gearing up for birthday princess weekend 2017, 2.0

the bean kicked off her birthday princess weekend with an audition for her school's annual talent show.  this year, instead of keeping it to the elementary grades they opened up tryouts to the whole school.  that meant that she was going up against kids from transitional kindergarten age all the way through to the 8th graders, and that meant that there were quite a few acts going in to audition.  she was going to face some pretty stiff competition and i wondered if this might be the year she'd get cut.

she'd been practicing her ukulele in the car, between cheer practices, after school, pretty much any time she could squeeze it in.

she had a bunch of friends who were also vying for a coveted spot in the show, and they hung out happily as they waited to be called in.

when they went in, she came over to me and confessed "mom, i'm really nervous.  what if i don't make it?"  and i told her not to stress about it, to relax a little and try to have fun with it.  i mean, what's the worst thing that can happen?  and i got her to take a selfie with me seconds before she was called in.

back at home, i had her try on the new shirt i'd ordered for her to wear to girl scout meetings.  with the pressure of the audition over and done with, she hammed it up a little for me.

i put her and the old lady to work assembling the goody bags for her birthday party the next day, which is always a fun task.

and then later that evening, after the girls had done the work at their meeting, they gathered together and sang her the birthday song before she passed out some brownies.

the list of acts for the talent show was emailed out that night as well.  and it looks like i'll be on the hunt for a good elvis costume for her to wear, because she made it.  she's plucking out "love me tender" on the ukulele, and i'd instructed her to lean forward into the microphone when she was done and utter an elvis-style "thank you...thank you very much."  she said the judges laughed when she said it, and i'm willing to bet that just might have helped give her a little nudge into the "yes" pile.

this is gonna be fun.  although with the show not for a couple of weeks yet, i'm never gonna get "love me tender" out of my head.  argh.

partyzilla prep

i swear, i say every year that i'm going to tone it down for the bean's annual birthday bash.  and then i get a glimpse of all sorts of fun ideas via party blogs and/or pinterest, and i'm sucked in like crazy.  bah.

although i did pretty well this time around.  i was feeling really laid back about it all, and the feeling lasted all the way till friday morning.  that's when it all hit me that i had a crapload of stuff to get done, and less than a full day to do it all.  poop.

i started with some homemade ice cream.  first, red velvet - which was actually fairly easy.

since the ice cream recipe called for a shitton of egg yolks, leaving me with lots of egg whites to work with, i made some mint chip meringues.  these are so good, and i hadn't baked a batch of these up in ages.  plus, that's the bean's favorite ice cream flavor, so they totally went with the theme.

next up:  the ice cream cone-shaped rice krispy treats.  i made two batches and pressed it into a sheet pan so that i could cut them out easily with my cookie cutter.

a little drizzle with chocolate and sprinkles, and they were good to go.

i'd already baked the two layers for the birthday cake, wrapped them tightly and stored them in the fridge for frosting the next morning.  but then i remembered that i had these, which i'd originally bought with bakerella's ice cream cone cake pops in mind:

except that i didn't have any way to keep them upright.  unlike regular cake pops on a stick, i couldn't just stick them in a piece of floral styrofoam and call it a day.  so i hunted through my old cardmaking tools and found my eyelet setter and hammer to macgyver up a homemade stand.

sometimes, the genius that comes out of my peabrain really amazes the hell out of me.  i baked up a quick batch of red velvet cupcakes for two, whipped up some frosting, smushed it all together and formed the little balls.  while they chilled for a bit in the fridge (which makes them easier to coat evenly), i melted some chocolate.  a few sprinkles, a couple of dips in the chocolate, and i had these:

those tulle poufs i'd been crafting as i caught up on episodes of "general hospital"?  they got strung up into a nice, long garland.

and thanks again to pinterest for driving me to create this fun-looking punch box.  even though we had goody boxes for the kids and lots of activities to keep them occupied, i couldn't help but think how fun this would be.  so i busted out my long-forgotten circle cutter:

covered the holes with tissue in the party colors:

cut out the bags and put the prizes in them:

and ended up with a pretty good copy of the original.

just like in previous years, i was up till 2am futzing with all sorts of silly, unnecessary party shit.  damn. but as you'll see in the next post...it was all worth it.

isn't it always?

cake makes everything better

i would be completely remiss if i didn't share the sweet surprise from my friend lilcee that officially kicked off birthday princess week.

she'd invited the bean and me to come over for a swimming playdate, which was fabulous considering it was hotter than the 9th circle of hell.  i seriously fear our electric bill for the second month in a row, people.  it's going to be epic, and not in a good way.

anyway, the bean and mini cee hadn't seen each other in a really long time, and after comparing notes lilcee and i found that they'd both been asking us to meet up soon.  so this was a great opportunity for us to have a fun GTG, relax in the cool water, and get in a little exercise all at the same time.

when it was almost time for us to head home, lilcee disappeared into the house and came out with a birthday card, a candle, and a box of delicious-looking cupcakes.  one was a hostess-style cake, and the other a classic red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  YUM.

it was such a sweet gesture, and i really appreciated it.  lilcee, mini cee, mr. cee and the bean all sang the birthday song to me, and then we cut the cakes (which were pretty ginormous) to share.

then on the day after my actual birthday, the girls and i finally had a chance to tear into the cake that the hub had bought for me before he left on a business trip.  he'd made sure we had enough candles too, and the teen got to work putting every last one on that thing.  it took both of us to get them all lit (i know i'm not supposed to do this myself, but she needed help, yo), so when it was all done they sang "happy birthday" to me...quickly.

and no, the bean isn't picking her nose in that shot, i swear.

i took a big, BIG breath and managed to blow them all out in one shot.  after taking all of the candles back out, that cake was pretty to' up.

and so although birthday princess month isn't officially over yet, the festivities have concluded and given way to the next task:  bean's bash 5.0.

give me strength.

damn you, party bloggers

well, okay, i was already partyzilla before i found the zillion party blogs i became addicted to while on jury duty.

but still - the madness must stop.  luckily, the party is tomorrow and i have no time to add any more craziness to it.  behold:

my sanity will return next week, i promise.

silly bean milestones

yesterday afternoon, i finally saw the end of that pettiskirt i've been working on for days and days.  phew - but unfortunately, no time left to make one for the teen.  ugh.  i felt so bad telling her, but she took it in stride.  it makes me want to do whatever i have to do to make her one anyway.

of course, i had to try it on.  you know, to test the fluffiness of it.  or something like that.

and obviously, this was before i inserted the elastic/ribbon waistband.  that took no time at all, and it was the bean's turn to twirl happily in the fluffiness.

after that, because of a mixup in the hub's calendar, the bean attended her first junior league meeting.  heh.  yes, i was that mom.  but i figured it would be better to be present, even with a little tagalong, than to skip the meeting altogether - especially since i'd missed the last one.  and luckily, the rest of the ladies in my fundraising committee were totally cool about it and welcomed her with friendly smiles and snacks.

this morning, she's wearing a shirt that i bought for her - oh, probably three years ago at a paul frank warehouse sale.  i've been waiting for ages for it to fit her, and today's the day!

doesn't it look smashing with her daddy's tennies?  heh.

tonight and tomorrow:  more party prep madness.  the end is near!

bean's birthday bash 3.0, post 1 of 4872938475

yeah, yeah, yeah.  i know i've been blathering on and on about this party for ages already, and you're likely pretty darn sick of it by now.  and the bash is still a few weeks away.  heh.  i'll try to restrain myself from going on and on about every little detail, i promise.

but i love these invitations so much that i have to share them.  and by now, most of the invitees have already received theirs.  yay!

we're using four colors to represent the monsters, inc. theme.  my goal is to incorporate the theme as much as i can without making it too commercialized, so you won't find a whole lot of actual character usage or preprinted party goods.  not that there's anything wrong with that, i just don't want to go that route.  so i bought the envelopes in all four colors and just alternated them.  green for mike wazowski, blue for sully, and the fuchsia and purple for boo:

i managed to find a couple of monsters, inc. fonts to use.  sadly for me, the one i really wanted to use wasn't compatible with my mac, so i had to settle for using a secondary font for a lot of stuff.  but i did manage to create a themed address label for the front.  since mike wazowski is a lime green ball-shaped monster, circles and polka dots are going to be quite prominent throughout this party.

i managed to find a "logo creator" site that worked really well.  you type in the text you want to use, choose the logo style, and it generates an image that can be copied & pasted.  it just so happened that the font i so wanted to use was one of the styles available, and i used it to make our return address labels.  because i'm lazy, i used these oval-shaped labels to close the envelopes.

then you open the envelope...

tug on the ribbon, and you get...this!

here's a close-up of the photos.

i assembled 40 of these things and stuffed, sealed and stamped them all.

i actually have a couple more to send out, but i'm pretty much done with them by now.  oh, and check out my sexy new wireless keyboard and mouse, courtesy of the hub.  i don't know if these count as early birthday presents or not, but either way, they're pretty awesome.

the bean and MIL went shopping at the disney store last week, and after i saw this, i was a little bummed that i switched the theme from toy story.  behold, bean lightyear:

maybe next year.