Alice's Chef Party

Putting the finishing touches on the cupcakes

Alice chose a delicous Brownie Cupcake, with Chocolate Ganache Frosting, topped with a strawberry. The Cupcake of Queens!

The party was such a blast! We were able to us the Crosby Community Center's kitchen for the extravaganza. It was perfect because there was plenty of room for the kids to make their pizzas and fruit salads, and then they could use the whole big room for running and silly fun. Plus my house was left unscatthed, I didn't have to worry about parking or limiting the guest list. Alice wanted to invite all of her friends from church, Romand and Logan, her classmates, and the girls in her dance class. I made 40 invites and 20 kiddos came.

I apologize for the lack of documentation. When you are ankle deep in the party, it's hard to remember the camera.

When the kids first arrived they were given an apron, chef hat and fabric markers. They stayed busy creating fun little works of art on their aprons. This doubled as their "goody bag" so instead of a bunch of candy and junky toys (that kids love and moms hate) they took home their aprons and hats.

This is a not so great picture of the kids doing their aprons, it is an AWESOME picture of Megan Love's beautiful profile.

Then the games began. With 20 kids (give or take) making pizzas, I needed all the help I could get. I'm so greatful for the moms that were ever so helpful. Diane and Galadriel kept everything going too, Diane was worried (and correctly so) that we would run out of time, so we got things started. We had to be all cleaned up and out of the Center by 9:00 PM or we would lose the 125.00 deposit. Galadriel cleaned up the kitchen after the pizzas and started the work on the fruit salads.

Here is Galadriel cutting up bananas and strawberries.

The kids who were interested made fruit salad parfaits with vanilla yogurt, bananas, blueberries, strawberries and granola- YUMMO-

Diane and Tom- this is after Diane gave her sweat equity in the kitchen
Robert was glad that Tom came, otherwise (using a direct quote here) "it would have been like a shower or something similiar" So thanks Tom for coming to the Party!

This is my friend Cindy, she was awesome to help too! Here she is pouring punch. I found a great idea at Walmart. They have zoo pal cups with lids, kind of like sippy cups. It was perfect and there wasn't any spills. I made a quick punch of Passion Fruit, Pinapple Juice and Ginger Ale. It was very refreshing. The kids loved it and especially loved the sippy cups with animals on it.
Simon Says, "Always have a quick and physical game you can pull out to keep the natives under control"
Robert was a quick thinker and got them playing Simon Says. That kept them busy until the pizzas were ready.

Here are some of the revelers enjoying their pizza and cupcakes.

All in all it was a fun party. Alice LOVED it. The boys had fun too. I'm glad that it went as well as I imagined. That usually does not happen. I"m more of a Clark Griswold, I imagine them to be much greater than what I actually pull off. I'm glad I had tons of help and that the kids were adorable and happy to participate!

Good Times! The last party I "threw" for Alice was when she turned three. I did a little tea party. It was fun but her birthday kind of falls at a crummy time to actually do a birthday party. Please don't worry, her grandmas (all four of them) make sure she's amply compensated with gifts, it's just I havn't been able to do a real party that often. For instance her first birthday Dorothy changed Christmas Eve to be a celebration for Alice. She slept through it but there was cake, ice cream and plenty of gifts in addition to the traditional christmas presents. Then on her actual birthday we were in Austin, so we ate at Hula Hut and gave her presents. Dad heated the pool so we could all swim. Her second Birthday we were ankle deep into a move to East Texas. Again her grandmas came through. My parents came to visit her and the other grandmas loaded up the van with additional presents for her to open on her birthday. Her third birthday I did the tea party, but waited until Valentines Day. Her fourth birthday, Grandma Dorothy threw her a party. Joely was two weeks old and I wasn't in any shape to plan anything other than feeding the baby. Last year she just wanted to be with Grandma "Farms" (my mom) so she ate at Chuys saw two movies and lived the good life. The reason I'm doing this rambling is because one day she'll complain that people forgot her birthday and well it's just not true, she may not have always had a traditional friends over party, but she most certainly never had a Birthmas party.

More exiting things to come... How the Mullens Celebrated Valentines Day with a Road trip to nowhere (but we did eat some good BBQ)