The first 3rd birthday that really never was

There is a part of me that did not want to post this blog.  My youngest son was turning 3 and he was getting a birthday party for the first time.  I had the theme all ready and ideas began swirling right out of the gate.  I was so excited to be throwing another event since it had been almost a year, excluding the last minute Back to School get together I threw a couple of weeks ago for my eldest.  I thought I had so much time to get set up, I even became cocky about the whole thing.  I had counted my chickens, planned out how they would be cooked and everything.  The preparation week was off to an amazing start.  I had designed all of the signs and labels.  Two nights out I made the jellyfish which I thought looked awesome.  The afternoon before, I made the corn dogs, the cookies and the cupcakes.  Oh yes, this was it.  This was the party where I was finally going to execute every little detail that I had conjured up in my brain…….or so I thought.

Party day came out of nowhere, I overslept by 30 minutes and while hanging up the balloons (don’t get me started on those things) aka bubbles, a random wind decided to grace me with its presence.  I never thought I curse at the air, but on August 13th I was fist waving and cursing to the heavens.  For a brief moment, when the wind was soft and intermittent, I was able to bask in the joy of my creation then mother nature thought she’d have a great laugh and blow the bleep out of my under water paradise.

If that wasn’t challenging enough, the tablecloths I purchased created more like a tacky 80s wedding scene rather than an underwater explorer vibe you would expect from an Octonauts party so I had to run to the Dollar Tree.  Oh no, it gets better, of course it was 8:30 am and Dollar Tree doesn’t open until 9:00 am….of course.  I literally sat there calculating which option (running back home or staying and waiting) would maximize my time the most.  I decided to wait and stand at the door looking pitiful so maybe they would open it a bit earlier and it worked.  At 8:57 am, I found pity.  I ran through the store like a Super Market Sweep contestant and was out of there by 9:01 am because the register wouldn’t allow scans until 9:00 am. Ha!

Fast forward to about 1 hour before the party and I knew, at that point, I had been defeated.  Before I could capture a good shot of the underwater paradise, the wind blew my “bubbles” and jellyfish all over the place and I had given up on rearranging them.  My table settings blew onto the floor and somehow my “clear” (and I use that word loosely) balloons had turned opaque or freakin’ white and my cupcakes weren’t frosted. Ahhhhhh!

The good news, I still managed to play hostess.  The kids played the games.  My husband had finished enough of the playset for the kids to play and the kids seemed to have a great time.  But don’t worry, things didn’t turn fully around….Wal-mart sent us poison paper cups.  Yeah, the kids started complaining about the drinks and I decided to confirm with a taste test and almost puked.   Anyway, I did manage to capture glimpses of my creations so I thought I’d share.  The moral of this story, HIRE HIRE HIRE help and don’t order paper cups from Wal-mart!

You can see my jelly fish hiding in the bubbles.  They were actually super easy to make and I chose to go with a more natural look rather than the colorful options you find online.

I bought a bubble maker from Amazon which was a big hit.  It was one the few things that worked perfectly.

 

The tablecloth and plates came from the Dollar Tree.  I actually screamed out loud when I found them.  The printing was shockingly good quality.

 

This one is my favorite because Amazon had actual Octonaut themed goodie boxes that were like $7.99 for 4 and we know that wasn’t going to happen and I guess Amazon knew as well because at the bottom of the screen when you open the file for details, it suggested these plain white boxes that were  $7.50 for 12.  I bought those and printed the Octonaut emblem and a stick of glue later we have $0.70 boxes instead of $2 boxes.

These are the items of which I am the most proud.  Esty, offers amazing printables for Octonaut themed parties, but when I got to this point, I was done spending money.  Fortunately for me, some awesome individual posted this image on Pinterest and I printed them out, took the advice I found on a forum and taped them right over the Aquafina label without batting an eye.  Side Note:  when printing things like this and the Octonaut logo, it is really good to create a table and insert the images.  It makes cutting much more simpler and uniform.

I made the daring attempt at organized games and it worked a little bit.  It was more of a temporary distraction from the swing set.

These are homemade.  I actually love making them especially since I know what type of meat (I use Oscar Meyer Selects) is being used and the contents of the breading.  Here is the recipe.  I used the cake pop sticks I bought from Michael’s.

This is actually a toy.  I saw an amazing Octopod centerpiece online and thought, uh no.  I do not have the skill, time, nor the resources to make that so I went with a toy which serves as both a cupcake stand and his birthday gift.

Typical 3 year old, stole a jelly fish.

 

 

Happy 3rd Birthday C3!

An Old Fashioned Treat Gets a homemade maker-over

In an attempt to have one last get together for my son and his kindergarten mates before they transition to 1st grade.  I wanted to just do a little something with no bells and whistles.  No days and days of little sleep trying to execute some insane design my meddling brain created.  Just playing with water in the backyard or whatever they find around the house, pizza that will be delivered and homemade ice cream sandwiches.

I tried sooooooooo hard to be simple, but I mean, there had to be multiple flavors of ice cream and there HAD to be different cookie options so that there can be different sandwich combinations and how could they possible know what to pick without a menu and what kind of menu would it be if it wasn’t a chalkboard menu and how would they know it was a menu if I didn’t give it a title.  That is pretty much how my brain works and why things constantly spiral out of control.  Oh well, what’s done is done.  I kept it as simple as I am capable of keeping it and the kids had a blast.

Oh don’t worry, I will not conclude this post without talking about the treats that inspired this whole thing.

I am quite particular with the quality of food that my little monsters consume (until I am exhausted and you hear “Welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your order”) so if I allow ice cream in the house, it is only with a label that says cream, sugar, and maybe 2 or 3 more ingredients that I am able to pronounce and don’t recognize from a reagent label at work.  Harris Teeter was having a buy 2 get 3 free on Turkey Hill (don’t ask me, it’s a brand they carry here in NC) so I thought, this is totally a sign that ice cream sandwiches are the way to go.  Next was deciding on which cookies, but before I even went there I had a matter of business to resolve.  My cookies have not been performing as well as I would like so I Googled and found some awesome tips that had my cookies looking and feeling like something from a professional bakery (taste has never been an issue).  Here are the tips:

1.  All ingredients must be at room temperature (I have shared that one before)
2. Beat butter and sugar for 3 – 5 minutes.  This is for real.  It gets that air inside so you have nice plump, fluffy cookies.
3. Rotate you pans midway through cooking (change racks as applicable but also a 180°)
4. Parchment paper!  – This is the best and most important tip I have ever used.  It made clean up a sinch.  Helped the cookies have a gorgeous color on the bottom, but also helped speed up my process as you are able to set cookies up on the parchment paper while one/two batches are in the oven!

The cookies turned out the best I ever made.  I chose my go to chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies although no one chose that one, sugar cookies, and brown butter cinnamon with white chocolate chip.  You can see the combinations on the menu.

The menu was such a fun touch, the kids were so excited and perplexed trying to decide which to choose.  One of the moms who stayed took orders and it was really like an Ice Cream Shoppe (what the h is a shoppe?).  I am pretty sure I enjoyed it the most as I, for a brief moment, got to experience having my own bakery without leaving my own home and the kids got a nice end to their summer break which I hope goes in their history books.