The Party: Cupcakes!

We had the Dum Ditty Drum cake at the party, but we needed some monkeys, too!
And, what flavor says monkeys like banana?

I used this recipe for the cupcakes, and this recipe for the Nutella icing.

Then I decorated the cupcakes to look like the monkeys who say, Dum Ditty Dum Ditty, Dum Dum Dum!

I used some Valentine's day M&Ms and sorted the whites and pinks. I used the pinks on the big cake and the whites for the eyes of the monkeys.
For the nose and mouth, I used a Nilla Wafer (yum!). I mixed a bit of milk with some gel food dye, and used a skinny paint brush to make the nostrils and a smile.
I read on one account of this (found on Pinterest of course), that the Nilla Wafers get soggy when applied to far in advance, so I waited till the morning of the party to apply them. They did get gross pretty quickly, but not so much soggy as stale.

Here's the finished product!

And here they all are, getting ready to be eaten!

We ended up with way more cupcakes than we needed, so we took them downstairs to the dining room of Nanna's nursing home. I tried to tell one woman what they were-- banana cupcakes with Nutella icing.  "Vanilla?" she said.
"No, Nutella. Um, it's a hazelnut spread. Chocolate and hazelnut."
"What did she say?" she asked the lady sitting next to her.
Generation gap, I guess.

The Party: Wardrobe

I knitted a little sweater and sewed a little dress for E's big day.

The dress ended up too big, but short. Luckily I included lots of extra fabric in the hem, so I can let it out and the dress can grow with her a bit.

I found the fabric at JoAnn's, but didn't really have an idea for it till her birthday rolled around.

Here's the pattern. It claims to be "very easy," but I had to Google some words and look up some videos to make it happen. I used elastic for the first time, and made poufy sleeves for the first time. I'm kinda proud of it.

Here's the sweater.

And here's the preview post.

I used  this pattern, but modified it to be a cardigan.

My Uncle Paul, or as Esther calls him, Pau Pau, gave her and all the kids at the party Mylar balloons. Here she is, so excited to be playing with them back at the house. I love the excitement on her face!

The cap sleeves on the sweater were too small for the short sleeves on the dress, especially b/c the dress was too big. But it's still cute and she'll be able to wear it any time.

She saw me knitting it, and I told her I was making a jacket for her. So the day of the party, when it was finally finished, she kept saying, "Mommy, chackie!" It was almost like she was telling everybody I made it.  : )


A few shots of Esther "helping" me knit:

The Party: Cake

The most important part of any party is the food... at a birthday party, the cake is central!
I made a chocolate cake out of a box and made it in two nine inch round pans. I made golden butter icing and dyed half of it green. The white is between the two layers and on top, with the green on the outsides.

Pink M&Ms line the drum, with pretzel sticks as decoration, pretzel rods topped with marshmallows as the drumsticks. Totally from Pinterest.

Here's the cake in action!

Esther didn't exactly know how to blow out the candle.

So I helped.

And then she ate a drumstick.

She likes it!

Esther found her party activities! "Dum Dummy," she said, and went over to the monkeys.

 We talked about "rings on fingers" and she played with it a bit.

 She suddenly started pointing out the monkeys and said, "Book?" She looked worried. I told her the book was ok, they were just pictures. She went back to playing.

Didn't take long for her attention to go to the rings...

I think she likes it!!

Party Prep II

The other game... a cheesie poof toss through the mouth of a smiling monkey!

To make:
1. Scan image of choice.
2. Crop photo to face.
3. Check your printer's poster settings. I made mine three sheets by three sheets. Print. (I was apparently running out of yellow ink as this was printing.)
4. Mount the printed sheets onto cardboard.  (I used an old Ikea box and Elmer's spray glue.)
5. Using a utility knife, cut around the image and cut out the mouth.

6. Finally, use another cardboard box to make a kickstand.


I figure folks of all ages will have fun throwing cheesie poofs at each other... I mean, in the monkey's mouth.

Party Prep

Esther will be 2 on Monday. I can't even believe it. Her party will be this Saturday, and I've been doing all kinds of stuff to get ready. (Unemployment is good for something, anyway.)

I've tried two different recipes for banana cakes to make the monkey cupcakes. This one won.
I tried two flavors of icing: Nutella and chocolate/peanut-butter. Nutella won.

I've been working on a sweater for Esther. (A few more inches to go!)

And a dress. (Still need to finish the bottom hem, wash, and press. I'll show you in a few days.)

And today I finished the games. The first is a ring toss, inspired by "Rings on fingers. Rings on thumb."

I scanned the page from the book and added the text in the corner.  It's a decoration/sign to identify game.

I assembled and painted a "hand" from dowel rods and wooden ovals from A.C. Moore.

Then I made some rings. I used shower rings and tied some big shiny beads to them with wire.

It will be quite a feat for anyone to actually ring a finger with these, but I figure it will occupy the menfolk for a bit.




The other game posts tomorrow!

Party preview

A hint as to Esther's wardrobe for the big day.

Another hint:

http://www.petitepurls.com/Summer10/summer2010_p_sourpatch.html

Blow! Blow! Blow!

One of the favors for Esther's birthday party is a hankie. I know nobody uses handkerchiefs anymore, but the monkeys in the book do! This page was the inspiration, obviously.

By the way, this is how we get Esther to blow her nose.  I give her a tissue and say, "Hands with handkerchiefs!" She says, "Bow! Bow! Bow!"

I chopped up the book (gasp! I know!) and scanned a few of the pages for decorations at the party.  I cut out the monkey in the front and scanned him in all by himself.

I also printed out the words. I printed them all together, monkey and caption, and used up 8 of my 10 pages of Ink-jet-to-T-shirt transfer sheets.

I was about to start cutting them out when I realized I hadn't printed them backwards.  (You put the transfer sheets face-down, so they have to be the mirror image of what you actually want to see.)  So I used those last two pages to print the words. Doesn't it look funny?

Ok, on to the business. I ironed the transfers onto the hankies. I put it on the hottest setting and didn't use water. Steam makes the ink run. I kept the iron moving, but kept the heat on the image for 30 seconds to a minute each.  Of course, follow the instructions on whatever brand of transfer stuff you use.

Lay the images face-down and Iron! Iron! Iron!

The final product. Kinda cute, if I do say so myself.

Food ideas

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb is a sing-song kind of book about monkeys playing drums. I'm thinking monkey cupcakes, found on Pinterest from here, and a drum "main cake" found on Pinterest from here (without the Elmo face, of course).

The Invite

This is the invite to Esther's second birthday party. (I made it for the non-email people in Esther's life. The electronically connected got a little e-mail thing from a program I have called Smilebox. It came free with my purchase of Print Shop.)

The party will be at my Nanna's assisted living facility. They have a free activity room. Nanna is Esther's great grandmother. She's 85 and can't get out without oxygen, so this was the only way I could be sure to include her. Plus, when Esther and my dad and I visited her over the holidays, Esther's cuteness cheered up some of the oldsters there, so I wondered about the availability of a space. Nanna gets to invite 5 or 6 buddies. She's already worried she'll leave someone out and hurt feelings. Miss Popularity.

The added bonus of doing it there-- there's no other free location that will be neutral space for my family. Since my parents' divorce, I've been cautious to include everyone, not offend anyone, and try to avoid awkwardness all at the same time. Now that Esther's in our lives, we're all stepping up in these areas... all for Esther.

Almost two!

Esther turns two in a month... I've decided on a theme:

the book, HAND, HAND, FINGERS, THUMB.

She is loving this book right now, and we are having a blast learning to do a thumbs up, shaking hands, and saying, "Whack! Whack! Whack!" (Esther somehow makes it sound like a duck)

I think the kiddos at the party will make drums, and I'll come up with a menu based on the book's monkeys, drums, and references to apples and plums. I'll keep you posted on the planning.

Take care!
J