9 years ago...

on the weekend we had a "little" party for our daughter, ella, who turned nine years old. she and seth have both started taking skating lessons and so she wanted to have a skating party. i booked a room at the local rink and we got all the girls in her class and a few neighbours' kids to meet us all there. everyone had a blast!
i ended up making 24 regular cupcakes, 48 mini ones, and a small one layer cake (for her actual day). in last year's april issue of living there were little crepe paper flowers and birds. the flower for january is the snowdrop and i made a bunch of them for her cakes. when ella saw the picture in the magasine, she definetly wanted a nest, too. off to michael's! i picked up 2 tiny little blue birds there as well.
and some bees

happy birthday ella! thank you for being such a great girl

the tea party

ella said she wanted to have a tea party for her birthday. immediatly i thought mad hatter. i began my search for games the mad hatter, white rabbit and doormouse would have played. indoor croquet was not an option, we just don't have the room. there wasn't much out there for 7 and 8 year olds, most of the ideas i found were too old, so i stuck to the basics... musical teacups, simon says, and best decorated hat.

food was easy to figure out.



classic cucumber sandwiches and mini loaves of banana bread


sugar cookies and fruit

i always do chocolate dipped strawberries, and it's never a tea party without tea (frozen strawberry daquari mix mixed with peach grape sparkling juice- heart ice cubes from ikea!)

the cake turned out okay, i chose to make a vanilla sponge cake, swapping out the vanilla extract for strawberry extract, with strawberry cream cheese icing. i was mildly dissappointed in the final result, although the kids didn't complain so i really shouldn't either. just wasn't perfect.

after 3 hours of entertaining and smiling and laughing, i needed a drink. i made a stubbly beaver. mmmmm.

stubbly beaver

1 ounce vodka
1 ounce irish cream
1 ounce butterscotch schnappes
3-4 ice cubes
milk

add each ingredient over ice, stir and enjoy.

happy birthday ella!

happy 8th birthday to our princess ella!

yay!

i'm too pooped after entertaining 12 girls and seth for 3 hours to blog about our amazing day, hopefully i'll have time tomorrow.

invasion

today the house was invaded by 6 (soon to be 7) year olds. it was a pajama party, and a great time was had by all! i think the present theme was littlest pet shop, which, aparently, all the girls are going crazy for. cake was eaten and enjoyed along with chocolate dipped strawberries and "muchie mix". ahhhh... i'm exhausted.



























(sorry for the crappy post... still trying to figure out the "new" blogger)

happy birthday ella!

happy birthday to the bestest 7 year old there ever was!