My plans for Kai's party started off innocently enough. I found myself with time on my hands when Yo and Kai were in Norway. One of the nights I was up too late for my own good, I thought, wouldn't Kai just love a bounce house for his birthday.
When I found a Curious George bounce house the theme for the party was set. Kai loves Curious George, after all.
Boy did I regret that decision when I discovered that there are very few Curious George party supplies available. So the birthday insanity began with making my own invites and ended with three 12(+) hour days laboring in the kitchen.
But when everything came together just how I had envisioned it on Saturday morning and I got to see how much fun Kai and his friends had at the party it was all worth it.
That being said, I told Yo that we're not throwing Kai another party 'til he's 10.
(My prediction... I'll be eating my words next year.)
I made the invitations on powerpoint and printed them using a picture printer my mom gave me a few years ago.
The bounce house was a big hit. When Kai saw the delivery guy setting it up in the driveway he about pushed his way through the window trying to get to it. After the baking marathon I was not about to go outside until I had showered. I literally had to lock Kai in my room to contain him. But don't worry, Kai got his bounce on soon enough and bounced his little heart out until they picked the bounce house up at 4.
I kept the decorations to a minimum. We got lots of balloons and splurged on the above Curious George vinyl cutout. I found it on Amazon in the early stages of my party planning and it actually became the inspiration for the rest of the decor (especially the cake).
Last year I was determined to make Kai a homemade cake, it was for his 1st birthday after all, but I thought this year I thought I would for sure go the store-bought route. But I couldn't find a cute Curious George cake topper. So I decided to make a cake after all.
I was more than a little nervous about trying to make something that resembled Curious George because I am not artistic. I'm a little bit of a visionary and a lot bit of a perfectionist, but I simply don't have the artistic skills to back it up.
I made the balloons using candy molds and Wilton's melting candies (left over from Kai's cake last year). As for George, I actually molded him out of rice krispie treats. It was a total fluke. I was going to try my hands at fondant, but I had some random pieces of rice krispie treats left over after cutting out cute shapes in my gluten-free rice krispies (your welcome, Kristine and Kaari!) and thought I might be able to mold a little monkey out of it. After I had my monkey shape (it was surprisingly easy) all I had to do was color my frosting and do a little piping work.
While I skimped on the decorations, I ended up going a wee bit over board on the food. Again, it wasn't my intention. I fell victim to my own vision and lack of both speed and skill in the kitchen.
The banana pudding almost didn't make the cut. Not because it didn't sound to die for, but because it was after 11 on Friday night and I hadn't started making it. As I'm sitting here enjoying a cup of this creamy banana deliciousness (Oh yes, there are left overs! C'mon over!) I'm thinking it was totally worth the hour of sleep that I lost. I'm keeping this recipe for the family files.
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Another Amazon find, Wilton's 101 Cookie Cutters set. I really wanted to make sugar cookies to spell out Kai's name and the number 2 for his age. As a bonus, the set also includes cookie cutters not only for every holiday, but every possible occasion you could ever want to make cookies for. Thanksgiving cookies, here we come!
As for the icing, I made a simple glaze and then tinted it with gel-consistency food coloring. The darn red coloring just would not turn my icing red. It was pink for the longest time and then various shades of orange. By the time I got to red, I had used half of the little container. The red icing turned out really cute, but when I tried one, I almost gagged. All I could taste was the rancid food coloring. Sadly, that did not prevent me from putting the red cookies in the mix. They looked too cute to leave out. Sorry if anyone had the misfortune of trying one!
My mom actually used to make us chocolate-covered, frozen bananas (banana pops) when we were kids so it seemed like an obvious addition to the menu.
Chocolate-covered pretzels with colored sprinkles displayed in a jar filled with Sixlets. I've used these tasty treats at a few parties. They are a personal favorite and so easy to make.
These cuties, on the other hand, are not so easy to make. Inspired by the cake-pop craze, I thought I'd try my hands at banana bread pops. So I crumbled up my banana bread and added a little cool whip, cream cheese and sour cream (about a spoon full of each) to the mixture to make it a cookie-dough-like consistency so that I could roll the crumbs into balls. At first I tried doing this by hand with mixed-results and quickly found out that my cookie dough scoop worked much better. Once I had shaped the balls, I put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
The next step was to take the chilled balls and insert the lollipop stick in them. There was a learning curve to this as well. Don't worry, I ate the casualties. Once the stick was inserted, I dipped the balls into my chocolate (semi-sweet chocolate chips melted in the microwave with just a dallop of shortening to smooth out the consistency). Then I decorated them with colored sprinkles.
I also learned by trial and error that I would have to let the chocolate solidify with the balls standing upright. So I ended up hunting down a piece of styrofoam and poking the lollipop sticks through it and then putting the whole thing back in the freezer to set.
Once set, I found that I could store the balls in any ol' tupperware and that they held up well to stacking as long as I kept them cold.
I know I made this sound simple, but it took me a long time to figure out all of the technical aspects of what I was doing. On top of that I had to figure out how to cool them upright in a tiny and over-packed freezer. It was a logistical nightmare. And then there was the issue of how one goes about serving top-heavy bread pops.
I ended up cutting a styrofoam ball (an extra from my ghost making endeavor last month) in half and squeezing it into little tin buckets we got for Kai's first birthday. I weighted the bucket down with popcorn kernels and then was able to stick the bread balls out at every which angle to make it look like a little bouquet. With a touch of tissue paper to top it all off, I felt quite pleased with the result.
This was Yo's contribution to the menu. I can't palate peanut butter so I delegated him the task of assembling these peanut butter and banana sandwiches on cinnamon raisin bread. He did a masterful job of making them and stacking them in this artful display.
To entertain the kids we had a few tricks up our sleeves. My goal was to have as much going outside as possible. So there was the bounce house, a make-shift ball pit, play tents and tunnels, and Kai's tree swing to enjoy. We also talked to our neighbors to get permission to informally block off the cul-de-sac with cones so that the kids could ride their bikes and trikes and scooters in the street.
Kai had a blast. He spent plenty of time in the bounce house, but also enjoyed playing on all the bikes and such that his friends brought over. One little friend had a little doll stroller that Kai couldn't get enough of. Which I was delighted to see because we are giving him a doll stroller and boy doll for his birthday.
As if the bounce house weren't fun enough, in and of itself, Christian had Kai in hysterics when he popped up to surprise Kai who was bouncing unsuspectingly nearby:
Here are a couple more shots of the birthday boy doing his thing:
And some of our guests:
We even managed to snap a family photo or two before the party was over:
Pretty cute how Yo and Kai were matching, huh?
Speaking of Yo, he came ready to party with is flashy socks. (It's his new thing.)
The highlight of the day for Kai was when everyone gathered around him to sing "Happy Birthday to You!" This kid was born to be the center of attention. His eyes lit up and he swayed his head to and fro and then clapped for everyone when they finished. It was adorable.
The cake is actually two 13" x 9" cakes put together. It was big! So it took a little help from Mommy to get Kai in position to blow out (i.e. drool on) his candles:
On the other hand, Kai required no help when it came to cake eating:
It's hard to believe that after such an action-packed weekend, Kai's birthday hasn't actually happened yet. So tomorrow we are planning a low-key round two of birthday celebrations. And after tomorrow Mommy gets a wee little break before the chaos of Thanksgiving, puppy training, and Christmas ensues. Love it!
* If any parents out there would rather not have their kid pictured on the blog, please let me know!
