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Nikola is four. FOUR.
SO.
The child I had surgically removed from my body an eon ago is now FOUR.
We decided to celebrate. I invited way more people than our apartment could comfortably hold and decided on a space theme since Niko is super into the idea of aliens and space exploration right now. Or he was. He quickly vetoed that and wanted OMG TRAINS. He’s still into Thomas and decided that Gordon would be his special birthday friend because Gordon is number 4 and Niko is 4. So I bought some Thomas invitations and we were set.
I set the time of the party for 1:00-4:00 because then we wouldn’t have to provide lunch or dinner, but then I went and blew literally $100.00 on snack-type food (crackers, cheese, crudites, dip, hummus). My MIL brought over her Pita (not the puffed up flat bread, but layered phyllo dough and cheese, or cheese and spinach, or meat, etc. If you’ve had spanikopita (note that pita in there) it’s similar to that but in a log or coiled or round) which was A-MAZE-ING.
I had big plans to spend the week before the party deep cleaning and organizing and getting everything awesome so the week OF the party I’d just have to tidy and maintain. Then I got super sick and spent that week horking out brown slime and complaining about how I wished I was dead, so none of that got done. And the house didn’t get fully cleaned. But I kind of stopped caring.
This was one of our decoration inspirations:
Source: hunterandkristenlunsford.blogspot.com via Brigid on Pinterest
I handed the job over to Nesko while I frosted the cake THE MORNING OF THE PARTY because REASONS that were outside of my control. I also made a zillion cookies… a bunch of tiny engines covered in different colored sugars, and also larger cookies in the shape of an engine, coal tender (I put non pareils on top to be “coal”), a coach, and a caboose. Niko loved them and ate them like this: “oh hey train I’M GONNA EAT YOUR COUPLING NOW! nom nom nom NOW I EAT ALL OF YOU!!”
When he was done, it looked like this:
Well, actually, we hung a bit more crepe paper in swags on the front, but didn’t take any photos of that. I wanted more balloons all over the top but the balloons kept falling down. Nesko couldn’t figure out how to get them to stay up. Was our tape bad? Greasy walls? I have no idea.
Here’s the cake!
Gordon is a splendid blue engine with red detail. His number is yellow and outlined in red. So I carried that over to the cake. I was going to do a red circle around the cake but then decided not to risk shaky hands and a lopsided circle so I didn’t. I also didn’t level the cake so that red ruffle is hiding gaps in the frosting between the two layers. Niko said he wanted strawberry cake. This was a lie.
My camera is a piece of junk, a point and shoot that takes FOREVER to actually take the photo once you’ve hit the button, and which takes a long time to recover from taking photos. My friend Waldo, who is a photographer, used it and managed to get some good photos despite the limitations of the tool she was using.
I made 12 chocolate cupcakes, 12 strawberry cupcakes (as requested), and the cake is a layer of chocolate and a layer of strawberry. If I hadn’t been doing the “4″ thing on the cake I would have just made cupcakes. They are way easier to serve and eat then slabs of cake. We also picked up ice cream bars so we didn’t have to deal with dishing out scoops of ice cream, but then forgot about them. Uh. Duh. We currently have 10 strawberry cupcakes left over.
Some of the other kids “helped” Niko open his presents, for varying values of the word “help.” Everything he got was super thoughtful and something he absolutely enjoys. He got a bunch of books which was kind of a problem because he wanted to stop everything and read them. Presents? Who cares about presents? BOOKS.
Leah made this hat for Niko and I’m hoping that if I am really really nice she’ll make one for me too.
It was a really great time. Some friends were able to come in from out of town, we had some pretty good food even though I didn’t really cook anything.
I think next year I might have a party that’s just kids and make some pizza or something, and then have our adult friends come over the next day for some board games and happy birthday wishes and leftover cake. It was just too many people in our house and it got a little over whelming. It was SUCH a great time, though.
Mirrored from Now Showing!.
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I have a friend who hand makes invitations and crafts bunting out of old maps and craft paper and makes party favors and mini snow globes and sets up birthday party craft stations and has photo ops with accessories and is just... wow. So I'm all STORE BOUGHT INVITATIONS! SHITTY CREPE PAPER! A BUNCH OF COMPUTER PARTS IN THE SUN ROOM! WE ARE GOOD TO GO!!! I spent most of the pre-birthday stuff fretting about not having washed all the floors or properly dusted the molding and would people NOTICE that the frosting on the cake is the WRONG SHADE OF BLUE? But mostly nobody notices or cares.
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I am usually lucky to get the cake done on time and the presents wrapped. I also futz over the house. I don't think I've ever organized a party game...except one year I let everyone use the water guns to go to town.
And the thought of having an out-of-the-home birthday party (e.g., skating rink/bowling alley/park/etc.)? *shudder* I cannot organize such things!
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I think part of the point of having an out of the home bday party is THEY do the organizing FOR YOU. At least at a skating rink or something. Park is different, obvs. But you just have to hand over a head count and money and SHOW UP. They even clean up after. If we had the money, we'd SO do Chuck E. Cheese or something.
I think a park birthday would be easier for me because I grew up cooking out a LOT so it's easy for me to figure out a menu and transport it to said park, and then I also don't have to worry about cleaning the house up before hand. WIN. Sadly, we're in Chicago and March is cold, so we can't really do out door things for long periods of time.
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I think sometimes that maybe I just don't like being around other people's kids all that much. :) We usually only invite the besties or the neighborhood kids. One year I let my oldest just have a sleepover with a couple of friends instead of a party... we made personal pizzas for dinner with pita bread and toppings, and they entertained themselves all night with our movie collection while I slept. That was probably the easiest celebration ever. :P
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I grew up Catholic with a birthday in late February, so my birthday usually fell during Lent. I didn't get many parties, with that as the excuse (there were other factors at play, too). Our last two parties for Niko have been family-only, mostly because we didn't get our act together in time to plan things and invite people. But there was still cake and presents.
I like other peoples' kids just fine as long as those kids aren't assholes. I'm looking forward to sleep overs and the kids being able to supervise themselves.
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Oh, that looks great! We've got a store-bought elephant garland that has sort of become a tradition, so the decoration isn't too difficult to organize.
But yes, very impressed by all the baking and decorating. I feel you on the cleaning - I always tell myself that I'll do it thoroughly before the guests arrive. For my birthday I finished hoovering about five minutes before my parents rang the doorbell (and I didn't get to do the sofa or under it and there were whole rooms that were out of bounds).
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I got into the groove of making cookies and wanted to make a bunch more cookies. Instead of, you know, cutting up cheese or red peppers or sweeping the floor.
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Does Leah have a pattern for the hat? Because I kind of think my nephew(s) and niece would look awesome in a set of these. *plots*
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I think it's a really basic fleece hat, though, where the seems are like an X on top and you sew lightly stuffed triangles along the long seam. The ones on Niko's hat are very slightly curved.
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What an amazing amount of work you did, while so sick. You are a superwoman, yes you are.
So since I'm editing anyway, I can also add what else I forgot, which is the decorations are really good, as well as creative.
Love, C.