about baptism:

"One of the purposes of baptism is to symbolically wash away our sins, but even Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, was baptized. Jesus was baptized because it is a commandment and he wanted to provide a perfect example of obedience to Heavenly Father’s divine guidance.

The ordinances of baptism and confirmation are a way for us to show that we are willing to take the name of Jesus Christ upon us, which means to become Christians and do our best to always live accordingly. First, we are baptized by being lowered under water and raised back up by a person who has authority from God to do so. This action symbolizes Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and it also represents the end of our old lives and beginning a new life as His disciples. After we are baptized, a person with authority puts his hands on our heads, gives us the right to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and confirms us members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." (source)

Maren was baptized by her daddy. They both dressed in awesome white jumpsuits.

When the time came, they both entered the font (like an oversized, sunken bathtub in the church) and he held her just like John is holding Jesus in the painting above. He said a brief prayer, and then immersed her under the water completely before bringing her back up again.

Next, I helped Maren get dried off and into her pretty dress so that she could be confirmed as an official member of the church.

We believe that baptism is the first step on the path to following our Savior, Jesus Christ. As He was baptized, we must also be baptized to show obedience and love for our Heavenly Father. It's a huge step and a decision of the utmost importance, and I'm so happy and proud that it was something that Maren wanted to do!

I believe that if we keep the covenants and promises that we've made to God about how we will behave and make the right choices, my family can be together forever, and I want nothing less than that! I love them so much--my family brings me JOY!

Up next: the lunch party!

Maren and Porter update

Last Monday was Maren's first day of school--Second Grade, this time. Cannot believe it!

This year she chose a Lalaloopsy backpack and lunchbox. I loved her Mystery Machine lunchbox from last year, but this year we needed a new one. That one lasted the entire year and then on the last day of school, the darn dog got hold of it and ripped a hole in it! For crying out loud.

Maren is a child who LOVES school! There has never once been a day since she started Preschool at age 3 1/2 that she didn't want to go to school.

She's a bright girl and she loves to learn and make friends. I have no doubt she has a wonderful school year ahead of her!

When we dropped off Maren in her classroom that first day, Porter asked where she was. When I told him that she was staying in school, his little eyes welled up and he said, "I miss my Maren" in the saddest, most pitiful little voice and has repeated that sentiment all week long. That little boy adores his big sister!

Right now Porter LIVES and BREATHES fire trucks, police cars, ambulances and helicopters. This past week I had a mad dash through town to find the last remaining bits of a recent fire truck line of clothing at Gymboree that will comprise the bulk of his fall wardrobe. Porter loves to play with his little rescue vehicles and I find fleets of them lined up neatly like this all over the house. It's a sweet little quirk of his that I adore.

Happy Weekend!

Maren's last day of 1st grade

Oh, my beautiful, smart, happy, friendly little girl! This was a big year for her: she learned to ride a bike, lost four teeth, became a proficient reader, learned how hard work led to success in her math timed tests, made many new friends, grew so tall so quickly that all of her pants became high-waters, and continued to bring joy and light to all of us who are lucky enough to know her. She is exceptional.

And now--blissful summer awaits! We're looking forward to popsicles, swimming pools, playing with friends all day long, and cramming in all of the fun we possibly can fit into the next 2 1/2 months!

The Unicorns and Rainbows Birthday Party

I've been sitting on these photos for more than a month now, putting off posting about them because I knew the post would be a stinker to write with all of the links and photos--and I was right! But I need to get it done before her next birthday rolls around!

Last year, I suggested to Maren that it might be fun to have a Unicorns and Rainbows theme for her 7th birthday party. Full disclosure: I wanted to have a Unicorns and Rainbows birthday party, but that's not really as socially acceptable for a 34-year-old as it is for a 7-year-old. Lucky for me, I have the same taste as a 7-year-old girl, so she went for the idea right away! I've been collecting ideas on my Unicorns and Rainbows party Pinboard for months and I was able to use several of them to make her party really fantastic!

You may remember the invitation we made using rainbow-striped paper from Michael's and a Cricut cartridge. The unicorn even had a glittery mane and tail! We asked the guests to come dressed in their favorite color of the rainbow.

For party activities, we started out making our own edible Unicorn horns, inspired by this pin. I used sugar cones and dipped them into melted white almond bark while the girls were waiting.

We put each dipped cone on a paper plate with the girl's name on it and then they got to decorate their horn. I raided my baking supplies and set out bowls of anything that looked girly or magical. My favorite was the sparkly gold sugar.

The pink sugar pearls were really fun too! One of the reasons I like almond bark much better than Wilton candy melts is that almond bark hardens very quickly. While the girls were outside doing the next activity, my mom put each unicorn horn into a cellophane bag decorated with a name tag and a piece of rainbow striped ribbon.

One thing I repeated from the cupcake party we had a few years ago--we had the girls do their sprinkling over a cheap plastic tablecloth. When they were done, I just gathered up the cloth and tossed it, spilled sprinkles and all.

We sent them out into the front yard for the next activity so that we could get the kitchen cleaned up and the unicorn horns packaged up. Maren saw this unicorn pinata at the party store months ago and it was the thing she was most excited about. She kept saying how cool it was to have her "first birthday party with a pinata."

In my craft stash I even found little paper sacks in all colors of the rainbow for the girls to collect their candy.

After the pinata, we went back into the kitchen for our next project. I purchased these rainbow craft kits from Oriental Trading Company. When we were ordering, Maren actually told me she wanted these rainbow beaded bracelet kits but I screwed up and bought the hanging rainbows instead. They weren't my favorite, but the girls seemed to enjoy making them.

After the craft, we sent the girls outside on the back deck to eat lunch. For lunch we had Unicorn Calzones (inspired by this pin),

rainbow fruit kabobs (inspired by this pin)

and rainbow Goldfish crackers. The Unicorn Calzones were really very good and they ate up every single one! I ordered unicorn and rainbow plates and napkins from Oriental Trading Company as well.

When the girls were done eating, they came inside for cake. I'd been dying to try out the infamous rainbow cake that is all over Pinterest and this finally gave me an excuse! I made mine from two white cake mixes, each divided into thirds. The cake was still tall but not unmanageable. I made the cake layers the day before the party and wrapped them in plastic. I can't even remember how many batches of homemade white buttercream frosting it took--maybe 4?

The morning of the party I decided that the cake looked too plain and sent The Mister out to buy Skittles. Unfortunately the store didn't have the original rainbow color package, but I did the best with what they had and I think it looks fine. The skinny rainbow candles came from the party store and the glittery green 7 came from Target. The girls really did gasp when I cut open the cake and they saw all of the colors! It was quite the showstopper.

For goodie bags I bought plain white paper sacks at Michael's and decorated the tops with a rainbow punched from scrapbook paper. The goodie bags had twisty rainbow suckers, erasers, unicorn necklaces, and unicorn stickers, plus the girls got to take home their unicorn horns, pinata loot and hanging rainbows.

For decorations I used mostly rainbow crepe paper. I had solid colors and then after I bought those (of course) I found rainbow striped paper at another store. It was too much work to take all of the solid paper back, so I just used them both.

I also bought a dozen balloons in rainbow colors and Maren even wore rainbow-striped Hanna Andersson leggings that I found at Costco. I am nothing if not devoted to a theme!

The whole party was so much fun and I'm so pleased with how it all turned out. Maren and all 11 of her little friends had a good time. My parents came for the weekend to help celebrate and I put them to work during the party--it took all four of us adults to keep things running smoothly, and I'm so thankful that I had their help! I don't think I could have done it without them.

Maren rarely gets invited to 'at home' birthday parties these days--the kids in her class usually have their parties at those bouncy places or at little girl salons. It's a lot of work to have 12 little girls in your home; to plan all of the activities and bake and decorate and then clean up all of the mess afterwards. To me it's totally worth it and I hope that someday Maren will have fond memories of the fun parties we planned together! And maybe next year I'll actually let her choose the theme. ;)