We had a little birthday party for Madilynn today. I wanted to show y'all exactly how much I rock at birthday parties.
I made crafts, personalized them for each girl, and used them in place of goodie bags after the tea party.
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| Personalized "tea" cups that are in NO WAY coffee mugs. |
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| I put them with a book in the background because we HEART literature, and Madilynn wanted to read this story to her friends. Also because...well, I'll explain that later. |
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| Fresh baked scones |
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| White chocolate cake with fresh strawberry frosting. And ice cream for the noms. |
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| My birthday girl |
Everything went really well. The girls had tea and snacks, and my boys and one of their friends even got dressed up and played "butler", serving everything on silver trays. It was a lot of fun, and Madilynn was very happy with her day.
I wanted to give y'all some tips on how a single mama can give her daughter (and herself!) the perfect birthday memory.
(Do you hate me yet? Don't leave now, because if you really think that's what I'm writing about and then you leave, I will cry.)
Step One: Remember those artsy crafts? If you have one dollar, five seconds, and a Sharpie, this is the craft for you. Turns out that one dollar, five seconds, and a Sharpie were all I had in the world, and I made these cups out of them. Thanks, Pinterest!
Step Two: Fresh-baked scones! Who doesn't whip up a batch of scones for tea every day? (Hint: Me. It's me. I don't do that.) But apparently you can buy them already mixed up and sliced, and you can throw them on a pan and bake them with the cake!
Step Three: Pretty, pink, heart-shaped cake. Fresh strawberries and white chocolate. I almost died when she asked for this cake. My real-world version was a white cake from a box mixed with some melted white chocolate, then a quick frosting which WAS made with fresh strawberries. But in my house, I refuse to use two appliances for one thing, so after I pureed the strawberries in my food processor, I also threw in the butter and sugar to mix it all up. And then flour, because I didn't have enough sugar. Even still...the cake looked like this:
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| You see how it's not 100% ON the pan? But still passable, right? |
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| Honest photo time: Don't let those Pinterest moms fool you - creative camera positioning goes a long way. |
And remember the photo with the book?
Remember how I said there was another reason for it? Combine the close shot with the book, and...
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| You've hidden an entire room's worth of mess that you don't want splattered all over Pinterest. |
As for the other snacks?
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| I keep my own "the Bakery" stickers around to add that authentic flair to my homemade cookies. :) |
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| While high tea rarely calls for mini pizzas, we had them because 'Merica. |
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| If you keep enough food on the table, nobody will be looking at your dishes! (How'd that wine glass get there, anyway?) |
So ignore the Pinterest moms. Instead, enjoy this honest birthday photo. Patched walls that I
still haven't painted, laundry on the couch, red eyes from the camera, and the remains of a mini pizza on the table. And six
happy kids playing in nail polish.
PS ~ If this were 100% honest, I also post photos of my kids' bedrooms (but we actually kept those closed the entire time, so they don't count) and of myself after I finally got to sit down (it would break the Internet.) Birthday parties, even the small ones,
will kill me one day.
