The Lynns: 1/2 Maile's Birthday Party

Since I usually write entries 4-6 weeks after the fact, some things don't come back to me right away. When I was writing about Maile's actual birthday, I had a hard time remember what we did. I remembered Fresh Choice, but not much else. Luckily, I had taken a photo at The Jungle. While thinking about Maile's birthday party, I remembered a couple of other things we did on her birthday.

Before going to The Jungle, we went to the Lego store in Valley Fair to let Maile pick out a Lego set that would be a gift from her (Grand)MaMa. But the store's inventory was low. They hadn't recovered yet from Christmas. We also went to a nearby ToysRUs but same story.

We also spent days leading up to Maile's birthday party hunting down party favors, an unexpected necessity. Two weeks before Maile's party, I had ordered aprons and disposable chef hats that the kids could decorate and take home. I forgot that I ordered them from two different places. So, when I saw an order confirmation that my order had shipped (I even checked the arrival date), I didn't realize that it was for only one of my orders. I came to the realization after we got back from DC, and I opened a package to only find chef hats.

I called about the aprons and found out that they were on back order and would not arrive until mid-Feb or something. I asked about other colors because the aprons came in every color of the rainbow and more, and all the other colors were in stock. I couldn't believe it. When I ordered the aprons, there was no note while ordering or in my confirmation, that the color I ordered was back-ordered. I asked if they could express ship the aprons in another color, but the fastest they could do was 2-day shipping, and they still would not arrive in time. So, I cancelled the order. I was so upset. I wanted to cry. But after I got myself together, I called Michael's and found out that they had child aprons for a decent price. More expensive than the ones I had ordered but cheaper than other ones I had seen online. The only problem was they only had a few at the closest Michael's. She gave me the count for other stores. I called around and put them on hold at the stores that had them. I'm good at combining errands, so it all worked out.

So, Maile's party was a cookie party. We decided on that because Maile likes to bake and because we wanted to invite her classmates but knew we wouldn't be able to accommodate a lot of kids in our home. With baking, we could make it a girls party (with little bros welcome).

The day of the party we had the aprons and chef hats out for kids to decorate while we waited for everyone to arrive. I had ordered extra chef hats for little bros to decorate. The girls couldn't actually wear the aprons during the party because they needed to try.

We had two cookie stations and the island for snacks and drinks. We had half the kids at one station and the other half at the other and then after 1/2 hr, they switched. For the cookies, I pre-made and pre-shaped sugar cookie dough. One station was in the dining room, where each child could decorate a snowman and a star. We did more of a winter theme vs Christmas since Maile's birthday is after Christmas.

And at the other station in the breakfast nook, we made 3 different cookies -- thumbelinas (or thumbprint cookies), snowball surprise, and a blow art one. The first two recipies were from a parenting magazine and the last from MarthaStewart.com. For the thumbelinas and snowball surprise, I prerolled balls of dough. For the Thumbelinas, you press the dough down with your thumb and then you put a scoop of jam (we used strawberry) in the middle.

We didn't take many photos during the party, so I found all of these cookie photos online.

For the snowball surprise, you wrap a chocolate kiss with the dough and shape it into a ball. The recipe called for covering it with coconut after baking. I was going to have the kids roll the cookies in powdered sugar but decided to leave that part out to save time.

For the blow art cookies, I precut the dough into 2 x 2 squares. The child then drops a couple of drops of food color and then blows with a straw. After the first batch, I made sure to let the next group of kids know not to go crazy with the food coloring.

For the cake portion of the party, I made vegan cupcakes, which are really yummy, in case anyone had allergies. I got the recipe from my cousin-in-law. And bought frosting, which didn't have any milk or egg but did have a lot of weird-sounding stuff. After singing happy birthday, which I don't have a shot of, the kids decorated their own cupcakes.

Maile received a lot of nice gifts. Thanks to everyone who came and helped -- helped at the stations, helped make sure we didn't burn the cookies and helped celebrate Maile's birthday!