A PINK Party

Arden’s PINK Party to celebrate her third birthday was really fun, if a bit stressful for us – it’s a lot more difficult preparing for a party when you’ve got an infant to take care of.  Hadley took a pretty decent nap, but I still ended up rocking her with my foot in her car seat while I chopped fruit.

I made little clippies for the girls and bow ties for the boys.  The clippies are yo-yo’s with a button to cover the raw edges and then sewn onto a metal barrette.  I enjoy this kind of hand sewing project on occasion, and these just took a couple of hours on the sofa a couple of days before the party.  The bow ties didn’t end up working out so hot – our little male guests seemed to have conspired to be wearing polo or zippered shirts to the event and there wasn’t a good spot to clip them.  My intentions were good!

The food was strawberry wafer cookies, gourmet mini cupcakes – raspberry lemonade – red velvet – white chocolate strawberry, pink elephant popcorn, caramel snack mix with pink m&m’s, and to drink – strawberry milk boxes, fruit juice, and water.  Not pictured is the fruit salsa with cinnamon graham crackers, strawberry ice cream and raspberry sherbet, and the turkey sandwiches with cranberry spread.  I completely ran out of time to make the sandwiches which was a complete shame because I’ve been eating them since the party and they are really tasty!  I feel bad that there wasn’t any substantial food and everything was sweet.

This is my version of the fabulous Audrey Hepburn quote I used as part of the decorations.  I have no idea how to share a printable, so if you want my version, leave me a comment with an e-mail and I’ll send it to you.

And here is Arden’s answers to the Twenty Questions I plan to ask her each year.  I got the idea here.  Some of these would already be different, but it’s still really fun.  Some of her answers were exactly as I expected, and some were out of left field.

The birthday girl was doing a Sleeping Beauty impression by taking a power nap until 4:30 when the party began at 4:00.  Normally she wakes around 3:00 or earlier so I thought I was safe having it at the time we planned.  I cannot believe she slept through the commotion of the guests arriving and the unleashing of the balloons along with the insanity which ensued.  She did.  Dave had to go and practically drag her out of bed, but she quickly got excited about her party.

She was still warming up when we sang to her and she blew out her candle.  She wore her Arden Refashioned Shirt Dress I made for her a year ago when I was in Project Toddler Runway.  I have gotten so much mileage out of this and the other version of the dress – they actually fit better now that she’s taller and has lost most of her toddler belly.

I forgot to take pictures of the rest of the decorations.  I had planned on more than I put up, but I was happy with how what was completed turned out.  You can see the garland of paper circles I sewed together behind Dave and Arden.  Those were strung from each corner of the dining room up to the chandelier and then I had three pink paper lanterns over the table.  We were going to hang all the balloons from the ceiling and Dave spent an entire evening (while I made yo-yo clippies) blowing up balloons.  We ran out of time and so that’s why we just dumped them out and let the kids go to town.  They loved it!  At least a dozen were popped but there were so many adults around to pick up the pieces that it wasn’t an issue.

I had loosely planned a couple of activities – jumbo Perler Beads and hula hoops but that was unnecessary and would have been difficult to manage with everything else.  I think the kids and adults had a fun time and didn’t miss having an activity.

Happy birthday Arden!