Skip to main content

mimi's 5th birthday: The Crown Craft Party

not 5 minutes after the last guest left from mimi's 4th birthday party, last year, did mimi tell me, "that was so much fun, mom. do you know what i want to do for my five birthday party? a crown craft party."

'a what? what's that?"

"everyone gets to make a crown."

"hmm. sounds like fun, but do you think the boys will like to do that too?'

"sure. everyone will LOVE it, mom."

riiiiight...well, i thought, it's still 365 days away from now, maybe she'll change her mind, or so i hoped. the idea of a crown craft party just didnt sound like something i wanted to get into. but she held firm to the idea for 10 months, speaking several times about it like it was a done deal. i kept throwing other ideas at her, but she shot down every one, insisting that her fifth (or as she called it her 'five birthday') birthday should be spent making crowns and that everyone at the school had to be invited. oy!

after calling around, i finally settled on a place that would do a craft party for youngsters, up to twenty kids. trying to keep the number down to twenty was hard. mimi wanted to invite everyone from both the four year old classes at her preschool. but 32 kids is just too many! so we invited her class (16 kids, including mimi) and her 3 closest girlfriends from the other class and of course mimi's old friend thomas.

i found an inexpensive crown craft that could be done without an excess of materials, simple with no gluing involved. we decided to go with a Fancy Nancy theme for the party supplies and colors. it's such a cute theme and one that i could have gotten carried away with had i had the time and perhaps a smaller guest list!

and of course i had to make a cake for mimi's birthday. my good friend, sasha called the morning of mimi's birthday and joking asked her if she was getting a sheet cake for her birthday. mimi looks over at me with a quizzical look on her face, silently imploring me to interpret what that means, what is this 'sheet cake thing' that you speak of? the child has never had a sheet cake for her birthday and knows not what that foreign object is! i thought that was pretty funny. she has no idea how the vast majority of kids have it!

so, for the cake, i thought it would be nice to do a pillow cake, tiara and flowers to go with the fancy nancy theme. originally, i had planned to do fondant ribbon roses, kind of mary englebright-ish, but later decided to go with more 'pretty' than 'whimsical'. those roses took considerably longer to make than the ribbon roses would have, but they turned out pretty. it was tiring though b/c ozzy still wakes to feed pretty much nonstop from 3 am and on, and i wasnt getting to bed until 3 am. so it often felt like i wasn't getting ANY sleep at all! definitely harder to pull off parties for mimi now that ozzy is in the picture!

here's some photos from the party. many of them courtesy of david baek, thomas' dad, and others taken by will's dad, who was nice enough to go around with my camera to get shots for me while i was busy with helping with other party stuff. (it also gave me a chance to eat something, since i really hadnt eaten since the night before because i was so busy!) one of my favorite pics is of her pointing at the candle and laughing because they were trick candles and they kept relighting. it was cracking her up.


well, mimi had a great time and wouldnt you know it? she already has some ideas for her next birthday.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rainbow Magic Birthday (Mimi's 7th Birthday)

this year was a particularly difficult year to plan mimi's birthday.  after rob's dad became terminally ill, i didnt think it was good time for a party for mimi and her friends, so we decided it was best to skip a party this year and just have a quiet family dinner out.  then after dad passed and we slowly started to get back into our routines again, we all began to feel bad about not having a party for mimi, so we decided to have a party after all...although, a much belated party. mimi said she really wanted to have a party here at the house.  she really really really wanted it here, so i told her she could, if she kept it small.  since she was turning seven, i allowed her to invite seven friends. then i tasked her with thinking up a theme, and she finally settled on a favorite book series of hers called Rainbow Magic .  how perfect...each of the book sets in the series showcases 7 fairies, whether they be the rainbow fairies, the gem fairies, the party fai...

Gardening My Albatross

 sometimes when i think about giving up on life in general, and sitting like a blob all day, unbidden my mind fills up with images of a neglected garden turning brown, rotting, dying, and thats often enough motivation to keep going, if for no other reason than to prevent the desolation from becoming reality.  is it weird that when i think of dying one day, that i get sad knowing my garden will die when i am gone?  i dont think anyone else would go tend to it when i am no longer around.  i hope they will at least keep a plant or two in remembrance of me, but the little pollinator waystation i've been working for several years now to create will likely be razed and no more.

Growing Things

 it's crazy how long it's been since the last time i blogged here.  i spend so much time on insta and facebook, this blog has been largely ignored.  i'm on my second year of gardening and have been trying to maintaining a physical gardening log and failed at several attempts.  So i think this may be my best bet.  So here's the first gardening entry! Today is March 29th, 2022. Temps today were unseasonably cold and have been for the past three days.  Todays high temp was 47F and the low tonight will be 22F.  But should warm to the low 70s tomorrow.    This crazy cold and heavy winds yesterday blew down several daffodils.  many are leaning but upright enough that i left them and only pruned the ones that were knocked to the ground.