This weekend is kind of a blur to me. I told you all last Friday that K2 and I share our birthdays. Well up until this year, we've had our birthday party together. But, with her getting to a certain age, she's to the point where she wanted to have a birthday party of her own with her own friends. Sniff. My baby is no longer a baby - at.all!
We debated for MONTHS over what kind of party she wanted to have. Big sister had a cowgirl party back in September, and so she definitely wanted a cool theme. We went back and forth between princesses, Ariel, Wreck it Ralph (yeah, she's pretty cool), and finally we decided on The Lorax. She loves this movie and book. Seriously one of her all time favorites. And I knew exactly the type of cupcakes I was going to make for her. Here's a glimpse into the party.
First of all, the decorations had to be bright colors. With a lot of patterns. Whenever I think of Seuss, I think of these things. (Do you like the dog? He refused to get out of the picture. Little turd.) And then I loved these honeycomb balls, very truffula tree-ish. And of course the Lorax had to make a showing!
We had such a fun time at K1's party with the kids playing a "pin the tail" game. So incorporating that into K2's party was easy - I call it Pin the Mustache on the Lorax! It was very simple. A little orange and yellow poster board from Michael's, some permanent markers, and a white paint marker later and our little rolley-pollie took shape. For not getting great grades in art, he turned out not too shabby!
All the kids had a blast playing this game. It helped that The Hubs was in charge spinning the kids around and then sending them off. We had the mustache all over the place, including a human hip! All the kids wanted multiple turns. They also had little bags of "Barbaloot" - chocolate Teddy Grahams and mini-marshmallows - to snack on and toss in the air and catch with their mouths.
I wanted the kids to have some type of art project to take home and enjoy. Candy is an easy handout, but kids love creating something that they can call their own. For me, it was suncatchers. I found individual flower suncatchers at Michael's, along with a box of paints and paintbrushes. That was the biggest hit for the kids. They all were able to mix paints and create their own little flower. K2 mixed every single color for hers.
The favors were little metal buckets, filled with various Lorax items - a crazy straw with Lorax mustache attached, temporary tattoos of flowers and butterflies, bubbles, a marshmallow candy stick, a pen with truffula type fluff on it and a butterfly, and a packet of flower seeds that (to me) look like truffula trees. I wanted to give each child a flower pot and have them plant a seed AT the party, but with the onset of winter, I thought it would be better to just send home a packet of seeds and let the kids plant them in the Spring. On the buckets was a label with a line from the book.
And now for the cupcakes. This was quite possibly one of the easiest cupcake ideas I've had. It had to be fun, and I knew I wanted to make Truffula Trees for the toppers. I used my cupcake base, using a Funfetti cake mix and vanilla pudding. Then I made Cream Cheese Frosting and colored it with Wilton's Kelly Green gel coloring. The truffula trees are made out of cake pop sticks and cotton candy. And of course I had to add the little Barbaloot Bears, chocolate Teddy Grahams. They turned out so dang cute and just perfect for our little party.
It was a fun and simple party. One that I was okay with just sitting back and watching while my baby girl grows up.
